THEY’RE NOT ENTITLED TO ME

Posted on October 22, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

At a recent debate, New York’s U. S. Senate candidate Joseph J. DioGuardi repeated his charge that Democratic incumbent Kirsten E. Gillibrand spent her early professional career at a prestigious New York City law firm (Davis, Polk & Wardwell) where she represented the world’s largest cigarette company. Gillibrand countered that DioGuardi cast pro-tobacco votes as a congressman. She also explained that, as a young lawyer, she had no choice in her assigned cases. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/nyregion/16debate.html)

Gillibrand’s response was intriguing for two reasons. First, she fought tobacco taint with tobacco taint, rather than citing the foundational principle of our adversary system: However distasteful it sometimes seems, everyone is entitled to representation. Second, her law firm supposedly had a policy that allowed attorneys to decline work for its tobacco client. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/opinion/10observer.html). If she didn’t avail herself of the firm’s policy, what does that mean?

Maybe nothing. Although she didn’t mention the principle that everyone deserves a lawyer, it still applies. That’s why even Liz Cheney’s most conservative colleagues with law degrees lambasted her for publicly listing current Department of Justice attorneys who represented Gitmo detainees pro bono — as if there was something wrong with providing a defense to those individuals.

To be sure, Cheney has the personal freedom to decline such representations. My former law school professor, Alan Dershowitz, defended notorious criminal defendants, but as he told my fellow classmates more than 30 years ago, “Everyone has a right to representation, but no one has a right to me.”

Every lawyer has that power to exercise a final veto. If used, someone else will certainly take up the cause. But Gillbrand’s defensive response concerning her tobacco client suggests at least a retrospective queasiness with her earlier work. If the firm gave her the right to say no, what’s the significance of her failure to do so?

Every young associate in a big firm could answer that question. Regardless of a firms’s official position, practical considerations define the limits of an associate’s willingness to say no.

Large clients’ biggest and often unpopular problems have become central to Biglaw profits. The prevailing law firm business model has reduced the number of available equity partnership slots and concentrated internal power in the relatively few who control clients and billings. For an associate, it’s only natural that a firm’s official “freedom to choose” policy would sometimes yield to the pressures accompanying a request from a senior partner who can single-handedly make or break a subordinate’s career. Partners themselves sometimes confront analogous difficulties when clients push uncomfortably close to the outer edges of what their lawyers deem permissible.

Some consequences are subtle. The resulting erosion of individual attorney autonomy has probably contributed to growing career dissatisfaction, especially in large firms where unhappiness is greatest. In today’s tight labor markets, young lawyers desperately need their jobs to repay enormous student debt and sustain themselves. Few would risk unemployment to assuage their consciences or to avoid an abusive superior. In fact, most don’t allow such rebellious thoughts to enter their heads, but maybe they should.

One of my adult children recently encountered a high school classmate who is now working in a big firm after graduating from a top law school. While contemplating the many challenges confronting the next generation, consider that young lawyer’s lament and career plan:

“I’m working too hard for clients I don’t like pursuing I causes I can’t stand and making the world worse. But I have to do it long enough to repay student loans and get experience that I can use to do something worthwhile with my law degree.”

It may not be that simple. Those wrestling with situations that burden them with genuine moral havoc — whatever its nature or origins — might be well advised to extricate themselves sooner rather than later. Life’s decisions tend to be cumulative and the consequences of earlier choices that seem inconsequential at the time can endure far beyond their originally anticipated life expectancies. Just ask Kirsten Gillibrand.

WHO REMEMBERS FINLEY KUMBLE?

Posted on October 14, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

“I just don’t see the need to cram two firms with around a thousand lawyers [each] together. It made no sense,” one Akin partner reportedly told the National Law Journal shortly after the collapse of Akin-Orrick merger talks.

The number of law firm mergers in 2010 is down from recent years, but look at the headliners: Sonnenschein – Denton; Hogan & Hartson – Lovells; Reed Smith – Thompson & Knight; Orrick and anyone. An earlier consolidation wave produced K&L Gates, DLA Piper, Bingham McCutcheon and others.

How much of this activity proceeds from the simplistic premise that bigger is always better?

When I was a young partner in my large firm, Finley Kumble became a disaster that struck fear in the hearts of big firm expansionists. During the early 1980s, Finley rocked the legal world as it signed up high-profile figures and raided other firms’ superstars, some of whom earned the then-staggering sum of $1 million annually. From only 8 lawyers in 1968, Finley became the nation’s second largest firm by 1985.

It promoted itself as a national powerhouse run on principles of meritocracy. The more business a lawyer generated, the more money he or she took home. Money was the glue that held the partnership together. Does that sound familiar?

But Finley grew too fast, assuming debt for office expansions and promising outsized paychecks to big name lateral hires. As revenue dollars dwindled, the firm disintegrated. With more than 650 attorneys at the time of its dissolution in 1987, it was still one of the nation’s largest firms.

The ghost of Finley Kumble haunted Biglaw leaders for years. Some saw its end as confirming that even large, diverse firms possessed their own identities. Mixing cultures through aggressive recruitment of name players with portable practices was a mistake. Others concluded that senior attorneys and their egos couldn’t survive as a single cohesive unit if their sole point of intersecting common purpose was greed. Still others saw the failure as an inevitable consequence of unrestrained growth. Finley proved that there was a limit on the size that any healthy large law firm could attain. No one knew the outside boundary with certainty, but crossing it was fatal.

What did today’s Biglaw managers learn from the lessons of Finley Kumble’s demise? Probably very little. After all, lawyers excel at distinguishing away precedent that undermines their preferred positions.

In that respect, modern proponents of growth through merger and high-profile lateral acquisitions can point to many differences between Finley and today’s firms. For example, the use of MBA-type metrics that focus on short-term profits at the expense of non-monetary values is now pervasive throughout Biglaw. In that respect, the earlier potential for cultural clashes has diminished as current year equity partner profits have become the universal coin of the realm. Likewise, lateral movement at all levels — especially among rainmakers who were Finley Kumble’s signature recruits — has become commonplace. Indeed, the legal world has become more hospitable to Finley’s central mission and modus operandi.

It would be interesting to hear from former Finley attorneys on the question of how today’s large firms differ from what their old firm once was. Perhaps Finley was just ahead of its time. Or perhaps some major players in Biglaw law are about to see their times change. Or maybe the large firm segment of the profession is proceeding toward the same countdown that big accounting firms have already experienced: From Big 8 to Big 6 to Big 5 to Big 4 — and the race is on to be one of those few.

Here’s the key question: Who benefits in the long run from the rise of mega-firms? Management consultants embrace strategic fits producing scale economies that supposedly benefit clients and equity partners. Perhaps they are correct. But who considers whether hidden costs include undermining community, exacerbating attorney dissatisfaction, or imperiling broader professional values?

Personally, I enjoyed the time when I recognized most of my equity partners at the firm’s annual meetings. Who is willing to develop or consider a metric by which to measure that?

KEEP FEEDING PROFITS THE BEAST. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Posted on October 7, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

Most Biglaw equity partners are weathering the persistent economic storm quite well. But who’s paying the price?

As the economy cratered in 2009, average equity partner profits for the Am Law 100 actually edged up slightly — to $1.26 million. As the summer of 2010 ended, law firm management consultant Hildebrandt Baker Robbins reported that profits remained healthy in a stagnant market. (http://www.hbrconsulting.com/PMIQ2-2010) (Its Peer Monitor Economic Index (PMI) purports to capture the “drivers of law firm profitability, including rates, demand, productivity and expenses.” How’s that for a nifty, all-inclusive metric?)

Recently, Citi released six-month data for 2010 showing increases in average equity partner profits compared to 2009, notwithstanding flat revenue and reduced demand. (http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/09/citimidyear.html)

How are the equity partners doing it? Look at the PMI components: revenue, expenses, and productivity.

1. During the first half of 2010, billing rates trended up by 4%. According to Citi, that increase could reflect senior partners with higher billing rates doing work that younger lawyers once performed. Such hoarding is the way some partners respond to lean economic times. No one escapes the pressure to maintain hours.

2. Reduced expenses is a nice way of saying that attorneys and staff lost their jobs. Black Thursday in mid-February 2009 was bad enough; Biglaw laid off thousands of associates that week. But Hildebrandt noted that headcount reductions actually peaked months later — in the fourth quarter of 2009. This “relentless focus on cost cutting has managed to sustain profitability.”

The chairman of Citi’s Law Firm Group added, “Given these results, we see the first six months of 2010 as lackluster from a volume perspective but made palatable due to belt-tightening.” Whose belts?

3. Increased productivity is MBA-speak for squeezing more billable hours from attorneys. Hildebrandt expressed concern that the quarter’s 1.7% productivity increase marked a slowdown compared to the 2.3% gains of the two prior quarters. The prime directive remains: Get those hours up.

Now what?

Hilbedrandt’s report: “We may be reaching an inflection point where major fundamental changes in legal service delivery are needed to prosper in the years ahead. New approaches to firm structures, client management, pricing strategies and talent development need to be closely examined. The challenge to firms will be in their willingness to innovate, experiment and change longstanding firm traditions in order to find new avenues of growth and profitability.”

What does that mean? Last week, Hildebrandt’s Lisa Smith offered a five-year scenario in which increased efficiency, outsourcing, and use of staff attorneys could combine to reduce the number of current non-partner attorneys in the Am Law 200 from 65,000 to 47,500 — a 27% drop. (http://www.hbrconsulting.com/blog/archive/2010/09/23/chipping-away-at-the-traditional-model.aspx ) It’s unclear if her assumed efficiency gains included expected law firm consolidations, but mergers of any businesses usually eliminate jobs.

