With all the attention we pay to strategy, globalization, M&A and consolidation, practice group and knowledge management, and other issues in firm management on the more or less empyrean plane, it's time for a word about associates.
For starters, associates constitute the future of your firm—and preposterous as it may seem, we almost all have been or will be associates, hopefully for several productive years. So it's time for a little mercy, blended with tough love, for associates.
What's wrong with associates and what do they need most? What's "wrong" is simply everything they don't know—which time alone will cure eventually, but which a nourishing diet of professional development can accelerate greatly. And it's in all our selfish interests to boost associates up the learning curve as fast as intellectually and humanly possible.
I will take to my grave the memory of an assignment to draft a set of interrogatories the first dewy-eyed week I reported to work at a large New York law firm, since merged out of existence but utterly representative of the breed at the time: When I delivered them with great trepidation, bordering on cold sweat, to the assigning partner, he spent no more than 15 seconds perusing them before blurting out, "These read like you'd never written an interrogatory before in your life!" "Well, yes sir, that would be true." And it continued to be sink or swim on those same non-negotiable terms. The enduring conviction that this eminent and prestigious firm seemed about to embrace, with relish, the project of reducing a highly trained and expensive professional to a quivering recluse remains with me today—and strongly motivates this small essay on the economic insanity of that archaic behavior.
As Exhibit 1 we have a National Law Journal piece on career-building 101, which reminds us that however effectively law school teaches the skills of researching, writing, and advocacy, it teaches nothing of the soft skills of business development or managing one's own time, caseload, and practice. The first few years of associate-hood, of course, necessarily and correctly focus on developing the purely professional skills (being able to draft interrogatories, e.g.). But for associates who end up being more valuable to their firms and more satisfied professionally, it's none too soon to start thinking about, and training for, future life as a partner—with all of the project management and client development skills that will need to kick in.
On this score, the advice of the piece is inarguable, if elementary:
- find the practice area you're at home in;
- have a plan; where do you want to be in 3 years or 5?;
- if at all possible, find a mentor;
- understand the firm's expectations; and
- get feedback.
Far meatier and insightful is an article I stumbled across from July 2002 pointing out the existence, and the consequences, of a deplorable gap in law school education: The all but complete absence of courses on law firms as businesses.* This leaves associates starting out utterly in the dark about the fundamental dynamics that drive what they cost and what they're worth to their firms. Note that we're not talking about weighty strategic choices, the long-term impact of market positioning, the dilemmas facing mid-tier full-service firms, or any other advanced management issues: We're talking about billing, realization rates, the relative profitability of different practice areas, and other "low-hanging fruit."
To recur to my own experience, I had no clue at what point the firm might "break even" on me (and the firm, as you might expect, would have been the last to tell me).
Ignorance can lead associates into an attitude of entitlement—always an endearing trait to partners!—because they are simply clueless about how the money behind their salary check is generated. Associates with at least a modicum of savvy about the business realities of a firm are far less likely to fall into that trap.
Why are there virtually no such courses? This is an example of microeconomics trumping macroeconomics, as it were. (I'm somewhat contorting these terms, but bear with me.) From the "macro" perspective, the profession would be far better off, immediately and at very little cost, if law school graduates had been exposed to Firm Economics 101. On this I hope all readers of "Adam Smith, Esq." can agree.
But from the "micro" perspective of law school faculty or deans designing curricula, firm economics is an orphan: It isn't "academic," in the conventional sense; it doesn't have anything to do with training one to "think like a lawyer," it bears no connection to either substantive or procedural law; and it's a safe generalization to say that personality types attracted to the career of law professor don't think like businesspeople or economists.
If such a course would benefit, in very concrete terms, the buyers of law schools' output—read: law firms—couldn't a mutually beneficial deal be struck to get such courses up and running? Both Adam Smith and Ronald Coase know the answer: Of course; it would be trivial.
*I'm only aware of two in the country: One I've heard of at the University of North Carolina but know little about, and one at Indiana University School of Law/Bloomington, where I had the privilege of guest-lecturing last fall.
Update: (4:30 pm) I have only my own traitorous memory to blame for omitting this course since I know Prof. Karl Lutz who teaches it, but the University of Michigan Law School (Ann Arbor) offers "Law Firms & Legal Careers."
Separately, I learned from a 3L at the University of Washington School of Law of "Practical & Professional Responsibility in the Small or Solo Law Practice," which includes the novel requirement that students finish the semester by presenting a business plan. And, to the anonymous 3L who tipped me off to this: Many many thanks both for the heads-up and for your kind words about "Adam Smith, Esq." ("your site continues to be a voice in the darkness").
Lastly, Matt Homann has also picked up the thread.
Any other courses out there? Let me know!
Update 2: (15 Sept., 11:15 am)
"Van L." writes from Brigham Young University (emphasis supplied):
"Just FYI: I am currently taking a course called "Law Practice Management" at BYU. The course description is as follows: 'This course is designed to introduce law students to issues that arise in the private practice of law. The underlying thesis is that a law office is a business, and that success in private practice is as much a function of effective management as it is a function of mastering substantive legal knowledge....'"
Couldn't have said it better myself.
"N.O. Stockmeyer" writes from the Thomas M. Cooley Law School (Lansing, MI):
"Our school offers this course: 'LAW OFFICE MANAGEMENT: Analyzes problems related to the management of private law firms. Emphasizes legal economics, organization, billing, business systems, client counseling, and opening a new practice.'"
Thanks, Prof. Stockmeyer.
Can we tempt any more examples out of the woodwork?
Update 3: (15 Sept., 5:05 pm)
Professor William Henderson of Indiana University School of Law/Bloomington, who teaches the course I cited above, writes:
"David Wilkins at Harvard, Karl Lutz at Michigan, Rick Abel at UCLA, and John Steele at Boalt/Stanford/Santa Clara address some of these issues in the context of Professional Responsibility, often forgoing discussions of the Rules in favor of current realities of the profession. Jack Heinz at Northwestern also recently added a course called the Transformation of the Legal Profession, which focuses on empirical trends in the legal profession (especially the rise of the large law firm) since the 1970s. Michael Trotter of Kilpatrick Stockton in Atlanta used to teach a course at Emory entitled the Transformation of the Legal Profession, which was based on this excellent 1997 book, Profit & the Practice of Law: What's Happened to the Legal Profession. Also, Elizabeth Chambliss, who formerly served as research director of the Program on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School, teaches a course called Law Firms at New York Law School. It is noteworthy that these courses emanate from two perspectives: Trotter, Steele, and Lutz are all adjuncts who are current or former partners at Am Law 200 law firms. In other words, they can speak from experience. Abel, Conley (at UNC), Wilkins, Heinz, Chambliss and I are all empiricists committed to studying the legal profession. That said, I am glad for the opportunity to teach a course that focuses purely on the economic and business issues. There is more than enough material to fill a course, and it is highly relevant to the 70+% of our students who will be employed by law firms."Thank you, Bill. The observation I find particularly trenchant is Bill's implied explanation of what motivated these people to launch the courses they have: They are either current or former AmLaw 200 partners, or "empiricists." Not, in other words, archetypal law professors. Duly noted.
September 13, 2005 10:02 AM
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