woman-drinking-coffee-computer-283x200In Let’s not be like the lawyers (Let’s not attack the example), I responded to what I thought was a deflection in the responses to Noam Scheiber‘s article, The Last Days of Big Law. At the bottom of that post I have a collection of “read these” articles that I keep updating. Here’s that list if you’ve missed it:

I will continue to update both lists as I find new articles.

In response to the attacks on Noam Scheiber‘s article, The Last Days of Big Law, I wrote Let’s not be like the lawyers. In other words: Let’s not attack the example.

For today, I’m going to pull out several points from the article that are worthy of discussion around the water cooler today:

What are we going to do about partners hoarding work and the internal competition?

And the competition isn’t just external. Partners routinely make pitches behind the backs of colleagues with ties to a client. They hoard work for themselves even when it requires the expertise of a fellow partner. They seize credit for business that younger colleagues bring in.

Is a law degree worth the debt? Why are law school churning out so many associates who will never find a job in legal?

The odds are increasingly long that a recent law-school grad will find a job. Five years ago, during a recession, American law schools produced 43,600 graduates and 75 percent had positions as lawyers within nine months. Last year, the numbers were 46,500 and 64 percent. In addition to the emotional toll unemployment exacts, it is often financially ruinous. The average law student graduates $100,000 in debt.

If legal technology is replacing associates, where are we going to find the future partners, and rainmakers?

Many of the tasks they performed until five or ten years ago—like reviewing hundreds of pages of documents—are outsourced to a reserve army of contract attorneys, who toil away at one-third the pay. “All these people kept on going into this empty office,” recalls a former associate at a Washington firm. “No one introduced them. They were on the floor wearing business suits. … It was extremely creepy.” Still, any associate tempted to resent these scabs should consider the following: Legal software is rapidly replacing them, too.

How many $1000/hour attorneys do we need?

But the biggest problem is that there are simply many, many more high-priced lawyers today than there is high-priced legal work.

Are there more layoffs coming?

The crisis in the profession isn’t likely to improve, either. In late June, the New York–based Weil Gotshal, one of the most alabaster of white-shoe firms, announced it was laying off 60 associates, about 7 percent of its total. A few dozen of the firm’s 300 partners will see their pay cut, in many cases substantially. … Almost as disconcerting as the firings was the way the firm’s executive partner, Barry Wolf, explained them. “We believe that this is not just a cycle, but that the supply-demand balance is out of whack across the industry,” he told The New York Times. “If we thought this was a cycle and our business was going to pick up meaningfully next year, we would not be doing this.”

The business model of purchasing legal services has changed. How will this continue to impact the industry? What will happen to those firms that do not adapt?

The overwhelming majority of these still operate according to a business model that assumes, at least implicitly, that clients will insist upon the best legal talent instead of the best bargain for legal talent. That assumption has become rickety. Within the next decade or so, according to one common hypothesis, there will be at most 20 to 25 firms that can operate this way—the firms whose clients have so many billions of dollars riding on their legal work that they can truly spend without limit. The other 200 firms will have to reinvent themselves or disappear.

All of these are great and meaty topics for conversation, and they all come directly from the pre-Mayer Brown discussion in Mr. Scheiber’s article. But you’d never know it from the majority of the posts, tweets and comments out there.

I’m trained to look for the similarities, not the differences. Maybe that’s why the article resonates well with me. Why the attacks? I think it’s that same identification. It makes people uncomfortable. And hence the defensiveness.

I’ll share with you a little secret from inside my firm: We’re talking about all of these issues and more.

I am late to the game blogging on The New Republic article, The Last Days of Big Law.  To quote my friend Diane Hamlin:

Let’s not be like the lawyers. Let’s not attack the example.

I would caution us here to not dismiss the premise of the article, there is big change in the legal industry, by attacking the example.

Is Noam Scheiber‘s article perfect? No.

Does he make some great points that we should be discussing? Absolutely.

But why are we wasting time arguing over whether the glass is half-full or half-empty when there is a hole in the cup?

Continue Reading Let’s not be like the lawyers (Let’s not attack the example)

You like me. You really, really like me!

Oh, fine, I’ll play the “please nominate and vote for me” game.

The ABA Journal is working on their annual Blawgs 100 list.

Well, faithful readers, followers, friends and my mom, I’d appreciate it if you’d take a few moments and nominate The Legal Watercooler for inclusion in this year’s compilation.

It’s super easy. Just visit the Blawg 100 Amici nomination page and fill in a couple boxes. Due date is August 9.