Meanwhile, non-economic metrics — the ones that the predominant Biglaw business model ignores — add another dimension. Associate satisfaction continues to plummet. If someone asked, many partners would express discontent as well. Particularly unhappy would be those feeling vulnerable to the metrics that make decisions automatic in too many big firms: billings, billable hours, and leverage ratios.

Think equity partners are safe? Think again. As Citi’s Law Firm Group chairman noted, “Most firms reduced equity partner headcount in the first half of 2010, so it’s clear that this is a focal point. We believe it will continue to be a priority throughout 2010.”

All of this brings to mind Martin Niemoller’s famous remark about Nazi Germany during the 1930s: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist…” His litany continued through trade unionists and Jews before concluding,

“When they came for me, no one was left to speak for me.”

Here’s where the analogy fails: More than 85% of attorneys practice outside Biglaw. That’s a lot of survivors.

SOLVING THE BIGLAW MYSTERY OF GROWING CAREER DISSATISFACTION

Posted on September 30, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

Clues that explain the growing ranks of dissatisfied Biglaw attorneys are everywhere — even on C-Span. I’d intended to watch the recently televised replay of a judicial conference panel discussion for a few minutes, but the ongoing train wreck captivated this onlooker for an hour. I wonder if I can get CLE credit?

Participants included a Biglaw managing partner, the general counsel of Fortune 100 company, and a professor at a top law school. The absence of a law firm management consultant was surprising; they’re ubiquitous.

There’s no reason to name the Biglaw partner or his firm because his views are mainstream — and reveal why attorney career dissatisfaction continues to increase more rapidly in large firms than elsewhere. Here’s a synopsis of his comments:

1. Law schools should turn out project managers. That’s what he and his clients really need because front line opportunities — such as trials for litigators — are disappearing.

2. In their first days at his firm, new associates learn about its finances: “They realize that our 35% profit margins are fragile. They understand the importance of billing their time. They know more about the firm’s finances than I did as a first-year partner.” He didn’t mention Am Law‘s most recent report that his firm’s average equity partner profits exceeded $1 million. Everyone avoided that elephant in the room.

3. When asked whether associates today felt greater work-related pressures, he was adamant: “No. People today are nostalgic for a time that never existed. As an associate, I worked hundreds of hours a week reviewing documents. Today’s associates don’t work any harder, just differently. They leave the office, have dinner with their families, help put the kids to bed, and then work from their home computers. So they actually have it better than I did.”

The client representative on the panel followed with a line that generated the day’s biggest laugh: “I’m wondering how you billed hundreds of hours a week when there are only 168 hours in a week. But then I realized that you were talking about the bill you sent the client!”

No one asked the Biglaw partner an obvious and unsettling question: His firm’s NALP directory reports an associate minimum requirement of 2,000 billable hours yearly. What was the requirement in the early 1970s, when he was an associate? (Answer: There wasn’t one. There also weren’t cellphones or BlackBerrys that tether today’s attorneys to their jobs — 24/7.)

The law professor responded that law schools can’t train project managers because they’re not business schools. Besides, the law requires something different from such vocational-type training. He could have added that fewer that 15% of all attorneys comprise the NLJ 250, thereby prompting the obvious follow-up: Why should law schools tailor curriculum to satisfy such a small segment of the profession anyway?

“With highly paid starting positions in big firms disappearing,” he concluded, “what am I supposed to tell incoming students they’ll be getting for the $150,000 required to obtain a law degree?” No one suggested the truth, however he saw it.

The general counsel disagreed with the Biglaw partner on a key point: “I don’t hire lawyers to be project managers. I want their best judgments and special skills.” The Biglaw partner replied that perhaps the GC didn’t really know what he wanted or needed.

The audience submitted written questions; the best came from a judge: “I didn’t go to law school to become rich. Why is everything so focused on the money? Is professionalism gone and, if so, how do we recover it?”

When such panels include attorneys willing to speak truth to power, we’ll hear honest answers to those inquiries. But who wants that?

BIGLAW’S GLASS IS 44% FULL

Posted on September 23, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

Give credit where it’s due: Not all big firms are bad, and even those many might consider the most problematic aren’t problems for everybody in them. After all, the ABA’s most recent survey reported that 44% of lawyers in big firms (defined as having more than 100 lawyers — which means it’s not limited to Biglaw) were satisfied with their careers. Sure, that’s a failing grade in every course I’ve ever taken or taught, but it’s a base upon which to build. So what accounts for such attorneys and what can be done to increase their ranks?

Some are satisfied because they thrive in the predominant Biglaw business model. The myopic focus on metrics — billings, billable hours, and associate/partner leverage to maximize short-term equity partner profits — doesn’t seem misguided to them. Rather, it feels natural, maybe even necessary. When I was in law school, most of these personality types were in business schools. Now they’re everywhere.

Another group works at firms that have resisted adopting this MBA mentality; the beneficial results permeate their cultures. I spoke recently with a friend who’s the chairman of a big firm that hasn’t wrapped itself in the false security of numbers. Instead of metrics, he still requires senior partners to render subjective judgments about attorney quality in determining compensation and promotion. Of course, objective data matter, but they’re not dispositive.

That’s how most firms once operated. They’re reluctant to admit it now, but just about everybody running a big firm today owed early success to someone else. Typically, it was a mentor who recognized untapped potential and was willing to spend time and effort developing it. Rather than self-contained books of business, young attorneys had supporters whose principal aim was to identify and nurture first-rate minds that would eventually produce first-rate lawyering. Whatever wealth followed was a by-product of talent that attracted clients, not the exclusive goal of a short-term profits equation.

My friend’s firm doesn’t lead the Am Law 100 in any rankings, but it has done reasonably well in associate satisfaction surveys and equity partners are averaging over $1 million yearly. If polled, he and many in his firm would be among Biglaw’s satisfied attorneys. They serve interesting clients on challenging matters.

That takes me to a third point. Even firms adhering slavishly to the misguided metrics model have something valuable to offer their lawyers besides money. When I started at my former firm over 30 years ago, partners recruiting me warned that some tasks would be boring, even menial, but others would be exhilarating. Biglaw clients typically have problems at the law’s cutting edge. It was true then; it’s true now — although the balance has tipped more toward boring and menial, especially for younger attorneys.

Still, this begins to resolve an apparent paradox: The ABA survey reporting high levels of dissatisfaction — with big firms faring the worst — also found that seven out of ten attorneys generally regarded their jobs as intellectually challenging.

So whether a lawyer is at a firm like the one my friend leads, in a different environment where the MBA mentality of misguided metrics rules, or somewhere in between, a viable path to career satisfaction remains possible throughout Biglaw. In the end, it’s is no different from other aspects of life: We are products of decisions that define who and what we are.

That’s leads to a final observation. Sooner than it realizes (or prefers), the current generation of large firm managers will find itself replaced with a younger group of leaders who will impose their own vision. How will the ascendants respond to the choices that will define them, their institutions, and the 15% of the bar comprising the NLJ 250 that exerts a disproportionate influence over the profession?

My friend put the issue squarely:

“I’ve been able to resist the dominant trend toward what you correctly call misguided metrics. The challenge is whether those of us sharing that view will be able to pass that ethic along to the next generation. I don’t know the answer to that question. But you agree, don’t you, that it’s a great profession?”

Yes, I do.

He’s still the best — and smartest — lawyer I know.

ARE THE U.S. NEWS RANKINGS BIGLAW’S BLACK SWAN?

Posted on September 17, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

An earlier post considered Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s bestseller, The Black Swan. (https://thebellyofthebeast.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/biglaw-and-the-black-swan/ ). Taleb describes the folly of relying on supposedly proven models of the past to anticipate the smooth continuation of existing trends. Such myopic thinking ignores the wholly unexpected Black Swans that actually shape history. The essence of the Black Swan is its serendipity, coupled with its power. It can be good or bad, but it’s always transformative. September 11 was a Black Swan, as were Microsoft and Facebook.

If you accept Taleb’s theory, I think Am Law introduced Biglaw to a Black Swan in 1985 with its profits per equity partner rankings. They encouraged internal behavior that, over time, dramatically changed most large firms’ cultures. Today, accepting conventional wisdom means following managers (few of whom are leaders — a crucial distinction for Taleb) who focus on supposedly proven metrics: billings, billable hours, and associate/partner leverage ratios. Free markets dictate decisions; important things that don’t impact the current year’s bottom-line drop out of key calculations; equity partner profits trees grow to the sky.

But wait! The U.S. News evaluations seem to ignore this crucial Am Law metric. They utilize client and attorney surveys assessing lawyer quality, not firms’ bottom-line profits. In seeking to attain or retain the highest available practice group rating (Tier 1), will firms teach to this new test that the criteria appear to use?

Not so fast. Even as U.S. News released the rankings, big firms began setting the goalposts for the new competition. Because U.S. News departed from its typical numerical approach in favor of tiers for practice groups, Sidley Austin and K&L Gates each claimed the overall #1 position based on their total Tier 1 rankings.

If I’m right, the new rankings will simply accelerate an embedded trend toward lateral recruiting at the highest levels. (http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/09/lateral-uptick.html) Big firms will compete even more ferociously for top partners to fill particular U.S. News practice group holes — and they’ll jettison incumbents to make room. How will high-powered partners decide where to plant themselves? They’ll take their books of business and follow the money. The definitive Am Law metric — average equity partner profits — will remain inviolate. Too many Biglaw partnerships will continue their devolution into collections of attorneys whose principal bond is financial.

So there’s no Black Swan here — just another log on the bonfire that is already consuming much of the profession.

