When I was a teenager, my buddy Bill took me waterskiing. For those of you who do not water ski, you learn to ski on two skis which is easy, then to ‘drop a ski’ which is harder, and finally to start on one ski. That was what I was trying to do.
Bill said that I was the only person who he ever saw who was still holding onto the rope ten feet under water. An exaggeration perhaps, but sometimes I really do not know when to give up.
You may be familiar with the expression, “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast,” a quote from Peter Drucker. As the title of this post implies, I not only agree with that sentiment, but I believe that it is drastically understated.
In some law firms there is the ‘Go Big or Go Home’ faction (and by “Home” I mean to a firm where lawyers work reasonable hours and people care about each other and their physical and mental health).
For this faction, it is all about improving earnings and damn the lifestyle.
There is often another faction comprised of lawyers who want to make a decent living but who also want to have a happy life. In a firm where the ‘Go Big or Go Home” group are calling the shots, nobody cares what these lifestyle losers think, so I am also going to ignore them in this post.
When I started practicing law, I joined a firm which had one exceptionally large client and very many small clients.
The large client needed help with interesting transactions, sophisticated corporate reorganizations, financings with lots of zeros, and creative corporate structures. Large files with large billings.
The smaller clients brought simpler work such as incorporations, small business purchases, and simple shareholders agreements. Small files with small billings.
Those of us who hang out with lawyers know that there may be some wine involved, but more often, there will just be whining.
Lawyers complain about many and varied things, such as how hard they work, the stress, their demanding clients, their Associates, and their Partners. The list of gripes goes on and on. In my retirement, I have learned to tune most of them out. However, recently a rising crescendo of complaints from young lawyers about the scarcity of good mentoring has risen above the usual cacophony of complaints and careened into my consciousness.
Let’s cut to the chase: Law firms compensate lawyers for two things: (i) fees billed for their own work; and (ii) fees billed for work that they introduce to the firm which is done by someone else. (In theory there are some other things that matter also, but in practice you cannot get rich by doing any of them.)
You would think that in a profession where people are the most valuable asset, employers would develop some expertise around human resources. And yet, most lawyers know squat about it. That is not surprising. Most H.R. professionals do not know much about practicing law.
I have written about the Golden Rule before, but it is so crucial to the functioning of our legal system that it is worth looking at again.
“You look like you don’t have a clue what you are doing,” said absolutely nobody the first time that they met their Dentist. Or their Surgeon. Or their Accountant.
One of the most shocking things that young lawyers in private practice learn is that they are required to sell themselves. After all, if they wanted to be salespeople, they probably would not have gone to law school in the first place.