Not so humbly yours, Heather

referee-2Hear those doors slamming and heads banging from your legal marketer’s direction? It can mean many different things, but between now and the end of the year, it’s most likely your Chambers & Partners submissions are due. Lucky for me, I work for a boutique and we keep our submissions manageable and simple. But I’ve worked in an AmLaw 100 where we did everything for every one across multiple states, time zones and continents. We had to manage what felt like a non-stop deluge of submissions across states and practice groups. John Hellerman at Hellerman Baretz just posted Clients: The Secret to Your (Chambers) Success:

The research cycle for Chambers USA kicked off on Monday, which means submission season is well and truly underway.  It also means, no doubt, that lots of you are panicking.  You may be wondering whether you’re ready, and if not, where you should be focusing your energy.  The answer is very simple, and involves two words: client referees.

For those of us on this side of the pond, referees are your references. While you might think that having the GC at your favorite Fortune 500 is the best reference due to name recognition and panache, the guy or gal a few notches down on the totem pole is most likely the better choice due to their accessibility, knowledge of the actual work you and the firm are doing, and willingness (and time) to return the call. A few little secrets I’ve learned over the years:

  • Chambers will only call a reference once every 6 months to a year. So if they spoke to your reference in June, they will not speak to her again in September.
  • Chambers will not tell you who is on the do-not-call list.
  • Chambers will not confirm with you which of your references they have contacted.
  • Chamber WILL tell you how many of your references they have reached.

So, if your “interview” period is in August, you might want to give a call mid-month to see how many of your references have been called. If only two out of the ten have been contacted, you need to get your partners on the phone. Who did they reach? Who did they miss? Who is out of town? Who can you substitute in? Great work is great work. But Chambers wants to hear about it from your references.

Kudos to the Legal Marketing Association – Los Angeles Chapter program team on today’s Corporate Counsel Panel. I have to say, I always love me a GC panel. Sure we hear the same ol’ same ol’, but there are always a few new nuggets of information in there.

GC panel
Corporate Counsel Panel
Three things popped out at me:

  1. The importance of LinkedIn. I have never at a panel heard GC after GC rave about LinkedIn. Okay. Four out of six. But they were vocal in their enthusiasm. The connections.The groups. They are using it to vet outside counsel. Learn information. Stay informed of trends. I’ve hyper-linked the LinkedIn profiles below where found.
  2. ACC Daily Newsletter. For those who don’t know what this is, the Association of Corporate Counsel uses Lexology to feed a daily newsletter for ACC members. The members can customize it by industry, practice, region, etc. Where does Lexology get the content? Law firm blogs. Corporate counsel are reading with their eyes and clicking on things that are of importance.
  3. Headlines Count. Whether it’s coming from an e-newsletter, scrolling through a LinkedIn group’s latest postings, or the Lexology daily newsletter, corporate counsel are clicking on the headlines that resonate with them on the issues they are facing today. Harkening back to this post, Why, yes, Amy. I did learn two new things, it’s not WHAT they are about to read, but WHY they need to read it that counts.

I tweeted at #lmamkt some other little tidbits. But those are the biggies that I walked away with, Oh, Yeah. One more: 4. It’s all about relationships. Don’t ever forget that. In Photo: L-R. Deborah Greaves, Secretary & General Counsel, True Religion Brand Jeans; Camilla M. Eng, General Counsel, JM Eagle; Joanne E. Caruso, Vice President, Global Litigation, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.; Jennifer Fisher, Senior Counsel, Intellectual Property, The Boeing Company, Boeing; Sheri Eisner, Associate General Counsel, JAMS; Tammy Brandt, Vice President and General Counsel, ServiceMesh, Inc.

I read in today’s National Law Journal that California might, gasp, require lawyers to have practical skills training before they are licensed.

A task force of the State Bar of California has recommended that new attorneys be required to complete at least 15 hours of practical skills training and 50 hours of pro bono service before they are admitted to practice.

If adopted, California would be the first state to mandate real-world training in law schools and the second to require pro bono work of new attorneys. New York was the first state to require pro bono work and a judicial committee in New Jersey has recommended the move.

What is sad is that while a long time coming, what good will it be if we don’t continue to require such skills training once these associates join law firms or hang up their shingle?

Think about it. When the current rainmakers and managing partners were in law school there was no Internet to the degree there is now. No Blackberries. No iPhones. No social media.

There was no such thing as e-discovery. Scanning. Electronic filings.

“Real-world training” is not something you learn once and then you have it.