But these developments favor the emergence of a Black Swan that I identified in my earlier post. Australia now has publicly traded law firms. Attorneys in Great Britain have begun preparing to follow that lead when the Legal Services Act becomes effective next year. (http://www.law.com/jsp/law/international/LawArticleIntl.jsp?id=1202463691626)

Biglaw’s ongoing transformation to a species of Big Business could culminate in non-lawyer shareholders and boards. What will stop them? Equity partners who have been hired to buttress a firm’s claim to Tier 1 status in the U.S. News rankings? As relative newcomers, their allegiance to their new firms will be more tenuous. The idea of preserving whatever remains of a unique professional culture will seem antiquated, particularly with the big bucks for their shares of an initial public offering (IPO) dangling before them.

It sure looks to me like the same country that introduced the first black swan to the New World is now exporting something far more ominous for the legal profession.

BIGLAW AND THE BLACK SWAN

Posted on September 6, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

After reading my novel, The Partnership, an insightful observer wrote that its themes “sound like a biglaw version of The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Drawing out the comparisons between your book and Taleb could fill many blog posts.”

This is the first.

Taleb’s title derives from the discovery of what everyone knew didn’t exist. In the Old World, universally reported human experience pointed unambiguously to a single conclusion: All swans were white. Then came the discovery of Australia and its black swans.

The lesson: Widely accepted truths often turn out to be false. Relying on models of the past to anticipate the future can be a fool’s errand, especially if it ignores the wholly unexpected Black Swans that actually shape history. Who imagined that Bill Gates’ boyhood fascination with computers would lead to Microsoft, or that Mark Zuckerberg’s college dorm room at Harvard would be the birthplace of a revolutionary social networking phenomenon?

Black Swans can be good or bad — but they are always transformative. Most of us fail to consider them because we tend to theorize about the future in specific and limited ways from prior experience. For example, Taleb notes, the French built the Maginot Line to defend against German attack following the Great War, only to watch Hitler zip around it during a greater one, World War II.

“What did people learn from the 9/11 episode?” he continues. “Did they learn that some events, owing to their dynamics, stand largely outside the realm of the predictable? No. Did they learn the built-in defect of conventional wisdom? No. What did they figure out? They learned precise rules for avoiding proislamic terrorists and tall buildings.”

The Black Swan came out in 2007 and was a best-seller before the Great Recession — an event that others began calling a Black Swan, although Taleb said it didn’t qualify. Rather, that downturn replays previous Black Swan events — including the 1982 bank failures, 1987 market crash, and 1998 collapse of Long-Term Capital Management — from which intelligent people persistently failed to learn. So-called financial experts with MBAs had lost fortunes betting that such Black Swans were so improbable that they could be ignored. According to Taleb, these empty suits persevered and suckered others into accepting their discredited models, only to have them fail yet again.

So how could this relate to Biglaw? After all, it has enjoyed a 30-year run as straightforward metrics — billings, billable hours, and associate/partner leverage ratios — enabled large firms to produce staggering wealth for their owners. Even as many positions disappeared and revenues remained flat or declined at some firms, average equity partner profits for the Am Law 100 continued to rise.

The dominant Biglaw model is working, right?

Only until a Black Swan appears. It would be presumptuous to predict its form or timing. Indeed, the Black Swan’s essence is its serendipity, coupled with its power. It strikes when overconfidence creates complacency and vigilance takes a vacation.

So for Biglaw, accepting conventional wisdom means following managers (few of whom are leaders — a crucial distinction) who focus on supposedly proven metrics that have made them rich. They let free markets dictate decisions; they ignore things that don’t impact this year’s bottom-line; they watch their equity partner profits trees grow to the sky.

Where in all of this might Biglaw’s Black Swans lurk?

The candidates are too numerous for thoughtful consideration in a single article. Some examples: increasing attorney dissatisfaction at all levels; client resistance to hourly billing regimes; the displacement of a professional ethos with business-school metrics aimed at short-term profit-maximization; prospective lawyers’ growing awareness of Biglaw’s darker side.

But many of us already know about these difficulties, which makes them less likely Black Swan candidates. Then again, the Black Swan need not come as a surprise to everyone. For too long, most Biglaw managers have been oblivious to the profession’s growing challenges; too many behave as if they still are. As Taleb notes, a well-fed turkey that becomes fatter as Thanksgiving approaches is amazed to encounter the ultimate Black Swan event — its slaughter. But the butcher always knew what was coming.

I’ll add one more to the list:

Australia has pioneered a new regulatory regime that allows outsiders — non-lawyers — to invest in private law firms. Some are now publicly traded. http://www.abanet.org/legaled/committees/Standards%20Review%20documents/AnthonyDavis.pdf

Lawyers in Great Britain have begun preparing to follow that lead when the Legal Services Act becomes effective next year. http://www.law.com/jsp/law/international/LawArticleIntl.jsp?id=1202463691626

Could Biglaw’s ongoing transformation to a species of Big Business culminate in non-lawyer shareholders and boards? It’s a frightening prospect — but not so scary that equity partners are likely to forego the enormous short-term windfalls they’d reap from initial public offerings (IPOs) of their firms’ stock. Most view themselves as disproportionately responsible for their own success and will be content to let the next generations fend for themselves in a bleak professional landscape.

Could the same country that introduced the first black swan to the world be exporting something far more momentous?

ALONG CAME LAW FIRM MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS

Posted on August 27, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

In the final analysis, Biglaw leaders have only themselves to blame, but they didn’t stumble into the world of misguided metrics on their own. They paid outside experts to guide the way — and they’re still doing it.

Thirty years ago, few undergraduates went to law school because they thought that a legal career would make them rich. For example, most students at Harvard with that ambition were on the other side of the Charles getting MBAs; the river formed a kind of natural barrier. The law was something special — a noble profession — or so most of us believed.

Particularly in large firms, nobility has yielded to business school-type metrics that focus on short-term profits-per-partner. The resulting impact on the internal fabric of such firms is depicted in my legal thriller, The Partnership (http://www.amazon.com/Partnership-Novel-Steven-J-Harper/dp/0984369104/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273000077&sr=1-1) But other collateral damage includes the decline of mentoring that produced great lawyers in my baby boomer generation. (See my article, “Where Have All The Mentors Gone?” – http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/07/harpermentors.html).

Among the reactions to my mentoring observations was this:

“I am particularly intrigued by your reference to the role modern legal consulting firms have played in the demise of law as a profession. This is worthy of a blog post in and of itself and I look forward to it.”

I discussed this subject in an earlier post, but it’s worth another look.

Hildebrandt Baker Robbins is the successor to Hildebrandt, Inc., one of the early pioneers in what became a cottage industry: law firm management consulting. The company’s 2010 Client Advisory includes this line:

“In our view, one of the serious misuses of metrics in the past few years has been the overreliance on profits per equity partner as the defining index of a firm’s value and quality.” (http://www.hildebrandt.com/2010ClientAdvisory)

Really? Who encouraged the use of this ubiquitous metric on which Hildebrandt has now soured? As Dana Carvey’s church lady character might say, “Could it be….Hildebrandt?”

Of course, it wasn’t alone. When The American Lawyer published its first ranking of the Am Law 50 (now grown to 100) in 1985, what was once off limits in polite company — how much money a person made — became an open and notorious measuring stick of law firm performance: average profits per partner. Greed became respectable as inherently competitive firm leaders began teaching to the Am Law test so they could gain or retain position in its annual listing.

When the 1990-1991 recession rattled a much smaller version of what is now called biglaw, the National Law Journal’s annual survey of the largest 250 firms in 1991 quoted Bradford Hildebrandt, who 16 years earlier had founded the company bearing his name:

“In most firms, current management has never operated within a recession and didn’t know how to deal with it…” (“The NLJ 250: Annual Survey of the Nation’s Largest Law Firms — Overview — The Boom Abates,” The National Law Journal, September 30, 1991 (Vol. 14, No. 4))

So who could save us from ourselves? As they watched profits slide, worried law firm leaders turned to Hildebrandt and other experts who could assist in bringing business school principles and MBA-type metrics to their big firms. By 1996, Mr. Hildebrandt himself had diagnosed the situation and offered his remedy in that year’s NLJ 250 issue:

“The real problem of the 1980s was the lax admissions standards of associates of all firms to partnership. The way to fix that now is to make it harder to become a partner. The associate track is longer and more difficult, and you have a very big movement to two-tiered structured partnership.” (“The NLJ 250 Annual Survey of the Nation’s Largest Law Firms: A Special Supplement — More Lawyers Than Ever In 250 Largest Firms,” The National Law Journal, September 30, 1996 (Vol. 19, No. 5))

With such cheerleaders at their sides, senior partners focused on the three legs supporting the PEP (profits per equity partner) stool: billings, billable hours, and associate/partner leverage ratios.

Hourly rates marched skyward — even during recessions — increasing an average of 6% to 8% annually from 1998 to 2007. Billable hours targets likewise rose. Yet talented attorneys who would have advanced to equity partner a decade earlier received their walking papers as firms increased leverage ratios, which doubled between 1985 and 2010 for the Am Law 50. (http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/05/classof1985.html) With a few sharp turns of the costs screw, the game was won.

The results were mixed. For equity partners in the Am Law 100, average profits soared to more than $1 million annually — and rose during the Great Recession. Yet today, attorneys in big firms have become the law’s most dissatisfied workers — even though lawyers as a group were already leading most occupations in that unpleasant race.

The law firm as collection of men and women bound together in common pursuit of a noble profession yielded to an MBA mentality that relied on business school metrics to produce more dollars — the new measure of individual status and firm success. Valued partners who wouldn’t have considered leaving in earlier times began to follow the money — eroding concepts of loyalty and shared mission that created a firm’s identity over generations.

Oh, what a mistake, Hildebrandt now urges — not unlike Harvard’s new business school dean who looks hopefully (but in vain) to the law as an alternative model that might restore integrity to that world. (See my earlier article, “The MBA Mentality Rethnks Itself?” — http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/05/harper1.html)

What does Hildebrandt now propose to replace profits per equity partner as the key measure of overall firm performance? Profits per employee. But it simultaneously suggests that client satisfaction ratings should replace billable hours while employee satisfaction ratings supplant leverage.

