In my heyday of clients and billings, my largest client asked me to handle an outsourcing transaction. I would hazard a guess that had it been completed, it would have made quite a ripple in the business community.
A Bay Street firm was the client’s corporate counsel. The client may have been my biggest client, but we handled only a sliver of their legal work.
I did pretty well in law school. I studied all of the time, had no life, and got great marks. By my final year, I may have gotten just a little bit full of myself.
When selecting my courses for my final year of law school, I needed one more credit. So, devoid of any experience in the real world, I somehow decided that any course which was offered outside of the Faculty of Law would be easier than taking another difficult law course.
Aaron Baer sent me an invitation to speak at the Authentic Legal Professionals Summit. He said, and I quote, “I’m going to gamble and say that you’re able to speak about one of those (autism, ADHD, Tourettes, or other neurodivergences.)”
All of this was a bit of an eye-opener to me, because at 69 ¾ years old, I was unaware that I was neurodivergent, but it seemed to be a pretty safe bet for Aaron.
There is an old story about a young man who, after finally meeting the love of his life following years searching the globe for his one true soulmate, took his girlfriend’s hands in his own one starlit summer evening, stared deeply into her beautiful eyes, and whispered to her in a husky, excited voice: “since I met you, I can’t eat. I can’t drink. I can’t sleep… I’m completely broke.”
There were good things about the old days when law was primarily a profession, and lawyers joined law firms with a view to learning, working hard, and becoming partners. One of them was that law firms cared about their associates progressing, developing clients, and becoming self-sufficient.
There is no shortage of talk about the importance of lawyers delegating legal work to other lawyers and paralegals. Despite that, I have always believed that lawyers should not delegate work that they do not know how to do themselves. I questioned how anyone can check the quality of work done by their law clerks or associates if they do not know what a good job looks like.
An important element of a law firm’s culture is the manner in which it designates ‘client lawyer’ status, or ‘client origination credits’ (“OCs”).
By way of background, there are three ways to earn money in a law firm.
Let me tell you about two different law firms.
Big Law Group One is a well-respected Canadian firm with many hundreds of lawyers, some of whom appear to be happier than others. Some of their dearly departed professionals have told me distressing stories about their lives at that firm, and the effect that the work demands had on their mental health. They also shared with me their feeling that the firm let them down when they required accommodation to recover from their mental health problems. They painted a picture of a firm which did not care much about its people, especially after those people became unable or unwilling to continue to sacrifice their health on the altar of billable hours.
Those of my era may remember the comic book character known as “Richie Rich.” Nice little kid, but being brought up by wealthy parents, he was not on the same wavelength as some of his friends.
My friend Stan had a law partner who was kind of like a wannabe Richie Rich. He wasn’t rich yet, but by God he planned to be!
I was the managing partner of a law firm for a while. At that time I saw myself as being something like Cassandra, who the Gods punished by giving her the ability to foresee the future while dooming her to never be believed. I used to try my best to convince my partners to see things my way. After all, I knew how things were going to turn out if they did not listen to me. Not only did some of them not listen, but they actively tried to subvert the things that I was doing for their benefit.