In law firms, more zeros are better than fewer zeros. For example, announcing, “look at me! I just closed a $100,000,000 acquisition” impresses your colleagues more than saying, “I just did a deal worth $10,000,000.” A deal that was only worth $965,000 is not even worth mentioning. There just are not enough zeros. Frankly, it is almost embarrassing to have been involved with it.
When I had been practicing for about six years, I attended a meeting with two more senior lawyers to pitch a potential client on leaving a Big Law firm and coming to our mid-sized suburban firm. The other two were: (1) Sam, who was our managing partner, very business savvy, and a great marketer; and (2) Chuck, who was the senior corporate lawyer and also a great marketer. My late father would have described him as, “all flash, no cash.” Poor Chuck was an administrative disaster and despite his intelligence, a truly awful lawyer.
I spoke to two law firm partners this week, both of whom told me that their hourly expectation was 2,400 hours per year, consisting of 2,000 billable hours and 400 non-billable hours (administration, firm events, continuing education, business promotion, and mentoring).
I set about to do some math and determine how many hours these people have to spend on their mental and physical health and personal relationships. The law firms are all advertising their mental health initiatives, so I knew that it would be substantial!
I am willing to bet that you did not expect that headline from me! And to be fair, I do not intend it as a general statement. What I am going to talk about is legal research, and it is a fact that Big Law does that better than the rest of us. While Big Law (and occasionally Medium Law) employs specialists to do their research, the rest of us either do it ourselves or give the job to articling students, summer students, or junior lawyers.
When I articled, if lawyers or law students worked past 6 pm, they were welcome to dine at the firm’s expense, as long as they returned to the office to work after dinner.
That sounded like a great deal to a lowly paid student, and I was impressed with how considerate the firm was. Being a slow learner, it took me a while to realize that the firm was trying to encourage lawyers to work late into the evening. It took me even longer to figure out that the lawyers would often work until just after 6 pm, go to dinner until 7:30 pm, and return to the office just long enough to be seen by some partners, and then leave.
Lawyers struggle to attract talent who are both capable and a good fit for a firm’s culture.
If only there were consultants who firms could retain and candidates could work with, who understand the market, the culture in different firms and practice groups, the current salaries being paid by firms of all sizes, and the expectations of law firms and candidates on a multitude of issues, including work from home, vacation entitlement, bonuses, and billable hour requirements.
In Part One, I told you to figure out what you want your retirement to look like. In Part Two I advised you to get to know yourself.
This time, a cautionary note. You need to figure out if you really want to retire or whether you are just burned out.
I was speaking to a recent retiree from a Canadian Big Law firm the other day, and she introduced a new law firm concept to me, being that of the “Practice Assistant.” Apparently at her firm they did away with the concept of Legal Assistants (formerly, a “secretary” for you very old folks) and replaced it with a Practice Assistant, or “PA.”
Let’s talk about deadlines. Here are two quotes to get us started:
From Douglas Adams, we give you the light-hearted Associate’s perspective: “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
Don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security, because the truth comes from Amit Kalantri, who said: “A professional who doesn’t deliver as committed is not just lazy, he is a liar.”
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.