Is your head spinning over the interplay among these complicated and confusing new metrics? Hildebrandt has the answer:

“As always, we stand ready to assist our clients in negotiating through these new and uncertain waters.”

How comforting.

OUTSOURCING: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW AND IMPROVED BIGLAW BUSINESS MODEL?

Posted on August 16, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

If you’re a new law school graduate looking for work, or an equity partner seeking to profit this year (and maybe next) from the leverage that high-priced associates add to your firm’s bottom line, outsourcing sounds like a bad idea. But for those concerned about the long-run psychological well-being of the profession, the implications are more ambiguous.

It’s not novel. Throughout corporate America, outsourcing has been an important profit-maximizing technique for a long time. Lawyers have made a lot of money assisting clients in the development and implementation of such strategies. The resulting loss of American jobs has been sold as a necessary price paid to remain competitive in the world economy.

Such cost-minimization makes sense where protocols can assure a quality finished product. But when lead turns up in the paint on children’s toys from China, well….

Now, as the NY Times recently reported, outsourcing has pushed its nose into the biglaw tent. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/business/global/05legal.html) If the trend continues, what is the fate of the dominant large law firm business model that relies on associate/partner leverage as the source of equity partner wealth? (See my earlier article, “Send The Elevator Back Down” at http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/07/harper3071410.html)

Its days may be numbered but, then again, its days may be numbered with or without outsourcing.

As the Times article notes, outsourcing is particularly advantageous for mundane legal tasks — due diligence on corporate deals and document review for major litigation matters. What client can resist paying “one-third to one-tenth” of a big firm’s hourly rates for such work?

The challenge will be to find the limits and assure quality output. Due diligence seems unimportant until a major potential liability gets overlooked. Document review is dull, but large lawsuits have turned on an internal memo buried in a gigantic collection; a discerning eye made all the difference.

Still, it seems likely that clients will gravitate toward firms that can offer lower rates for outsourced attorneys performing necessary but non-critical work. It is equally clear that clients will continue to “pay a lot of money” to lawyers with special experience and expertise — “world-class thought leaders and the best litigators and regulatory lawyers around the world,” as one corporate leader put it in the Times.

With these trends, new law school graduates will face shrinking labor markets, especially at entry level positions in big firms. But for the fortunate few who get jobs, their work could get better as outsourced labor performs some of the menial tasks that now account for most young associates’ billable hours.

Meanwhile, senior attorneys will have new incentives to mentor proteges so they become their firms’ next generation of “world-class thought leaders.” (See my earlier article, “Where Have All The Mentors Gone?” at http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/07/harpermentors.html)

What will all of this mean for equity partner profits? The big firm leaders who do the right things — strict quality control of outsourced work coupled with a serious investment in the development of inside talent — will thirve as their firms deleverage. Unfortunately, others intent on maximizing short-term dollars by prolonging the lives of their leveraged business enterprises will do okay, too — at least for a while. But such a myopic focus runs enormous long-term risks for the affected institutions.

And here’s a wild card: Small and mid-sized firms with talented senior attorneys may find that these new pools of outsourced talent enable them to compete with the mega firms. Size may no longer be everything. In fact, it may not be anything at all.

If I’m correct, the resulting transformation will slow biglaw’s growth rate and, perhaps, shrink that segment of the profession. But instead of the mind-numbing tasks that are the bane of any young attorney’s biglaw existence, associates will find themselves doing work that more closely resembles what they thought being a lawyer meant when they first decided to attend law school. If that happened — and reality began to resemble expectations — lawyers as a group could become more satisfied with their jobs. The unthinkable might even happen: a slow reversal in the tide of recent surveys that consistently rank attorneys near the bottom of all occupations in career fulfillment.

Such a scenario would be an ironic turn of events. The extraordinary wealth that clients now confer on those running today’s highly leveraged big firms could be providing the impetus to upend the profession and force the emergence of a new business model in which leverage no longer mattered.

Of course, everything could careen wildly in a different direction –toward further corporatization of law firms as non-attorneys provide private investment capital, become shareholders, and complete the MBA takeover of the profession. That movement is clearly afoot in Great Britain. (See http://www.abanet.org/legaled/committees/Standards%20Review%20documents/AnthonyDavis.pdf) Once senior partners become accountable to non-attorney boards of directors, the individual autonomy that once defined being a lawyer will have disappeared.

But it doesn’t cost any more to be optimistic, does it?

MIRED IN METRICS? HAVE SOME MORE!

Posted on August 5, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

Once a bad situation spins out of control, is there any way to corral it? When all else fails, try making things worse.

The ABA recently released its report detailing just a few of the ways that U.S. News law school rankings have been counterproductive for prospective lawyers and the profession — from driving up the costs of legal education to driving down the importance of diversity. (http://www.abanet.org/legaled/nosearch/Council2010/OpenSession2010/F.USNewsFinal%20Report.pdf)

As U.S.News now develops law firm rankings, the report concludes with an ominous warning:

“Once a single rankings system comes to dominate a particular field, it is very difficuly to displace, difficult to change and dangerous to underestimate the importance of its methodology to any school or firm that operates in the field. This, we believe, is the most important lesson from the law school experience for those law firms who may be ranked by U.S. News in the future.”

In other words, rankings sometimes function as any so-called definitive metric: They displace reasoned judgment. Independent thought becomes unnecessary because the methodology behind the metric dictates decision-makers’ actions.

Since 1985, many big firms have become living examples of the phenomenon. That year, The American Lawyer published its first-ever Am Law 50 list of the nation’s largest firms. Most firm leaders now teach to the Am Law test, annually seeking to maximize revenues and average profits per equity partner. The resulting culture of billings, billable hours, and associate/partner leverage ratios begins to explain why surveys report that large firm lawyers lead the profession in career dissatisfaction.(http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/pulse_of_the_legal_profession/print/) Without a metric for it, attorney well-being — and the factors contributing to it — drop out of the equation.

Courtesy of U.S. News, large firms now stand on the threshhold of more metrics. Will they make working environments of firms that have succcumbed to the profits-per-partner criterion worse?

It depends, but more of yet another bad thing — rankings — could produce something good — forcing individuals to sift through contradictory data, think for themselves, and make a real decision. But that can happen only if U.S. News produces a list of “best law firms” that bears little resemblance to the rank ordering of the Am Law 100 in average equity partner profits. Such contradictory data would confuse newly minted attorneys and force them to develop their own criteria for decision.

The American Lawyer itself provides a useful example of the possibilities. Eight years ago, it began publishing the Am Law “A-List,” which has gained limited traction as a moderating influence on the Am Law average profits-per-equity-partner metric that otherwise dominates decision-making at most big firms. The A-List’s additional considerations bear on the quality of a young lawyer’s life — associate satisfaction, diversity, and pro bono activities. The myopic focus on short-term dollars still dominates decisions in most big firms, but the A-List has joined the conversation.

What methodology will U.S. News employ in evaluating law firms? If it follows the approach of its law school ranking counterparts, many firms will game the system, just as some law schools have. (See my earlier article, “THE U.S. NEWS RANKINGS ARE OUT!” (https://thebellyofthebeast.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/the-us-news-rankings-are-out/)) But misguided and manipulatable metrics aren’t inevitable.

Talent is essential for any successful firm, large or small. Other qualities — collegiality, mentoring, community, high morale accompanying a shared sense of professional purpose — make a workplace special. Can the U.S. News find ways to measure those qualities?

That’s the challenge. But I fear that students won’t bother focusing on the U.S. News methodology or its flaws. More likely, whatever rankings emerge from the process will provide — as they have for so many deliberating the choice of a law school — an easy final answer.

Ceding such control over life’s direction to others is rarely a good idea. There is no substitute for personal involvement in deciding the things that matter most. That means asking recruiters tough questions, scrutinizing the lives of a firm’s senior associates and partners, and finding role models who are living a life that a new attorney envisions for her- or himself.

In the end, the current large firm business model and its self-imposed associate/partner leverage ratios will continue to render success — defined as promotion to equity partnership — an elusive dream for most who seek it. For those who become dissatisfied with their jobs, time passes slowly. So everyone joining a big firm — even a person intending to remain only for the years required to repay student loans — has ample incentive to get that first big decision after law school correct.

So why would intelligent young attorneys let U.S. News’ self-proclaimed experts make it with something as silly as a ranking? Probably for the same reasons that they relied on U.S. News to make their law school decisions for them three years earlier.

Someday, maybe there will be a U.S. News formula for choosing a spouse. Then won’t life be simple?

WHO’S LAZY?

Posted on June 23, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

My new novel, The Partnership, has led to some interesting conversations with other lawyers, especially biglaw partners.(http://www.amazon.com/Partnership-Novel-Steven-J-Harper/dp/0984369104/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273000077&sr=1-1)

“Here’s the problem with young associates today: they’re lazy,” barked a middle-aged man at a recent dinner party that I attended. Soon thereafter, he revealed his occupation: partner in an Am Law 100 firm.

“They feel entitled. They want to make the big bucks, but they don’t want to put in the hours,” he continued indignantly.

Biglaw partners say that a lot. Many regard themselves as special in ways that few young people today ever can be. It’s a form of magical thinking that rationalizes hubris, bad behavior, and arbitrary decisions.

“It’s more complicated,” I suggested after confessing that I’d recently retired after 30 years in a big firm that he respected. “For the last three years, I’ve taught an undergraduate seminar that has given me a different perspective. Ultimately, my students inspired me to write my latest book.”

“How so?” he asked.

