Early in my articles, a senior partner named David asked me to draft a document and gave me a precedent to use. David approved my draft but asked me to show it to Bob, a more junior partner. Bob told me that I had left out an important clause and asked me if David had approved my drafting. When I assured him that David had thought the draft was fine, Bob rolled his eyes and I understood that Bob did not hold David in high regard.
According to the fictional Professor Kingsfield in the movie “The Paper Chase,” law students “come in … (to law school) … with a skull full of mush and … leave thinking like a lawyer.”
I have often wondered whether I would have been better off keeping my mushy mind so that I could think like a normal person, but that is a question for another day.
Although law schools teach students to understand and apply legal principles, there is plenty of stuff that they never mention, including the importance of having a rudimentary understanding of psychology.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
Peter Drucker
Back when I was a Managing Partner in a law firm, I did not think nearly enough about law firm culture. I really should have, but not only because it is the secret to business success. No, I should have thought more about firm culture because it is a crucial factor in whether or not lawyers are happy in their jobs, and as we all know, many of them are not very happy.
By the time that I figured out that I could no longer cope with the pressures of the legal profession and that something had to give, I had been practicing business law for thirty-three years. What can I say… I am a slow learner. It took me almost another seven years to get out. I escaped with my health intact, but just barely.
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.
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.
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.
I write a lot about work/life balance, mental health, and the pursuit of things other than money in the legal profession.
My wife (and lawyer) Maureen McKay has laughed at me about this (among other things.) She has said, “Murray, if any of the young people who you counsel to pursue a balanced lifestyle were to have applied to your firm back when you were hiring Associates and talked about working reasonable hours and reserving evenings and weekends for their families, you would not have hired them.”
She’s right. But, in my defense, it’s complicated.
People of my vintage remember playing musical chairs at birthday parties, back before the days when money was so plentiful that it seemed to be important to impress the neighbours by hiring clowns and musicians or renting bouncy castles to entertain five-year-olds.
For those of you who did not have the pleasure of being pushed off of a chair by some mean kid who had fifty pounds on you, the idea was that music would be played while the children would circle a number of chairs that was always one fewer than the number of kids marching around them.