Years ago, I wrote that new lawyers preferred to work for law firms that invested in their training so that they could become better lawyers. Nah, the response was: They want the money. I responded that when you get $100,000 plus as a newly minted lawyer, the money is good, but secondary. And, of course, today just having a job is sufficient. We won’t even talk about the money, even for the top graduates.
A USA Today Snapshot tells us that 61% of those asked prefer managers who invest in the professional development … improved skills is the ladder to improvement, success and higher status in the firm.
My own daughter, in a different field, accepted a position with an organization offering $10,000 less to start. Why? Because of the prestige and teaching skills of that operation. Today, she is at the top of her field as a result. Attitudes haven’t changed that much among today’s young.
You’ve collected the data and learned about your market and now you want to raise your fee. Ed shares some advice on when you might consider raising your fee.
The Wall Street Journal carried a column on November 11, 2013, “Big Law Mergers Questioned," that contained two blinding glimpses of the obvious – one explicit, one implicit.The explicit one was straightforward, yet seemed to elude the understanding of the writer:that in pursuing mergers to create ever-bigger organizations, law firms are simply following the paths of their clients.We saw this in the 1930s and 1940s and later when unions became larger in order to do battle with management. Today law firms are combining in order to be more respected, better received, and perceived as players in the corporate world. Small law firms supposedly can’t play in the same ballpark as a very large customer (corporate America).
Does merging law firms to make them bigger actually make them better?The answer is “yes” only when the parties have thought through what they want to accomplish and what synergies exist between them.One has to be old enough to recall that corporate America once thought that “bigger was better” when viewing itself.Then these conglomerates seemed to collapse of their own weight. The phrase, “getting back to core competencies,” became the watchword and large enterprises began breaking up into smaller units.
That’s where we get the second “blinding glimpse” – the smallest unit in a law firm is the lawyer. And corporate client after corporate client in the Journal article said that the individual lawyer is most important to them. “We hire lawyers, not law firms,” the GC of Hewlett Packard said flatly. There is some disagreement over this assertion.
Theoretically teams institutionalize the work done for a given client as they involve other firm lawyers in the delivery of legal services, even if one lawyer remains the client’s primary contact. But in a megafirm of thousands of lawyers, team members are interchangeable.
When you have a problem with your car, do you contact GM or Toyota headquarters, or the friendly mechanic at your neighborhood garage?Even neighborhood garages grow, but their size is infinitesimal compared to GM or Toyota. There is a limit to "bigger is better" beyond which "core competencies" begin to falter. Firms are kidding themselves if they think bigger by itself makes them better. And clients, often wanting to be close to the center of the law firm, will still engage a smaller, but yet large (regional) law firm.
The Wall Street Journal, October 28, 2013, published some interesting statistics;
To meet basic retirement needs, one needs to save 8 to 11 times salary by the age of 67; if your annual income is $100,000, you should have saved a minimum of $800,000 by the time of retirement.
There are a number of “disconnects” in the statistics. For example,
• 69% of the people surveyed said they expect to work for pay after retirement; yet, only 25% do.
• Only 46% of retirees will be able to afford their essential needs in retirement; yet 78% of those surveyed expect to be happy in retirement.
• Of workers 55+ years of age, 54% said they thought they’d need $250,000, exclusive of house and pension, for retirement. Only 24%, however, said they had that. Sadly, about 1/3 of this group had less than $10,000 saved.
• Only 38% believe they will be able to afford “extras” (like travel) in retirement; yet 72% believe their dream retirement includes taking really nice vacations.
• 62% say they’ve done everything they need to do to prepare for retirement; yet 68% say they expect to work after they retire.
• Before retiring, when asked, only 29% said they were very confident of attaining paid employment once retired, 45% were somewhat confident. But, after retiring, only 7% said they were very confident and 21% said they were somewhat confident of finding paid employment.
Other thoughts:
Retirement age has increased since the 1990s, 57 years of age in 1993. Now, we’re at least 66 years of age. The later retirement age continues to build the nest egg … and one’s emotional health seems to be better with the later retirement age.
On retiring at the age of 65 today, the average life expectancy is another 19 years, meaning one may live 1/4 of one’s life in retirement. Hence, the title of my latest book, Life After Law: What Will You Do With the Next 6,000 Days? Planning for the “second season” is not something to be taken lightly.
For the 2013 academic year, law school admissions were headed for a 30-year low, a decline driven by student worries about rising tuition, debt load and unemployment after graduation. Potential law students increasingly understand that today it is a fool’s gamble to spend many thousands of dollars in the hope of getting a well-paying job at the end of three years, and as they pursue other careers the legal profession will shrink.
Demographics present another way to reduce the supply of lawyers. There are more than 1.2 million lawyers in the United States, at least half of them sole practitioners and some 400,000 poised to retire by the year 2020. To suggest that this latter group should be treated differently from any other group in the organized bar would create allegations of ageism and prohibited discrimination. However, a metric that is applicable to all lawyers, such as “competence in professional skills,” is safer ground. Of course, if this metric also achieves the basic goal of reducing the number of lawyers, by implying that older lawyers are less competent to serve clients, so much the better.
The problem with this metric is that it is never applied uniformly. If we look at new lawyers, those who have been admitted to practice for three years or less, there will undoubtedly be many who are not “competent,” despite the fact that they have passed the bar exam. What is the competence metric for “older” lawyers? Do they have to pass another bar exam? If yes why should age be the factor that determines whether they have to take a new examination? If not, what might it be? There is no examination at anywhere in the time spectrum of a lawyer’s career that requires such an examination.