“As you know, law school has long been the last bastion of liberal arts majors who didn’t know what to do next. Once they got there, the pressure to get a high-paying job at a big firm began. But most students heading that way had no idea what their lives at such places would be like. When reality struck, many didn’t like it.”

He nodded.

“That’s one reason lawyers are among the most dissatisfied workers in our society. It’s also why, before the Great Recession, the five-year associate attrition rate from big firms exceeded 80%.”

“I didn’t realize it was that high,” he interjected.

“Contributing to all of this is the business model that has overtaken most large firms over the past 20 years,” I continued. “It requires associate and non-equity partner attrition to increase leverage ratios and enhance equity partner profits. Being a good lawyer doesn’t mean the firm will have room for you as an equity partner. The resulting behaviors have dramatically changed the culture of most big firms.”

“You’re right,” he said as he inadvertently moved to his own unhappy plight. “People don’t understand what it means to go from 1,600 to 1,800 to 2,000 billable hours a year. Once you become a partner, it’s even harder. You can’t bill all of the time you spend on client development, but those hours are just another form of work.”

“We agree,” I suggested. “The job turns out to be much different from what most undergraduates expect, insofar as they have any expectations at all. In fact, even as an equity partner, your firm’s increased billable hour requirements have changed your job while you held it, right?”

“True,” he admitted.

“So you’re a victim of the MBA mentality of misguided metrics, too. When reality clashes with young attorneys’ idealized expectations, you have a prescription for psychological disaster. Factor in a business model that myopically focuses on a few metrics — billings, billable hours, and leverage — and look at the result.”

The biglaw partner then revealed his secret: “My son is thinking about going to law school. I told him to stay away from big firms.”

“You’re not alone,” I assured him. “The most recent ABA study shows that 60% of attorneys practicing 10 years or more advise young people against a legal career. As a group, biglaw attorneys are the most dissatisfied; public sector lawyers are happier.”

The senior partner nodded. Long ago, he confessed, his career began in government.

“So we’re back where you started this conversation,” I suggested, “– associate motivation.”

“How so?”

“When an entering class of, say, 50 new associates figures out that only 10 of them will be around five years later and maybe two or three will eventually become equity partners some unknown number of years after that, how does it affect their behavior? How would it affect yours?”

“Partners would say I was lazy,” he laughed. “I think I’m going to enjoy your new book. I’ll get a copy for my son, too.”

FOR BIGLAW SUMMER ASSOCIATES ONLY…

Posted on June 13, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

You’re thrilled, and understandably so.

In an impossible job market, you came up a winner. The summer associate offer rate for all firms dropped to its lowest level since NALP started gathering such statistics 17 years ago. But you worked hard, got good grades, and listened to tips from hiring partners describing what they wanted in a new lawyer.

You scored big. In compensation, it’s a summer job like none you’ve ever had. Your most pressing concern is whether there will be a repeat of last year’s dip in the full-time job offer rate for summer associates — 69% compared to 90% in 2008. So now you’re heeding advice that ranges from proper attitude to correct attire. At least there is some encouraging summer associate etiquette news. According to one biglaw hiring partner, “indiscretion happens with alcohol, but people understand that. You usually have to knock a partner out cold for it to be a career-ending event.” Whew! That’s a relief.

Anticipating a favorable next step, you hope that your full-time job offer at the end of the summer is real. You don’t want to wind up like the more than 60% who planned to start their careers at large law firms immediately upon graduation this year, only to be deferred into 2011 and 2012. You can’t bear to think about some of your predecessors who received offers of full-time employment after their successful 2008 and 2009 summers, only to see them revoked outright a few months later.

You’re focused on making sure the firm likes you. There’s no time to consider other things — including whether you like the firm.

Here’s a suggestion: think about those other things now, even if only briefly.

At a recent Cubs game, I was talking with a fellow biglaw refugee. He’d practiced in a large law firm — not mine — for more than 25 years before retiring two years ago.

“What questions should today’s biglaw summer associates ask?” I began.

“It depends on what they want,” he suggested. “They probably fall into one of two categories. The first group consists of those wanting good training, needing a decent salary to pay off their student loans, and planning to do something else when that debt is gone. A second group wants to make a career at a big firm; they think they’re in for the long haul.”

“OK, so what should someone in the first group investigate?”

“That’s easy,” my friend responded. “Mentoring. How is the training? Will they have opportunities to develop skills that make them better lawyers?”

“How about the second group — the ones who think they want a large law firm career?”

“For them, it boils down to a simple question: who among the equity partners has a life that they’d want? If they can’t identify such a person, that’s a big problem. If they can, then they have to dig deeper.”

“Such as,” I pressed.

“Such as, how did the senior attorney do it? Is he or she an oddity? Did the partner succeed under a biglaw model that no longer exists? Most large firms don’t resemble what you and I joined 30 years ago. Your new book says it all.”

“And to get at that issue,” I added, “they should search for answers to these questions:

1. Excluding laterals, how many new equity partners did the firm make this year?

2. How many years did it take them to get there?

3. What was the size of their original associate class?

4. What happened to everyone else?

If the chances of capturing the brass ring are about the same as winning the lottery, at least they know the ground rules. The answers will reveal the culture and working environment of the place.”

“Yep,” he said. “And whether it’s conducive to a happy life. Your new book covers that one, too.”

But some aspects of life seem destined to remain unsatisfying; an hour later, the Cubs lost — again.

A BETTER ALTERNATIVE OR A LEAP FROM THE FRYING PAN?

Posted on June 3, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

Thirty years ago, New York was a scary place for me — mostly because I’d never been there. Midwestern curiousity led me to interview with Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s on-campus representative.

I’d heard that its road to success was the toughest. Rumors circulated that it hired twenty new attorneys for every one or two it might promote to equity partner eight or more years later. Not surprisingly, most of my fellow Harvard students regarded Cravath as the quintessential competitive sweatshop — a characteristic that many of my peers actually found attractive.

Not me. I went elsewhere because, in those good old days, there was an elsewhere to go. Cravath is probably not much different from what it was back then. It’s just that most of the biglaw world has followed its example. As other top-50 firms tightened equity partner admission requirements, Cravath just kept doing what it had always done.

Why did firms emulate Cravath? Law student lore made it the best by some undisclosed criteria. In retrospect, I think money had a role. Even back in 1980, it was one of a very few firms where advancement to equity partner meant wealth that was immense, at least for a lawyer.

According to the first ever listing of the Am Law 50 in 1985, Cravath ranked 2nd in profits per partner with $635,000. For those behind it, the descent was steep: the #10 firm was under $400,000; #30 was $255,000; #50 was $170,000.

Cravath blazed a trail to riches that now accompany those who reach biglaw’s summit: average equity partner profits for the entire Am Law 100 exceeded $1.26 million last year.

But Cravath remains different. Most of biglaw moved to two-tier partnerships and eat-what-you-kill systems where a few key metrics — billings, billable hours, and leverage ratios — now determine individual equity partner compensation. Cravath’s single-tier model has reportedly remained lock-step: admission to its partnership means fixed financial rewards over an entire career without regard to individual books of business.

I don’t know if Cravath’s lawyers as a group are any happier than attorneys in other big firms. But the firm is now courting its Generation X’ers. According to the Wall Street Journal, partners in their late-30s and early-40s have “taken a more pro-active approach, building new relationships and handling much of the work that historically would have been taken on by partners in their 50s.” (WSJ, May 28, 2010, C3)

Referring to Cravath’s deferential culture in which young partners traditionally forwarded big deals to older colleagues, the article notes that senior partners have nurtured the new environment that gives younger lawyers earlier name recognition.

Why has it worked so far?

“The older attorneys didn’t mind, partly because the pay they received didn’t get cut as a result,” the Journal observes.

In other words, lock-step allows elders to step out of the spotlight without hits to their pocketbooks.

In the current biglaw world, Cravath’s experiment is risky. Will young partners remain loyal or use their newly gained client power to pursue financial self-interest elsewhere? Will Cravath be forced to modify or abandon lock-step so that it can retain young partners controlling clients and billings?

I don’t know. Equally significant, I suspect those most directly affected by what the article characterizes as a “sea change at one of the best-known and most conservative of white-shoe law firms” don’t know, either.

And what does it mean for new associates trying to understand how this affects the firm’s culture and their own career prospects?

Ah, the things I didn’t think to consider when I was a second-year law student looking for a job about which I knew almost nothing.

Fortunately, students are wiser now, right?

IT’S NOT JUST ME

Posted on May 25, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

They acknowledge it’s a tough sell.

The co-chairman of a large, well-respected law firm has teamed with the former senior vice president and general counsel of General Electric to write an article that appeared in the May issue of The American Lawyer. The title says it all: “Noblesse Oblige: Firms must teach the younger generation what it means to be a true professional.” (http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/plp/pdf/Noblesse_Oblige.pdf)

Here’s the first paragraph.

“Law firms have been moving from loosely managed associations of professionals to disciplined business organizations for more than a generation. This shift has caused an erosion of professional values (lawyers’ traditional commitment to enhancing society) and has increased the focus on economic return (firms’ relentless quest for escalating profits per partner).”

So how did that happen? Why doesn’t the younger generation already know what it means to be a true professional? Who have been their role models?

Better not to ask. Like me, the authors are members of the baby boomer generation that, as a group, bears responsiblity for a culture that some of us hope younger attorneys can change. In other words, do as we now say, not as too many of us did and still do.

Their suggestions start with the toughest job of all: persuading firm partners to move away from “inward-looking economics (more hours, more leverage, more profits, regardless of value)….”

For example, consider the concept of “productivity” — a bill of goods that self-styled legal consultants have sold to willing biglaw buyers for the past two decades. Increasing productivity has become a nice way of saying: “Get your billable hours up.” In the Great Recession, it has translated into layoffs so that survivors worked harder.

