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.
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.
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?
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.
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.")
Recently my article about Who Sets The Lawyer Fees was used as a guest blog by Alan Weiss. The blog discusses the recent Wall Street Journal article about the Justice Department’s attempt to control fees that the bankruptcy lawyers seek, and the possibility that the U.S. Trustee Program may now be entering the fray.
In case you missed it, here’s the link to Alan’s blog: bit.ly/KoDDLx
In the Wall Street Journal, staff writer, Jacqueline Palank discusses the Justice Department’s attempt to control fees that bankruptcy lawyers seek. Creditors and employees may, at times, be a bit disgruntled by such fees. So, now, the U.S. Trustee Program appears to be entering the fray.
Before going further, it should be noted that i) any fee sought by an attorney must first be approved by the client going into bankruptcy; ii) the fee cannot be paid before a Bankruptcy Court Judge approves the fee request; iii) the legal fees most often are a pittance compared to the debts of the company and thus have little or no impact on either the creditors or the employees. In fact, the current proposal is limited to companies whose assets and debts exceed $50 million, hardly your “normal” bankruptcy.
The only reason for focusing on the legal fees is that this is a topic that makes good reading in the tabloids, including the WSJ. While the quoted hourly rate received by some attorneys seems high, it is insignificant in comparison to the compensation received by incompetent CEOs and others in the C-suite offices. Why don’t the tabloids focus on the cause of the bankruptcy? Why not focus on the compensation of the management team, which often is at astronomically higher multiples compared the lowest paid employees of the company? Why not seek redress against the management that is responsible for bringing the company to its knees? Although this focus may have more positive economic impact, it clearly is not sexy enough to sell many papers.
The U.S. Trustee is proposing, according to the writer, several new approaches to control lawyers’ fees, including:
•Though the lawyer applicant must disclose his/her hourly rate now, the Justice Department wants the lawyer to disclose the lowest, highest and average hourly rates the law firm charges in all its matters.
•The Department wants the lawyer applicant to create and disclose to the Court a budget for legal expenses. This budget would, necessarily, disclose to all involved, including the creditors who are adversaries of the bankrupt, the client’s planned legal strategy.
In the 1960s, the Supreme Court ruled that it was anti-competitive for bar associations to maintain a listing of suggested fees for different types of work. Such a listing, in particular, helped younger and newer lawyers set their fees at rates that were more in line with more senior lawyers. Not having such a list would compel lawyers to set their own fees, the theory being that lawyers would then be more competitive with one another to the consumers’ benefit.The Trustee by its first proposal ignores this. The existing disclosure already provides information that tends to be anti-competitive. Law firms can see what others are charging and price their own services accordingly, causing rates to slowly increase in lockstep over the years.
Intruding into the fees charged for practice areas, such as general business matters, estate planning, tax work, and other areas of work performed by the firms who also do bankruptcy work has no bearing on the special expertise of large company bankruptcy lawyers. No area of law other than bankruptcy requires such disclosure for court approval. Fees are left to be negotiated between attorney and client. Other than precedent, there is no reason disclosure should be made here either and the process should not be extended. “Transparency” is a bogus issue. There is no backroom conspiracy on how bankruptcy fees are charged. All the proceedings are public and must be approved by the Court before attorneys are paid anything.
Budgets are good. I recommend them to my attorney-clients with whom I consult. Budgeting is a process, however, between the client and the attorney. By requiring that bankruptcy budgets, which reveal legal strategy, be made public, the U.S. Trustee is saying that bankrupt companies have no rights. They have no right to advocacy; they have no right to develop a strategy that might affect creditors’ claims; and they have no right of confidentiality. This is clearly contrary to the U.S. Constitution and our entire judicial system. While the bankrupts, and their inept management, may have proceeded down an economically unwise path, they still have rights to seek the best windup of affairs in their economic environment.
Don’t worry about the lawyers’ hourly rates once the bankruptcy petition is filed. They are regulated first, by the client, and second, by the Court. Who is watching the compensation of the management team before the company entered bankruptcy? Why are inept executives not punished with fines, or worse, for malfeasance and negligent management tactics? Why are they allowed to benefit so expansively at the expense of their workers? Why don’t the tabloids focus their sharp light there? Oh, I forgot, the tabloids need to sell papers, they are part of the industrial complex that both Presidents Washington and Eisenhower warned us about as they left office.Perhaps the fact that quite a few newspapers and newspaper chains (Tribune Co. and papers in Detroit, Denver, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and many other cities) have been mismanaged and had to file for bankruptcy has something to do with it, too.