When I was working at a certain Am-Law 50 firm I put in to attend the Legal Marketing Association‘s annual conference. It was declined because budgets, bla bla, not fair that I go every year. I spoke with the firm-wide managing partner, who supervised our department:

So, this is it. I am as good as you will ever need me? I don’t need any new skills? I don’t need any new knowledge? You don’t need any more out of me than I am giving you?”

Her reply was “Have a great time at the conference.”

“Real-world” training HAS to be continuous. And there is only so much we can do without the support of our firms.

Unfortunately, in the “real-world” legal environment we motivate lawyers by money and hourly requirements.

If the bar associations want to make a real change and investment into the lives and success of our associates (who, by the way, are our future rainmakers and managing partners), then they need to start allowing marketing, business development, technology, and business trainings to be eligible for CLE credits.

They currently require ethics and substance abuse/addictive disorders credits, why not the “business of law” credits?

Until then, these “non-billable” “activities,” that can make or break a law firm’s business model and operations, will continuously be sent to the back burner, or ignored all together.

When you look at the latest AmLaw 100 rankings, you are looking at multi-million and multi-billion dollar a year GLOBAL operations. Yet they are loathe to turn the business operations over to “non-lawyers,” and God-forbid you actually pay them a salary that in on par with what the partners are making.

While I applaud the California Bar Association for taking this baby step, a leap is what we really need.

After PartySpoke on a panel yesterday with Adrian Lurssen and Molly Potter on content marketing. Adrian Dayton was the ring-leader. Lots of good folks in the room. Adrian D. kicked things off with a giant piece of paper on each table asking us to write down what we hoped to get out of the program. From our table Amy Knapp threw out: “I want to learn two new things.” As we were all presenting from our table, our knowledge base was different than the rest of the room, and I wondered if I would actually learn two new things. However, I always say that I define a program as successful if I can walk away with one new ACTIONABLE idea. I came away with three new things:

  1. Google Authorship. Seriously. What rock have I been sleeping under? Kevin O’Keefe wrote about it way back in March here. Time to play catch up.
  2. Clicky: Web Analytics in Real Time. I originally hosted The Legal Watercooler on Blogger and got great analytics, including the name servers visiting my site. When I switch over to WordPress a few years ago, I lost that feature in my analytics. Amy shared about Clicky and before I left the room yesterday I had added it to my blog. So watch out. I can see you again.
  3. Adrian L. simplified a concept into one sentence that resonated with me, and something I am sharing with the lawyers at my firm who blog: Blog titles should tell the reader WHY they should open up and read the post, not WHAT they are going to read. It’s not that I didn’t know this. I just needed to hear it this way.

So, all in all, very successful program.

A colleague posted a link to Teenagers: Why You Should Care About Your Digital Footprint that I shared with my teen who just got her Facebook account, and the parents of other teens.

It’s good reading, and a good reminder, for us all.

The main lessons:

  • Information travels fast and is often taken out of context
  • Don’t be impulsive
  • If you wouldn’t say it face to face, don’t say it in the social space
  • Not everything is personal
  • You are not as anonymous as you think
  • Your online actions could make or break you
  • Stop Before You Hit Submit
  • Further:
    • Who will see it?
    • What can they do with it?
    • Could this impact me in the future?
    • Why do I want or need to share it?

As Adam Levine is learning today, something said in passing can also be posted to social media, and take on a life of its own. I know Adam doesn’t hate America. But, wow, talk about a quip heard round the world.

On a smaller scale, it is the comment or picture that gets picked up and spread around the school.

Or the office.

Or the industry.

Teens and celebrities are not the only ones who hit that send or publish button too quickly. Or have something they said picked up and distributed out of context. That’s nothing new. Been happening since Outlook took over our e-mail servers in offices.

However, that was also before Above the Law started republishing, and then promoting,  e-mail scandals on its website. Before Twitter and Instagram and Facebook could reach thousands within a span of moments.

Remember the CFO of that company that got fired when he posted his YouTube rant. Just Google that phrase and you have page after page written about him. That will never, ever, ever go away. Bet he regrets that now.

  • So, remember your grandma, or your mom before hitting that send button.
  • Always assume anything you say or type is being recorded and could be shared.
  • There really is no such thing as privacy, and, as Ben Franklin said, “Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
  • You cannot hit delete, or recall that e-mail, fast enough. There will be a permanent record.

Knowing the nice Jewish boy that he is, I’m sure there’s an great-uncle, aunt or bubbe reprimanding Adam’s parents right now.

Trust me. I know. The last thing anyone wants is to the be the focus of the family’s gossip on Rosh Hashanah or Passover. Or the ridicule of the school yard. Or the gossip at the next industry event. Or be the lead story on Above the Law.