The Young Texas Lawyer

Many young attorneys find themselves in a never ending sweatshop of document review, receiving a trite $30 an hour to do work that a client is paying the firm over a $100 an hour for. This results in a great profit margin for both the legal recruiting firm that hires the contract attorneys and the law firm billing out their work to the client. They both play as the ultimate middle man. The law firm pays the recruiting firm and the recruiting firm pays the attorneys. Meanwhile, the recruiting firm is charging extra to the law firm and the law firm is charging extra to the client. Big profits for all except the contract attorney making $30 an hour with no benefits and an insurmountable level of student loan debt.

A far more troubling problem is that most of the attorneys doing the document review often wonder if their services are even necessary. Thus, brings up the issue of sales and its role in the legal industry. If the ultimate goal is profits and margin, then there are some scary ways to accomplish that, as Brian Baxter of The American Lawyer points out in his article, The Fine Art of Overbilling. A client may not need a service, but perhaps the right partner can convince them otherwise. Just like the mechanic that successfully adds a whole host of unnecessary and often expensive services to every oil change customer that walks through the door.

There is an inherint conflict of interest for an attorney that could do more work, but can provide excellent legal services without it. Is being over prepared unethical when there is a cost involved? If a partner asks you to do work a secretary can easily handle and charges the client, isn’t that over billing? If you question the value of your work and the hours you are billing for it, think about the client paying the bill and you’ll have a better chance of finding the elusive balance between being prepared and being efficient.

Bruce MacEwen does a great job of explaining the economics of law firm layoffs and some alternatives. Since you have the majority of law firm associates complaining about a lack of work life balance then start a program that allows them to reduce their pay according to reduced billable hour requirements. After all, most firms don’t have a lot of work to go around and associates are having a hard time meeting their requirements. This solves the problem of layoffs, results in a happier workforce, and would make the firm that implements such a policy a pioneer of sorts in the legal industry.

Law firms seem to forget that the product they are peddling is their associates’ time. That’s why they only accept the best and the brightest. When a client asks, “Why am I paying $200 an hour for this 25 year old to review my documents when I have plenty of 25 year-olds that work for me at $15 an hour?” – the firm can hand the client a top notch associate’s resume and merely say “this is why.” If your product is your people then it makes sense to spend some time and money on product development to keep your people happy. Clients are important to give the partners billable work, but what good is work if you have no happy or competent associates to do it.

U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent of the Southern District of Texas pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice today in Houston. After his plea, Kent anounced that he would be “retiring” from the bench. Click here to read the full story at Texas Lawyer.

As bar preparation season starts up this February and again in the summer, the number of lenders willing to provide private loans to the jobless cash strapped exam takers is dwindling. The Recorder points out that there are only four lenders left in the market, whereas in 2007 there were 19. The cost of becoming a lawyer keeps going up, and a lack of loans and jobs makes the profession even less desirable to outsiders. Hopefully it all leads to less lawyers and more of an AMA model of accreditation.

Yesterday was a dark day for those employed by big law firms all over the country. The unofficial count from Above the Law is 828, Law.com has the number at “almost 800,” and the Wall Street Journal is asking if it is “the darkest day ever for big law firms.” Regardless of the eventual number, things are going to get worse according to industry insider Peter Zeughauser. “There will be more, materially more. I’m aware of some big ones coming up.”

An already resume saturated market is about to have more paper added to the stack. The business model for the super firm might be on life support, but perhaps this is an opportunity for the far more nimble small and mid-size firms to step up. The Titanic couldn’t turn quick enough to miss an iceberg, but I guarantee you that a speedboat could have.

Paul Lippe of The American Lawyer makes a bold prediction for the future of the leverage model, it’s over. It is a must read, if for nothing else, to get a brief history on how associate salaries sky rocketed and where the current law firm business model came from. It’s also worth reading American Lawyer’s “Past the Tipping Point.”

As Above the Law first reported, Locke, Lord, Bissell, and Liddell is “now required to use Loislaw instead of Lexis or Westlaw for certain things.” Loislaw is a much cheaper alternative to Lexis and Westlaw. Many associates at smaller firms have had to deal with little to no budget for legal research and it seems as though the big firms are not far behind.

It makes total business and economic sense to for such a policy, but it makes you wonder why they waited until now to start it. If you could get the same information for less money then why not pass savings along sooner. Apparently, the firms Houston office was ahead of the curve. According to the LLB&L memo, “the Houston office has been using this service for several years for both non-billable and billable research whenever possible.” Continue reading to see the full memo.

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Should you accept a Facebook friend request from a partner, senior associate, or your boss? The answer isn’t as simple as you would hope, but Corporette.com has an interesting take on the situation. The really helpful information is in the comments section and has some great tips for making sure your personal life stays personal.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia fired back, “that’s a nasty, impolite question,” to a 20-year-old political science major after she stood up in a room filled with 750 of West Palm Beach’s most powerful people, and asked if the U.S. Supreme Court’s policy to not allow cameras in the court was vitiated by the fact that the court hearings are open, transcripts are public, and the justices go “out on book tours.” Scalia was partly at the event to promote his new book, co-authored by Dallas’ Bryan Garner. Vitiated, great word.

vi⋅ti⋅ate
[vish-ee-eyt]
-verb (used with object), -at⋅ed, -at⋅ing.
1. to impair the quality of; make faulty; spoil.
2. to impair or weaken the effectiveness of.
3. to debase; corrupt; pervert.
4. to make legally defective or invalid.

Source: The Random House Dictionary (2006)

Read the full Law.com article here.

The National Law Journal has a slightly ill-conceived message for young attorneys, “Self-Marketing is Key to Being a Top Lawyer.” Perhaps self-marketing is a key to moving up the corporate ladder or becoming a rainmaker, but it is by no means a requirement for being a “top lawyer.” To make such a claim leads to the lawyer jokes and fuels the stereotypes that most attorneys work their entire careers to disprove. A key to being a top lawyer is more about learning the law and how to operate as a client serving professional than it is about self promotion. The following paragraph stood out as exceptionally baffling:

Top lawyers know that, while most of their colleagues look forward to relaxing at home at the end of the day, the highest-achieving ones do not focus on when one day ends and another begins. They look forward to the firm reception or foundation meeting at night because they are acutely aware that a little extra involvement is what moves the ordinarily competent attorney into the extraordinary, top attorney column. Even when not working, the top attorneys remain available and on call, considering the interests of their employers and communities at all times.

These are great tips to becoming a top employee, but a top lawyer they do not make. The article goes on for almost 800 words about what it takes to be a “top lawyer,” yet does not mention the word client once. Concentrate on learning your area of the law, produce excellent work product, make those above you look good, and above all else, exceed your client’s expectations. If you follow those steps then you won’t need to market yourself, those around you will.