The authors’ approach would revolutionize most firms’ fundamental cultures. The resulting benefits would flow to partners, associates, the unrepresented, and the community.

But it all begins with a willingness to jettison the business school mentality of misguided metrics that has made profits per partner biglaw’s pervasive measuring stick — in substantial part because it has made most biglaw equity partners wealthy beyond their wildest law school dreams.

How will equity partners respond to the news that they’ll have to earn less now for the promise of longer-term non-economic gains to the profession and, I dare say, to their own improved psychological well-being?

Sophocles wrote in Antigone, “No one loves the messenger who brings bad news.”

Shakespeare’s formulations — subsequently condensed to “don’t kill the messenger” — were likewise on point: “Though it be honest, it is never good to bring bad news” (Antony and Cleopatra) and “Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office.” (Henry IV, Part 2.)

And when it comes to a willingness to hear unpleasant news about average equity partner profits, those of us familiar with the profession know too well the pervasive presence of biglaw’s equivalents to Alice in Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts:

“Off with their heads!”

EARLY RETURNS

Posted on May 19, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

No, the title of this post doesn’t refer to Tuesday’s primary election results in a handful of states, although they confirm what I’ve thought for a while. Voters are anti-incumbent, not just anti-Democratic or anti-Obama. That’s one reason Rand Paul trounced Mitch McConnell’s guy in Kentucky. But this is not a space for ideological diatribe or political spin.

Rather, today’s caption refers to personal referenda of sorts.

First, the Belly’s audience is growing.

The American Lawyer is now running some of my posts. On May 10, Am Law Daily published “The MBA Mentality Rethinks Itself?” (http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/05/harper1.html) I’m grateful to editors willing to air a controversial voice.

Second — and speaking of controversy — my new legal thriller, The Partnership, (http://www.amazon.com/Partnership-Novel-Steven-J-Harper/dp/0984369104/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273000077&sr=1-1), is selling well and generating strong reactions.

Big firm attorneys have offered these responses:

“Great read…It’s a very fair and accurate representation of large law firms. This is how we operate.”

“I enjoyed reading your novel — and was reminded how things changed over the years…and hardly for the better.”

“Great stuff…highly enjoyable.”

In contrast, non-lawyers have said:

“Now I have a more informed concept of ‘billable hours.’ Wow!”

“Your book has disturbed me. Greatly. Do lawyers really behave this way?”

Quite a juxtaposition, isn’t it? Lay persons become shocked and outraged at attorney attitudes that most lawyers themselves take for granted.

“How can we change people, so they look at things differently — without a myopic view that maximizes short-term profits at the expense of other things that matter?” the last commentator asked.

Here’s what I told him:

1. You can’t. The trends that trouble you are too imbedded; the resulting financial rewards flowing to the few are too great. Perhaps more significantly, the things that disturb you most — including undue reliance on misguided short-term metrics — aren’t unique to the legal profession. Big firm lawyers use billings, billable hours, leverage ratios, and profits per equity partner. Ask journalists, doctors, college professors, and others to describe the metrics by which they’re held accountable. Then ask them if they regard themselves as members of a profession or participants in a business enterprise.

2. Sometimes you can hold up a mirror to a person who then doesn’t like the image that appears. A book can try to do that, but it’s hard to dislodge internal rationalizations that justify a lifetime of unfortunate behavior.

3. Real hope resides with the next generation. Our kids and grandchildren will have to decide that they want things to be different. That’s what we baby boomers did, only to discover that different didn’t always mean better.

Unfortunately, without mentors and models of success that can compete with the MBA-mentality of misguided metrics now dominating too many big law firms and other once-noble professions, our progeny face a daunting task.

Now you understand the twin thoughts appearing immediately following The Partnership‘s inside title page:

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant” and “Forewarned is forearmed.”

WHEN IS BAD NEWS REALLY GOOD NEWS IN DISGUISE?

Posted on May 7, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

One of my former undergraduate students sent me a link to a WSJ.com article on the dismal job market for graduating law students. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704866204575224350917718446.html)

Of course, the focus is where it always is: on reduced hiring at the nation’s largest firms.

This is not news to most of us in the profession. Big firms started laying off associates in big numbers shortly after the financial collapse in the fall of 2008. Last year, the Am Law 100 saw its first year-over-year reduction in attorney headcount since 1993. (http://www.law.com/jsp/tal/PubArticleTAL.jsp?id=1202448340864&Lessons_of_The_Am_Law_&hbxlogin=1)

Large firms always get the editorial lead on this subject, in part because that’s where most top students in the best law schools seek to begin their careers. Why they flock in that direction is a complicated question. Herd behavior accounts for some of it, but one factor has assumed overwhelming power in their decision-making calculus: When law degrees come with six-figure student loan debt, financial reality pushes graduates toward biglaw, which shows them the money.

Here’s the hitch. Few know what awaits them if they land one of those increasingly elusive starting positions. For some, the fit works. But for too many, the surprise turns out to be unpleasant.

In its 2007 “Pulse of the Profession” survey, the ABA found that big firm attorneys were unhappier with their careers than any lawyer group. Only 44% gave a positive response to the statement: “I am satisfied with my career.” (http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/pulse_of_the_legal_professionunhappiest)

In contrast, lawyers working in the public sector reported an overall satisfaction rate of 68%.

Getting a public sector law job isn’t easy, either. But it’s curious that the nation’s largest firms continue to dominate the discussion, even though the biggest 250 firms employ fewer than 15% of all attorneys. When you consider associate and non-equity partner attrition rates from those places, the myopia becomes even more puzzling. Very few graduates who begin their careers in such places will stay for more than a few years.

So for current and prospective law students (and attorneys who have lost their jobs), short-term unemployment could become a catalyst for reassessment that leads to longer-term personal rewards.

But I also understand human nature. In the end, the shiny brass ring will continue to blind many people. American Lawyer recently reported that as headcount and average gross revenues declined in 2009 for the Am Law 100, average equity profits per partner increased — to $1.26 million.

How, you might ask, could that happen and what does it mean for those on the inside? I have my own views; they’re in my new novel, The Partnership. (http://www.amazon.com/Partnership-Novel-Steven-J-Harper/dp/0984369104/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273000077&sr=1-1)

WILL ANYONE NOTICE ON APRIL 27?

Posted on April 21, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

When is a partner not a partner?

One of biglaw’s profitability secrets relates to what “partner” means. In increasingly common two-tier partnerships, only equity partners have an ownership interest that translates into the stunning average incomes reported in the Am Law 100. (In 2008, the average was $1.26 million.) The distinction should interest students who seek biglaw jobs and want to know what any particular firm is really like.

So where can they learn the truth? Every law student knows about the NALP Foundation. It’s the only organization that collects comprehensive personnel information directly from major U.S. law firms. It publishes much of it in a Directory that is every student’s bible of prospective employers. But data on firms’ non-equity/equity partner distribution is conspicuously absent from NALP’s reports, as is any attempt to track non-equity partners’ careers.

In December 2009, NALP decided NOT to collect data distinguishing equity from non-equity partners. When disappointed law students heard the news, NALP responded that it would begin compiling such information. It then backtracked because law firms balked.

Hmmmm…..

On April 6, a prominent group of 75 attorneys, judges, and legal scholars protested NALP’s decision on the grounds that tracking non-equity partners was important to assessing a firm’s true gender and racial diversity. Of course, they’re correct.

But there’s another reason to provide students with this information. According to Am Law, between 1999 and 2008, the nation’s 100 biggest firms increased their non-equity partner ranks threefold, but the number of equity partners grew by only one-third. What is the fate of most big firm non-equity partners? Don’t ask; don’t tell.

Could that be the real story behind NALP’s reluctance to cross so many of its biglaw board members, advisors, and benefactors?

NALP said it would reconsider the issue at its April 26 meeting. Will anyone notice? Will anyone care?

For students who understand the issue well enough to do the research, American Lawyer lends a hand. Although it doesn’t have diversity information, the annual Am Law 100 issue publishes overall breakdowns of the largest firms’ equity/non-equity partners. So why not let NALP take the next step? What happened to all of those biglaw free market enthusiasts who usually argue that complete, easily available information facilitates better decisions? What could be more relevant than a firm’s answer to a fundamental question: who are your real partners and whither goest the vast cadre of attorneys who survive the associate gauntlet only fail in their efforts to overcome the final hurdle into the ownership ranks?

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 12

Posted on April 20, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

[Concluding the imaginary cross-examination of a real senior partner profiled in the April 2010 issue of ABA Journal (http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/not_done_yet) — and connecting the final dots to the ongoing associate compensation squeeze-plays…]

Q: “Adversity tests leadership, doesn’t it?”

Partner: “I agree.”

Q: “And 2009 was a tough year, wasn’t it?”

Partner: “It was a difficult time for many people.”

Q: “For many people — but not for your firm’s equity partners, right?”

Partner: “Wrong. Our revenues were down and the decisions we made to let people go were agonizing.”

Q: “But not so agonizing that they slowed your mission to keep billable hours up and average equity partner profits at $2 million a year, correct?”

Partner: “Some things can’t be measured in dollars.”

Q: “True. But Am Law reported recently that your firm’s 2009 average equity partner profits were just under $2 million, right?”

Partner: “That’s the report.”

Q: “If we return to your earlier comments about free market capitalism, who has borne the owner’s risk to your firm in the current economic downturn, Dechert’s equity partners who on average saw their incomes drop from $2.35 to $2 million a year, or the salaried workers — associates, non-equity partners, and staff — who lost their jobs in 2009?”

Partner: “We shared the pain. But we’re no different from other large, successful law firms. Someone running another big firm made the point three years ago: We have to keep our stock price high.” http://www.mlaglobal.com/articles/JCashmanMayerBrownCutsTrib.pdf; http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/03/02/more-on-the-mayer-brown-departures/tab/article/

Q: “When you say other large, successful firms, are you referring to the ones that, according to a NY Times April 1 article (http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/at-law-firms-reconsidering-the-model-for-associates-pay/), are now developing ways to cut associate salaries?”