It is the rare lawyer who has not thought at some point, “My opponent is not very good.” Often this is another way of saying, “My opponent doesn’t seem very competent.” This is impressionistic only, but to be valid it must be applied throughout the entire career life cycle.
It is not accurate to automatically assume that older lawyers are more careless, have too many distractions and make too many errors leading to discipline.Young lawyers are closer to the teaching of the rules of professional conduct than are the older lawyers. But, that does not assure that all younger lawyers are competent to offer the advice they’re asked for … and, with MCLE, older lawyers generally keep their skills up. Regardless of lawyers’ ages, the majority of the complaints against the profession relate to careless dealings with clients… Age is not a determining factor in such a scenario.
Should the merger take place between Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe and Pillbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, there will be a reordering of the top U.S. law firms. The BCS rankings reorder every week after the Saturday college football results are known. So, too, do the BigLaw rankings change every time there is a major merger.
Will this merger succeed where others have failed? Quite possibly. The positives are that both are West Coast based. That means their cultures are more closely aligned than if they had routes on opposite parts of the country. And, I suspect that the top management of both firms, each of which are very capable, understand that integration of the two firms is essential to their success … and thus more likely to pay attention to this process. And, from a marketing perspective, the new firm will have a dominant position in Silicon Valley, a major source of future revenue.
But there are still risks. Power struggles and cultural clashes are not unknown for combining large organizations. Aligning their compensation systems, always a key element, may or may not present a hurdle. Even if they succeed, there are likely to be some break-offs or departures of significance. Despite “advanced merger talks,” the deal is not done until done … Much can happen between now and then.
When I was in my undergraduate studies, I realized that there were two types of learning. There were those who were naturally brilliant and could play during the semester, “cramming” or studying only before exams; they did quite well. Then, there were those of us who required continuous study throughout the year in addition to focused study at the end, before exams. I used to call the latter type of learning “seat power.” They, likewise, did quite well; they just required more effort.
Daniel Goleman (author of the best-selling Emotional Intelligence) has written a new book entitled Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. Goleman’s “focus” is the equivalent of my “seat power.” In other words, when you remain in your seat, focused on the task in front of you, you are more likely to succeed in accomplishing that particular goal or task then you would otherwise be.
His premise is that our ability to block out the massive digital distractions is reduced by the “cognitive exhaustion” those distractions cause. Now I know why I am fatigued when I all-too- frequently review the hundreds of email (most of which have to be deleted) that enter into my system on a daily basis.
In other words, we must focus our energies, ignore the many digital images that distract us, and complete one task at a time. This reminds me of an earlier blog post I wrote concerning multitasking. The reality is that we cannot multitask although we do many things sequentially. When we allow ourselves to “multitask” (or think we are), we are allowing ourselves to be digitally distracted and cognitively exhausted.
It is my intent to focus more specifically on the tasks at hand, in line with my priorities list, without so much reference to email and other digital distractions; by taking greater control of myself, I look forward to accomplishing more – being more successful – with less fatigue.
Most people will agree that there are too many lawyers, an oversupply. (Parenthetically, I disagree; it seems to me that there is a dislocation between the supply and the demand for legal services, a situation that the organized bar has never been able to reconcile with successfully.) But I digress.
Assuming, for the moment, that there is an oversupply of lawyers, why should we care? Would that not mean the fees for legal services would come down? Would it not be best to let the marketplace handle supply and demand?
But, If the Bar wants to reign in the supply, how could they? Of course, get rid of some of the lawyers. (Making admission to the organized bar is another way, longer term. Economics seem to be handling this quite nicely, thank you. Law school admissions are down by 10 to 15%. Applications hit a 30 year low. Potential law students understand that spending many thousands of dollars to take the gamble that they will not be able to get a well-paying job at the end of three years is a fool’s gamble.)
Economics, once again, helps us answer the question of how to reduce the supply. There are more than 1 million lawyers in the United States. Of this group, it has been estimated that at least one half of this group are sole practitioners. Another statistic suggests that at least 400,000 lawyers will retire by the year 2020.
If we look at this latter group, and suggest that we treat it any differently than any other group in the organized bar, we would be accused of ageism, and prohibited discrimination. However, if we come up with a metric that is applicable to all lawyers, such as “competence,” then we are safe. Of course, if this metric also achieves our basic goal of reducing the number of lawyers available to serve clients, so much the better.
But, this metric is never applied uniformly. If we look at new lawyers, those who have been admitted to practice for three years or less, I am sure we will find many who are not “competent,” despite the fact that they have passed the bar exam. How many times have "mature" lawyers said, mostly to themselves, that they were happy that they were not the client "back then," that they didn’t know enough to be really competent to handle the matter they did …. that they learned "on the job."
What is the metric for “older” lawyers? Do they have to pass another bar exam? If yes why should age be the factor that determines whether they have to take a new examination? If not, what might it be? Nowhere in the time spectrum of a lawyer’s career is there a requirement for such an examination.
How many times have you, as an adversary, said to yourself my opponent is not very good? In fact, how many times have you said my opponent is not “competent?” Until the appropriate metric can be accepted and applied throughout the entire career life cycle, it seems to this writer that the real focus should be on meeting the needs of our clients who are not served or who are under-served, making sure that all lawyers, young and old alike, are “competent” and move away from even the appearance of ageism.
