I speak to a number of newly called lawyers looking to secure a job as an associate.
I tell these applicants that they should be ready to answer a question about business development. Here are my tips:
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You Need a Shrink
For years I delegated work to Mindy, who was very competent, productive, generous, and warm.
I never knew when I walked into Mindy’s office to ask her to do something whether she would be her usual lovable self or would bite my head off.
You may be familiar with the “KISS Principle” attributed to one Kelly Johnson, a renowned aeronautical engineer at Lockheed Martin.
It turns out that the concept of “Keep It Simple, Stupid” applies whether you are designing aircraft or solving legal issues.
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Being Brilliant is Over-Rated
Way back before the cell phone, we had a telephone in our reception area for clients to use. At the same time, my doctor had a sign in his reception area advising patients that the doctor’s phone was for his staff’s use and clients could use a payphone in the lobby. The difference? We lawyers had to market ourselves to find clients and then convince them to pay our bills. My doctor worked under a government health care system and did not have to worry about either of those things.
With a nod to the danger of generalizing, I would have to say that as a group, I like non-equity partners (“NEPs”) just as much, if not better, than I like equity partners. They are often people who are primarily interested in practicing law and doing well by their clients, as opposed to promoting themselves and reaching the top of the earnings heap.
On the other hand, I don’t think much of the whole concept of non-equity partnership.
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Could Someone Please Pay Me Off Already?
I have been railing against the establishment in the legal profession for going on four years already. You would think that by now I would have annoyed at least a few well-established lawyers with deep pockets.
It seems to me that by this time someone would have offered to pay me at least six figures to abandon my principles, put down my metaphorical pen, and shut up.
Yes, I made up the word “teckified” so I suppose that I have to make up a definition as well. It means “to use technology efficiently, including having databases which talk to each other, or better yet, a single database.”
If you are in the medical profession or the legal profession, you are likely not teckified. Teck-afraid perhaps, but probably not teckified.
Whether or not you are teckified matters. Allow me to explain.
Someone once told me that if your family is poor when you are twelve years old, then no matter how much financial success you have, you will always be fearful that you might lose it all. On the other hand, the theory goes that if your family was rich when you were twelve years old, then no matter how badly you are doing at any moment, you will likely believe that financial success is around the corner.
Those of you who read my stuff from time to time know that when I retired, I moved to the country, bought a pick-up truck, and started listening to country music. One song I like is by Carly Pearce, and it has the following lyrics:
So you went to Law School and participated in the legal clinic at the Fasken Building at University of Toronto or won a scholarship from Davies at Osgoode Hall. Somehow you were given the impression by your Law School experience that if you did not get yourself hired by a Big Law firm (“BL”), you would be a second-rate lawyer.
Although critical thinkers at Law School should have warned you about the Golden Rule, (“he who has the gold makes the rules”) and its corollary (“follow the money to find the guilty,”) you may have missed that lesson and ended up believing that bigger is better.