Partner: “I can’t speak to what other firms are doing.”

Q: “That article wasn’t an April Fool’s Day joke, was it? Underlying all of those efforts is the mission to preserve equity partners’ seven-figure incomes, isn’t it?”

Partner: “If you say so.”

Q: “And now many people like you — aging senior partners who’ve become accustomed to making millions — don’t know what to do next with your lives, do you?”

Partner: “Speaking for myself, time has crept up on me.”

Q: “You were so focused on pulling up the ladder as a way to protect what you had that you forgot to plan your own exit strategy, didn’t you?”

Partner: No answer.

Q: “Justice can be ironic, can’t it? You don’t have to answer that. No further questions at this time.”

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 10

Posted on April 18, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

[Continuing the imaginary cross-examination of a real senior partner profiled in the April 2010 issue of the ABA Journal(http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/not_done_yet)]

Q: “All right. Let’s look at 2009. In February, your firm cut 19 attorneys from its U.S offices and, a few weeks later, another 10 staffers?”

Partner: “We weren’t alone. Surely, you remember Black Thursday of that month — 800 biglaw attorneys and staff fired in a single day; over 1100 attorneys for the week.”

Q: “In March 2009, you said good-bye to 125 people — 63 attorneys and other time keepers and 62 adminsitrative staff?”

Partner: “With markets crashing, the firm couldn’t keep unproductive people on the payroll.”

Q: “And firms like yours couldn’t let their billable hours drop below 2,000 a year, could they?”

Partner: “I don’t agree with that.”

Q: “Your firm’s responses for the NALP Directory said its minimum billable hours expectation for associates in 2008 was 1,950 in Philadelphia and 2,000 in New York, right?”

Partner: “So what? That’s not unique. Our press release explained that we’ve tried to match our resources with our projected needs.”

Q: “That press release came in July 2009, when your firm reportedly terminated another 25 associates along with staff and paralegal positions, right?”

Partner: “You’re citing Law.com and Above The Law.”

Q: “And you’ve been shrinking your summer associate programs — in your Philadelphia headquarters, for example, from 37 in 2008 to 23 in 2009 to 13 in 2010, according to your NALP report?”

Partner: “If you say so.”

Q: “And in New York from 25 in 2009 to 12 this year?”

Partner: “Whatever the report says.”

Q: “Did your firm ever worry that it might be throwing its furniture into the fireplace in an effort to keep the house warm?”

Partner: “We’re keeping the best people. I’m not concerned.”

Q: “And you’re trying to keep the billable time of those survivors above 2,000 hours annually, aren’t you?

Partner: “That’s your characterization and conclusion, not mine.”

Q: “When you joined the firm in the early 1970’s, there’s wasn’t as much discussion about billable hours, which for most big firms in those days averaged around 1,700 a year, right?”

Partner: “It was a less important metric then. Times have changed.”

Q: “And another metric — leverage — now dictates that associates work eight years at your firm before receiving even non-equity partner consideration, right?”

Partner: “That’s what our NALP submission states.”

Q: “And the only thing your NALP submission says about the prospects for advancement to equity partnership thereafter is ‘CBC’ — case-by-case, right?”

Partner: “I don’t think we’re unusual in that respect. There are exceptions, but the pyramid is the prevailing large firm business model today. It endures because it works.”

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 9

Posted on April 15, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

Q: “That’s a good way to put it. ‘Everything is relative,’ as you say. In the case of your firm, keeping average equity partner profits above $2 million required you to take a number of cost-cutting actions in 2008, right?”

Partner: “Yes.”

Q: “According to Law.com, in March 2008, you laid off 13 associates in the finance and real estate practice and then later gave them the option of taking temporary positions in other practice groups?”

Partner: “That was the report.”

Q: “In December 2008, you cut 72 U.S. adminsitrative positions and started the termination process for another 15 staff positions in London?”

Partner: “That was the report.”

Q: “And you managed to stay above $2 million in average equity partner profits for 2008, didn’t you?”

Partner: “That’s what the American Lawyer reported. But look at 2009 if you want to understand the challenges we faced in trying to keep our position in the Am Law 100 rankings.”

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 8

Posted on April 14, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

Recession? What recession?

On Monday, April 12, 2010, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the non-profit group that officially marks the beginning and end of economic downturns, announced that the recession — which started in December 2007 — is not yet over. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/business/economy/13recession.html

With the DOW Industrials back above 11,000 for the first time since September 2008 and most economists generally bullish on the future, how does biglaw view the situation?

Across the board, attorney hiring remains way down. Many firms that offered full-time jobs to new graduates deferred starting dates into 2011; a few even withdrew offers. Some firms abandoned altogether the second-year student summer programs that have anchored big firm recruiting for more than 40 years. The surviving programs for summer 2010 are a fraction of their 2007 sizes. Pretty bleak, right?

Maybe not for everyone. For a peek inside, consider the ongoing fictional cross-examination of the very real Dechert LLP senior partner profiled in the April ABA Journal (“Not Done Yet”).

(By the way, the data in the questions are real. As Yogi Berra would say, “You can look it up” in the cited sources.)

Q: “You said that the enormous increases since 1995 in equity partner incomes at your firm and others like it reflect ‘free market capitalism’ at work, right?”

Partner: “Yes. Any business enterprise maximizes profits.”

Q: “In capitalism, does the owner bear any risks?”

Partner: “Sure. The owner bears the ultimate risks of the enterprise. If the business fails, the owner’s investment is wiped out.”

Q: “The owner bears the risk of economic setbacks during downswings in the business cycle, right?”

Partner: “Yes.”

Q: “But in the most recent economic collapse, your firm’s owners — the equity partners — bore very little of that risk, didn’t they?”

A: “I don’t agree. Even the Am Law data show otherwise.”

Q: “Let’s take a look. Am Law reported Dechert’s average equity partner earnings went from an all-time high of $2.35 million in 2007 to $2.145 million in 2008. Is that what you’re referring to?”

Partner: “That’s a decline of almost 9%!”

Q: “A decline to levels that remain astronomical, right?”

Partner: “Everything is relative. 2009 was even worse.”

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 7

Posted on April 13, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

With the added context of David Brooks’ article on leadership, “The Humble Hound,” (NY Times, April 9, 2010) (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/opinion/09brooks.html), we resume the imaginary cross-examination of a very real senior partner profiled in “Not Done Yet” (ABA Journal, April 2010) (http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/not_done_yet)

Partner: “If you’re asking me whether we have very talented attorneys who don’t progress to equity partnership, my answer is yes.”

Q: “Compared to you and those who rose those through the ranks with you, it’s a lot of very talented attorneys, isn’t it?”

Partner: “Sure.'”

Q: “That’s because today’s big firm business model requires leverage — lots of non-equity attorneys and other time-billers for every equity partner, right?”

Partner: “Look, big law firms have become businesses. I didn’t make it that way and I can’t ignore the marketplace. If we don’t maintain high equity partner profits through appropriate leverage ratios and other means, we’ll lose our ability to attract and retain the best people. If that happens, the entire institution will be at risk and we’ll endanger the jobs of everyone who works there. It’s called free market capitalism and I didn’t invent it.”

Q: “You didn’t invent the phrase, ‘pulling up the ladder,’ either, did you?”

AND HUBRIS, too

Posted on April 12, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

David Brooks is right on this one — and the legal profession is Exhibit A.

Before resuming my imagined cross-examination of a distressingly real biglaw senior partner in “PUZZLE PIECES,” I want to pause on Brooks’ April 9 NY Times column. He makes my point in a broader context: the pervasive absence of thoughtful reflection that passes for leadership is not unique to big law firms.

Looking at corporate America, he asks, “Who’s in charge?”

Then he answers his own question: “They are superconfident, forceful and charismatic.”

To these characteristics, I would add another: hubris.

Having navigated internal politics to reach the pinnacle of power in their organizations, they don’t revisit their guiding principles. Armed with an MBA (or at least, the equivalent mentality of misguided metrics), they validate their governance using the same criteria that swept them to the top.

As a result, attorneys who enjoyed every advantage as they rose through the ranks have now tied themselves to a mypoic view that encourages them to pull up the ladder on their kids’ generation. Compared to the growing national debt that preoccupies many with concern for our progeny’s well-being, baby boomer greed is wreaking far more enduring havoc.

Brooks argues in favor of an alternative style: the humble hound — a leader who combines “extreme personal humility with intense professional will” and “thinks less about her mental strengths than about her weaknesses…She understands she is too quick to grasp pseudo-ojective models and confident projections that give the illusion of control.”

To save them from themselves, big law firms need more such leaders. But who will mentor candidates through the daunting journey into equity partnerships and then upward?

Certainly not 64-year-old senior partners who don’t think about their own retirements until they receive lists of firm nominees for their management committees, only to find that because of advancing age their names aren’t on them.

What can you say about a leader for whom the approach of a 65th birthday comes as a surprise?

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 6

Posted on April 11, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

Q: “OK, let’s get specific. Let’s talk about you. Your path to the top of your firm was a lot easier than it is for new associates today, right?”

Partner: “I don’t accept that. We’re a meritocracy. Cream rises to the top.”

Q: “Just because cream rises to the top doesn’t mean you skim all of it off, does it?”

Partner: “That’s clever, but what’s your point?”

Q: “Are you saying that the path to equity partnership at your firm is no more difficult now than it was for you?”

Partner: “I don’t think about it that way.”

Q: “I’m sure you don’t. But I’m asking you to think about it that way now. According to Am Law, in 1995 your firm had 315 lawyers of whom 132 — more than 40% — were equity partners, right?”

