Tag Archive: Biz

I’m really tired, a frequent refrain today

“I am really tired, and want to retire.”  But, retirement is out of reach for many lawyers after their homes and retirement plans took heavy hits over the last few years. “Business purgatory” is how one phrased it.

Delays in retirement are now common, with 38% in one survey saying their retirement will be at least 5 years later than expected. The income stream for many lawyers comes from their law practice. Selling, closing or merging the practice are options, but none are likely to provide the same income stream the lawyer is accustomed to receiving.

Unless the lawyer is willing to adjust one’s life style, he will remain in practice, working to build up the practice further in order to reap the rewards needed to fund retirement.


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Legacy = Goodwill

I have been getting more calls from lawyers wanting to retire, wanting to sell their law practices. As a result, I started writing a new book. I just finished Life After Law: What Will You Do With the Rest of Your Life?  It is being edited now and will be available for sale in October.

As a result, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the definition of Goodwill, the primary asset a lawyer has to sell. And though it is not consistent with the accounting profession’s definition, I have come upon a new definition that I believe is more meaningful to the average lawyer, whether buying or selling:

Goodwill can be defined as legacy … it’s your legacy that you’re passing along to others … It’s your reputation, your phone number, your system and way of doing business, all the intangible elements that made you successful and provides you, the selling lawyer, with what to sell … The better is your reputation, the more value your law practice will have.


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Liars cannot be rehabilitated but drunks can

Can one ever be rehabilitated from moral turpitude?

Remember Stephen Glass? He was the young journalist (in his 20’s) who lied and fabricated news stories. He was found out, disgraced and fired, never again to be hired as a journalist. A movie was made of his escapades, Shattered Glass. Fast forward through psychoanalysis, moving from New York to California, studying law, writing a successful  book about journalism and “growing up.”

He went to law school, clerked for two federal judges, and interned in a law firm. He applied to the New York Bar, but withdrew his application when he learned that he would be rejected on moral turpitude grounds. He has now applied for admission to the California Bar. He worked for a California personal injury lawyer. Each of his employers has supported his application.

Despite his literary success, his scholastic achievement, and his apprenticeship in the law … and the passage of more than 10 years since his misdeeds, the State Bar of California opposes his admission to the Bar, as did New York. He pursued, however, and the matter is now before the California Supreme Court, after a 10 day confidential bar trial.

The real question is whether Glass is rehabilitated. If you defile one profession (journalism), are you forever tainted thereafter? Is our “penal” system meant for retribution or rehabilitation? We allow lawyers who have stolen from trust accounts because of alcoholism and drug addiction (diseases) to reenter the practice of law. Is there a different standard here? Not being privy to the trial testimony, one can only wonder why the Bar is so adamant in its position, given the support for Glass that is public.

We don’t have a really good definition of moral turpitude beyond platitudes; it’s on a case by case basis. And we don’t have a really good definition of rehabilitation; again, this is on a case by case basis. But, Glass’ experience in the legal community suggests that he has learned his lesson … a particularly important lesson when one is an officer of the court and the court relies on attorneys’ assertions representing clients.

Perhaps I am a bit cynical here. But, I wonder why the Bar is so harsh on Glass when we all can call out the names of lawyers who misquote case citations in briefs and otherwise misrepresent to the court in order to advance their position. Yet, these lawyers are seldom reprimanded, let alone disbarred. And in the field of sport, we know athletes “cheat” in order to better their chances of winning a race, often with impunity. Yet, here we have a person who has “paid a high price” for his cheating, has done what he could to rehabilitate himself, and yet is being denied the license of his new chosen profession.

Why is it that drunks and alcoholics can be considered rehabilitated even when they have stolen from their clients trust accounts or have been involved with terrible accidents, sometimes causing death to their victims? But, liars? Liars who have not caused anyone physical injury? With due respect to the Bar of which I am a member, Glass did not commit a heinous crime and should be given another chance.


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Remembering a major event – and training for a repeat!

Today, I realized that it is the 10 year anniversary of my riding up one of the most famous mountains in the world, Alpe d’Huez!

I rode a major mountain here in California earlier in the year, Mt. Figueroa about 1/2 hour north of Santa Barbara. It is the same mountain climb that many professional cyclists ride in the early months of the year to train for the Tour d’France and other major races. When I reached the top, the coaches at CTS Training (Chris Carmichael, then the coach of Lance Armstrong) assured me that this climb confirmed that I could climb any mountain in France. Well, in some disbelief, I made reservations the following week to go to France in July 2002.  And I did climb several of the other major climbs in that year’s Tour, as well.

It’s now 10 years later; time has taken its toll. But, I did start training to climb Mt. Fig. again this year. Wish me luck, though I’ll need more than that …

What’s in your bucket list? What are you doing to achieve your goals?


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Public Justice versus Private Judges

Justice should be free. However, the State of California has just cut the budget of its court system by more than $500 million!  Litigants will be left to fend for themselves.  One blogger suggests that private judges are not expensive when comparing the speed of justice in a private matter with the delays and increased costs of the public judicial system. 

In the 1960s and 1970s, the State of California began changes to its pension system, which culminated in a major change in 1994.  Judges elected or appointed before that year could with qualifications retire as early as age 60 at 75% of salary, but if they stayed on the bench after age 65 the percentage went down.  Judges who assumed their jobs after 1994 got a further reduction. Many of these judges found it more advantageous to retire and hire themselves out as private judges. Thus began the two-tier system of justice, one for the rich who could afford to move quickly with a private judge, and the other for everyone else.

The recent budget cut further exacerbates the problem by giving incentives to even more people (who can afford it) to enter into the private judging world … a boon for them and a catastrophe for the average citizen with an average matter who can’t afford the added expenses of a private judge.

Our Constitution says everyone is entitled to right to counsel. In at least one instance, this applies to civil matters as well as criminal matters. Shouldn’t this right also include that everyone is entitled to the right to be judged by a competent and objective individual, paid by the state?  Private judging sounds too much like the old vigilante justice.  Am I unfair when I ask whether these judges will be influenced by which lawyers use their services more? If this is a question raised in my mind, I wonder what the litigants might wonder …. And that is not how justice ought to be delivered or viewed. 

As a postscript, there are already those who predict that the national system of health care under the now-validated Affordable Care Act will lead certain physicians to opt out of the system and care only for wealthy individuals who can afford them.  Would such doctors refuse to see or treat a patient who could not demonstrate the required level of net worth? 

Lincoln famously observed that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Ultimately the same can be said about a society divided against itself, between those who can pay and those who can’t.


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Innovation Does Not Occur in a Year

Getting paid by the hour stresses us, according to Frank Partnoy. He says that "(i)nnovation doesn’t occur in a year or a quarter—and certainly not an hour. So why measure work in too-brief increments?"

This is a novel rationale for moving toward the fixed or flat fee billing concept and away from hourly billing. During the 25 years of my law practice, I remember how stressed I was, always seeking to make sure that I had accounted for my time … and correctly billing my clients. During the last 23 years of coaching and consulting …. and only flat/fixed fee billing, I’m focused on my clients’ condition and how I can improve it, not on how much time it takes me to do so. As Partnoy says, "Clocks and calendars are not going to change — so it is up to us to try to get off the clock, especially when we find ourselves watching it." (See Parnoy’s "Wait: The Art and Science of Delay.")


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