I had an odd perch to watch as the recent legal economy tsunami struck the U.S. legal education system. In 2007, while a partner at an AmLaw200 firm, I accepted an invitation and in January 2008 first taught a class titled Introduction to Law Firm Practice at Washington University School of Law. Drawing upon my own graduate education in law firm management (at George Washington University’s Law Firm Management program) and almost a decade of private law practice, I taught approximately 70 law students about the business of private law practices: how law firms are structured, make money, compensate lawyers and staff, and develop business.
The initial class members were enthusiastic, even though I was writing the course materials almost simultaneously with their taking the course. Virtually every student had interviewed with law firms. Many had already worked at law firms. And most anticipated that, if they wanted to work at a law firm, they would be able to secure such employment before or shortly after graduation.
The next January, and every January since, I have taught a new crop of approximately 70 Washington University law students about the business of law practice. The goal is to “draw back the curtain,” to show students how firms really operate.
I use a lot of real data. Unfortunately, due to availability, the data tends to be more focused on larger firms. I also use a lot of information from law firm consultants, those people who teach lawyers what is happening at their own firms. I sometimes tease that I am a member of the “Hildebrandt School” of law firm management because several of my most influential GWU Law Firm Practice professors and mentors – Jim Jones, Carl Leonard, and Bill Robinson – were then Hildebrandt consultants, I learned and now teach students Hildebrandt thinking and models, including that law firms’ practices can be placed somewhere on a value pyramid; that there are five levers to law firm profitability (R-U-L-E-S, or rates, utilization, leverage, expenses, and speed); and that the key to firm’s ultimate success is strategic understanding and alignment.
The classes are big and bustling. Every year there is a waitlist. And, at the end of each class, each student submits a “Reflective Journal” in which they write about and reflect upon the contents of the class. These journals provide me with a (sometimes admittedly obscured) window into what students are really thinking. Considering that my class is often the first – or only – class where students discuss recent economic realities in depth, I pause to share three of these insights.
First, law firms present complicated landscapes. Without some sort of comprehensive education on the business of law, students and young lawyers often fail to understand these landscapes. Instead, they often seem to wander somewhat lost, moving between partners and practice groups with little sense of where they might go at their firm – or another firm – and how they might get there.
Certainly some younger lawyers have the necessary sensitivity, or a very helpful mentor, and understand early that law firm success (at large and small firms) often turns more on the ability to generate and maintain client relationships more than the ability to bill a lot of hours. Many young lawyers, however, fail to detect this reality, and may end up among those I call the “loneliest group of lawyers.” In this economic downturn, these are senior lawyers who have no expertise or business of their own, and thus no way to show their firm that they are more valuable than more junior and thus lower-priced lawyers.
During class, I attempt to tackle this potential problem in numerous ways. Probably the most powerful and most memorable, is that the students’ first in-class exercise is to break into groups and decide which fictional candidates should be promoted to and demoted (de-equitized) from equity partner. Students hear what their peers consider important, and we discuss at length what a real management committee would likely do.
In addition, when I receive the inevitable question of whether firms really de-equitize partners, I show recent survey numbers (reported in the National Law Journal) that almost 40 percent of all firms de-equitized partners last year, and that approximately 70 percent of firms expect to ask partners to leave. Such information helps students understand why later classes, in particular those dealing with client service and development, may be quite important to their growth and success as attorneys. (And, by the way, we later discuss that being asked to leave a firm may be a good thing, particularly when a senior lawyer has loyal clients, but his or her clients do not fit well within the firm.)
My second insight from student journals is that students remain somewhat optimistic, while at the same time making decisions that demonstrate they are often attuned to the economic realities around them. When choosing candidates for promotion, for example, recent classes have focused much more on the candidates’ performance numbers than other qualitative or subjective factors.
The best evidence that students are attuned to economic issues, however, appears when students design and then discuss the marketing of fictional firms or practice groups. In the earlier years, a large portion of students – sometimes a third – indicated they wanted to practice corporate law. More recently, however, the number of students interested in such practices has declined substantially, perhaps to 10 percent of the class. This may reflect that the students know business deals have slowed, or they have experienced the overall lack of transaction activity when interviewing or working at law firms.
In addition, the practices that earlier students designed seemed to reflect more of a whimsical spirit. I recall, for example, a group several years ago that designed a divorce firm that would focus on representing “starter wives.” In the most recent (January 2012) class, however, the practices were much more serious. Virtually every group admitted they had a real firm they were using as a model, and often the firms were designed with a clear, primary focus on how they would generate revenues.
The second insight gleaned from students’ journals is that they often struggle under somewhat disturbing myths about the legal profession. Students are shocked to learn, for example, that most lawyers do not practice at monolithic mega-firms. Almost half (48 percent) of all private practice lawyers are solos, and approximately 60 percent work at firms with five or fewer lawyers. Students also often believe that everyone bills 2,000 or more hours. Imagine their surprise then when many surveys show that most lawyers, both partners and associates, at most firms bill substantially fewer hours. Further, students often do not realize that at the wide variety of firms, where a variety of fee arrangements may be used, billable hours sometimes are not terribly important.
The class content emphasizes that law firms come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, cultures, and flavors. They seek out different target clients or work and use different methods to develop business, bill for business, and compensate those providing legal services. Students begin to understand that law firms really do have very different business operations and cultures.
I suspect on-campus interviewing (OCI) – with its lure of lucrative summer positions, virtual speed dating to determine distribution of summer employment opportunities, and extremely early hiring schedule (for example, due to a clerkship, the firm that I joined in August 1999 offered me a position in August 1997) – helps perpetuate the myth of the monolithic, monotone mega-firms.
Shattering students’ disturbing myths often helps relieve stress. Many students worry they will never find jobs because they did not find large-firm positions. And many students who do find jobs worry that they will be chained to their desks like a rower’s bench, pulling for long hours to make emotionally remote partners rich.
Students appreciate learning that smaller firms have much later hiring cycles and may offer substantial economic or other rewards and very diverse practice settings. Students are also grateful to know that a large number of lawyers change firms, practices, and practice settings. Learning the overall decrease in large firm hiring helps students understand that the legal market appears to be shifting. And it is this shift in the legal market, not some personal failings, that is causing their job search to be more challenging than it might have been a few years ago.
In their journals, many law students express their belief that they would never want to be an equity partner at a large firm. Numerous other students say that for the first time they now believe they may want to work or seek partnership at large firms. Accurate information helps law students make better decisions about the futures they want and will pursue. Such information includes Altman Weil data on average starting salaries for lawyers; NALP employment data and even 1994 Arthur Andersen data showing what corporate clients most disliked about their lawyers (patronizing attitudes).
Unfortunately, busting myths also means removing comforting myths. But I see this as an important part of the business education of lawyers. As noted earlier, the first in-class exercise includes a discussion of which equity partners should be demoted, that is de-equitized. Students often ask if this is reality – and then they see survey results that reveal almost 40 percent of surveyed firms de-equitized partners in 2011, and that many more firms asked underperforming partners to leave.
I believe such lessons are important so that students realize they should always be working to “build their resume” by undertaking the tasks that will attract clients – or employers. This is one area where the course curriculum has changed significantly. In 2011 and 2012, the segment where we discuss how younger lawyers can market themselves to potential clients has evolved to include a discussion of they can also market themselves to law firms, at least those law firms who might look at factors other than class rank. Part of the message emphasizes that lawyers are expected to hit certain career markers (for example, trying a case, arguing an appeal, or closing a business transaction) at certain stages in their careers. At some firms, the students will need to take care that such thresholds are met if they want to maximize their opportunity for success or their ability to lateral to another firm.