Partner: “That’s what it reported.”

Q: “In Feburary 2010, American Lawyer reported that your firm ended 2009 with more than double that number of lawyers — almost 800 in all. But during that 14-year period, the number of equity partners rose by a measly 17 — to only 149 , right?”

Partner: “You’ve posed a compound question, but what’s your point?”

Q: “When you’re averaging only one additional equity partner per year on a net basis, every associate in an incoming class of 20, 30 or even more law school graduates faces pretty daunting odds against success, correct?”

Partner: “The best will still make it.”

Q: “And if your firm wants to preserve its equity partners’ multi-million dollar incomes, some highly capable attorneys — people good enough to have advanced if they’d been in your demographic group 30 years ago — won’t capture the brass ring of equity partnership today, will they?”

Partner: “We’ll always have room for the best.”

Q: “Your Honor, I move to strike the witness’ last answer as non-responsive.”

THE COURT: “Motion granted. The witness is instructed to answer the question.”

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 5

Posted on April 9, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

Q: “According to Am Law, in a dozen years, your firm’s average equity partner profits soared by $2 million — from about $350,000 in 1995 to $2,350,000 in 2007, right?”

Partner: “That’s what they published.”

Q: “In 2007, you personally were at the top of the equity partnership, weren’t you?”

Partner: “I’m not going to apologize for success.”

Q: “I haven’t asked you to apologize yet, have I?”

Partner: “No.”

Q: “The point is: you were making a lot of money in 2007 when it first hit you that your 65th birthday was approaching, right?

Partner: “Yes.”

Q: “Millions of dollars a year?”

Partner: “Yes.”

Q: “That amount dwarfed what your mentors at the firm made 20 or more years earlier, didn’t it?”

Partner: “Sure. So what? All well-run big firms became more lucrative over the past two decades.”

Q: “But not everyone in those firms — or yours — benefitted, did they?”

Partner: “Your question is too vague. You’ll have to be more specific.”

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 4

Posted on April 8, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

[An imaginary cross-examination of the 67-year-old Dechert partner profiled in “Not Done Yet” continues…]

Q: “What about money?”

Partner: “What about it?”

Q: “Do you think your equity partner income made you reluctant to admit — even to yourself — that someday you’d have to retire from your firm?”

Partner: “I don’t know why it would. Wealth creates options.”

Q: “Perhaps. Or maybe it fuels the lesser angels of our nature. Forty years ago, you didn’t become a lawyer because you thought it would make you rich, did you?”

Partner: “No. As I told the ABA reporter, early American lawyers such as Daniel Webster and Henry Clay inspired me.”

Q: “When you started your career in the early 1970s, no one talked much about billable hours, did they?”

Partner: “No.”

Q: “Or partner leverage?”

Partner: “Nope.”

Q: “Or other law firms’ average equity profits per partner?”

Partner: “How much money people made was not the subject of polite conversation. There’s more information today.”

Q: “I take it that you’re referring to the Am Law 100. What’s that?”

Partner: “The annual listing of the nation’s largest law firms.”

Q: “Do you remember when the first list appeared?”

Partner: “Sometime in the 1980’s, wasn’t it?”

Q: “1985; it started as the Am Law 50. Ten years later — in 1995 — what did Am Law report the total number of lawyers in your firm to be?”

Partner: “Probably around 300.”

Q: “You’re close. 315. How many of those were equity partners?”

Partner: “I don’t recall.”

Q: “Let me refresh your recollection. The July/August 1996 issue of American Lawyer says you had 132 equity partners — more than 40% of your firm’s attorneys. Do you know what Am Law said Dechert’s average equity partner profits were in 1995?”

Partner: “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

Q: “$345,000 in 1995. Do you know what Am Law reported your firm’s average equity partner income to be a dozen years later — in 2007 –when you had the revelation that, alas, you were getting older?”

Partner: “Go ahead.”

Q: “$2.35 million.”

Pause.

Q: “Let’s talk about how that happened.”

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 3

Posted on April 7, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

As he himself described it, one of the top partners at Dechert LLP was 64 years old when he first realized that on his next birthday he’d turn 65. Now 67, he’s quoted in “Not Done Yet”:

“It made me start to think, ‘I’m in the traditional retirement zone without having spent one day thinking about it.’…Every time I set a timetable for a decision, I move it.”

That’s a witness statement I’d like to cross-examine — even if only in my dreams.

Q: “You’re an intelligent, accomplished attorney at one of the nation’s most prestigious firms, aren’t you?”

Partner: “I suppose you could say that.”

Q: “Don’t be modest. You have Ivy League undergraduate and law degrees sandwiched around an MBA, right?”

Partner: “Yes.”

Q: “You’re a senior partner at one of the nation’s elite firms — a group known as the Am Law 100, right?”

Partner: “Yes.”

Q: “You say that you didn’t think about retirement for a single day until you were 64?”

Partner: “Right.”

Q: “The light dawned when a list of nominees for the firm’s policy committee circulated and you saw that your name wasn’t on it, right?”

Partner: “That’s correct.”

Q: “You must have been pretty busy worrying about other things?”

Partner: “I’ve cultivated a very demanding practice. Law has become a 24/7 job.”

Q: “In your case, the job was so demanding that it completely distracted you from any awareness that you were getting older, is that what you’re saying?”

Partner: “Well…”

Q: “Before you answer, let me ask if you think anything else might have been contributing to your denial of the inevitable?”

Partner: “What do you mean?”

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 2

Posted on April 6, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

Tomorrow, I’ll return to the first of two articles that propelled me to launch this blog with “PUZZLE PIECES.” First up is “Not Done Yet,” (ABA Journal, April 2010 http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/not_done_yet/), about an aging big law firm partner who approached traditional retirement age only to have his own mortality surprise him.

Born just a few years before the beginning of a baby boomer generation that seemed always to have its way, he’s not alone in pondering the question: “Now what?” In fact, there are one-quarter million attorneys over 55 behind him.

But knowing his answer is less important than understanding the path that has taken him and many others to their current predicaments. Even more important are the implications for those now seeking an opportunity to get into that game.

WHY LISTEN TO ME?

Posted on April 5, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

Before spending your most precious commodity — your time — reading what I have to say, you’re entitled to enough information about me to decide whether my words matter.

The title of this blog is no accident, but I’m not a bitter online screamer who uses internet access as a substitute for anger management classes. Born into a working class family during the middle of the baby boom, I eventually surprised myself when I wound up at Harvard Law School and, immediately after graduation, one of the country’s biggest law firms. “Big” meant something different in those days; I was lawyer number 150 or so.

My job afforded me great opportunities to do what I enjoyed, gave me a sense of personal autonomy, and provided my family with financial security. Still, as demanding as it was, being a lawyer never defined me exclusively. When I wasn’t out-of-town trying cases, I was home for dinner. I coached all of my kids’ little league and girls’ softball teams and am still married to my first wife. All of our adult children are making the world a better place.

I don’t take credit for all of the good things that have happened in my life, nor can I pretend that my priorities are right for everyone. But my approach helped to make me part of an increasingly rare breed: attorneys who are satisfied with their careers and happy with their lives.

Retirement in my early-50’s hasn’t dimmed my outlook or diminished my enthusiasm, but distance has sharpened my perspective on how the legal profession has changed. For those now entering it, career satisfaction seems to be more and more elusive. The reasons become clearer to me every day.

Even more importantly, they have a universal application that goes far beyond the law.

More about that in the days ahead.

PUZZLE PIECES

Posted on April 3, 2010 by thebellyofthebeast

Connections are not always obvious.

In a single 24-hour period last week, two seemingly unrelated articles appeared in national publications. They addressed opposite ends of the legal profession’s pipeline: entry and exit.

An April 1, 2010 report in the New York Times, “At Law Firms, Reconsidering the Model for Associates’ Pay,” described a growing phenomenon that should interest all prospective lawyers and many others. The essential point: big law firms (where most graduates think they want to begin their legal careers) are looking for ways to pay their new associates less.

A day later, the April issue of the ABA Journal included “Not Done Yet: If 65 is the new 50, how will baby boomers remake retirement?” It described aging big firm attorneys who were approaching (or had already passed) the traditional retirement age.

In an upcoming series of posts, I’ll describe the profound connections between these two articles in the context of the profession’s recent trends. But before that, we’ll continue next time with some background information about me so readers can assess whether I have anything useful to offer them.

For starters, let me admit that for 30 years I was a litigator at a large law firm.

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The Belly of the Beast

Steven J. Harper, Esq.

Tag Archives: lawyers

THEY’RE NOT ENTITLED TO ME

WHO REMEMBERS FINLEY KUMBLE?

KEEP FEEDING PROFITS THE BEAST. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

SOLVING THE BIGLAW MYSTERY OF GROWING CAREER DISSATISFACTION

BIGLAW’S GLASS IS 44% FULL

ARE THE U.S. NEWS RANKINGS BIGLAW’S BLACK SWAN?

BIGLAW AND THE BLACK SWAN

ALONG CAME LAW FIRM MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS

OUTSOURCING: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW AND IMPROVED BIGLAW BUSINESS MODEL?

MIRED IN METRICS? HAVE SOME MORE!

WHO’S LAZY?

FOR BIGLAW SUMMER ASSOCIATES ONLY…

A BETTER ALTERNATIVE OR A LEAP FROM THE FRYING PAN?

IT’S NOT JUST ME

EARLY RETURNS

WHEN IS BAD NEWS REALLY GOOD NEWS IN DISGUISE?

WILL ANYONE NOTICE ON APRIL 27?

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 12

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 10

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 9

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 8

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 7

AND HUBRIS, too

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 6

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 5

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 4

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 3

PUZZLE PIECES – Part 2

WHY LISTEN TO ME?

PUZZLE PIECES

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