Law And More

Lawyers, Of Course, You Don't Still Believe Success Comes from High Intelligence

It's now a billion times that lawyers, who tend to value themselves based on high LSATs and grades, have been told that it isn't intelligence that is the most important factor in success.  

From Dan Goleman to David Brooks, experts have been hitting them over the head the need for emotional intelligence. It's how you size up what partners and clients need and give it to them in the emotional packaging they need that make you successful. 

A competiting meme has arrived.  BUSINESS INSIDER features it.  At TED Talks, psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth put out there that success is due to grit or determination.  Here is that coverage.

Instead of being discouraged by a professional setback those with grit step up their efforts.  The partner hates you.  You pull out all stops winning her over.  She recommends you for the partner track. The law degree doesn't earn you a dime so you do interview successful people about how they would leverage a law degree, had they earned one.  You make a documentary of that.  You get a fat grant to make more such documentaries. You're a partner who the law firm cut loose.  Instead of hiding you get certified as an executive coach, guide displaced professionals, and scale the concept through franchises.

Duckworth may have something to her theory.   But success is more complex than raw determination. George W. Bush seemed short on grit and he was a two-term president.

Unemployed, Underemployed Lawyers: Finding The White Space Between Success And Failure

By the time affluence became possible for Everyman in America, no one simply made a living any more.  We had careers.  And those careers were binary.  

Either we were successful or we were failures.  There was no white space in between.  That two-part system is preventing unemployed and underemployed lawyers from even being able to earn a decent living.  Instead of the going through the transitional white space between the failures they feel they are to where they could be professionally they are stuck.

A classic example are the former partners and eight year associates who are no longer in BigLaw.  They are aware that the demand for cars is up.  Dealerships are hiring salespeople. Compensation can be in the six figures. Yet, those I have spoken with, although they went for an application for a Salesperson job at a dealership in their communities, they didn't take the next step.  The money they are pulling in currently ranges from zero to $20,000.

Entering the White Space was a necessary step back into earning what I had before my career crashed a second time, during The Great Recession.  First I applied for and got a $10 an hour job in a call center. Then I applied for and got a $15 an hour job.  Then I got two assignments in three weeks, back in my own field, which paid gross revenues of $5,000.  Next, I got the assignment to ghostwrite a short book for $20,000. 

Interestingly, when I describe to people where I am professionally, I answer, "Able to pay my bills and I am grateful for that."  Never again will I frame what I do to make a living in terms of success or failure. 

"Lanza" Last Name: Court of public opinion hard on them

As the first-year anniversary comes up for the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, the media have been busy covering that, with a variety of angles.  For VANITY FAIR, it was what people were doing in Newtown the day before.  For the NEW YORK POST it is the ramifications of that tragedy on the Lanza family.  Here is that article.

According the the POST, the father Peter Lanza is a "broken" man.  He had lost contact with his son for two years before the mass shooting.  In the divorce from his former wife, who son Adam also murdered, he gave full custody to the mother.  The public relations firm Edelman represents the father.  The agency also represents his employer GE.

The POST also points out that relatives who have the last name "Lanza" are also having in tough in the court of public opinion.  When people connect the dots they distance themselves. 

My hunch is that these unintended consequences will go on and on.  The media could play out this anniversary with the same intensity that they do the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It is simply too compelling a story to let go of.  The father would be wise to change his name.  Any court of law would likely understand his rationale and grant the request. 

Alcohol-abusing Lawyers: Maybe you got a Gabrb1 mutation

Okay, alcohol abuse comes as a result of a complex interaction of factors.  But a variable which may be getting better understanding is a genetic one. We have been told so many times and probably have observed it ourselves that there is a genetic predisposition to getting in trouble with alcohol.  Now, Dr. Quentin Anstee at New Castle University in England has pinpointed a specific gene, at least in mice.

In NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, Ansetee had published his research findings that mice with the Gabrb1 mutation will compulsively consume alcohol.  In fact, it will account for 85% of their daily liquid consumption.  This could have implications for human alcohol problems.  Here is that study in NATURE COMMUNICATIONS.

If the Gabrb1 mutation applies to humans, then some day lawyers might have themselves tested for its presence.  If it's there, they could save their careers and prevent plenty of emotional and physical misery by steering clear of the booze.  Among the general population, one in six has difficulties with alcohol.  That, as we know, is higher among lawyers. 

Fit to Parent: In NEW YORKER, Rachel Aviv documents the ambiguity

On December 5, 2005, in Huntington Beach, California, mother of toddler Adam, Niveen Ismail made a serious error of judgment.  That much we know for sure.  She had left her son alone in his crib when she went to work.

She paid for that with losing custody of that child, who at first was put in foster care, then adopted.  Was she an unfit mother?  Or, better framed, could she have been educated and trained to become a good one?  Probably, even if we read through the court records we couldn't decide.  

The criteria for assessing even good-enough parenting seem both based on the current community value system (which changes as times change) and the subjective evaluation of the social workers.  The only truly objective participants in that decision-making seem those attached to the courts of law.  Here is an excerpt from the article by Rachel Aviv on this case in THE NEW YORKER (sub. req.)

The lesson here is that what's labeled as "in the best interests of the child" can represent the blatant imposition of what some policy makers and front-line social workers decide serve those interests.  Therefore, parents should make it their business to stay off the radar of the powers that be.  Once flagged for alleged abuse or neglect you can fall into something from a Kafka novel. Not even competent lawyers maybe able to  extricate you from that. 

Pope Francis: Great PR Move Is to Have Him Ring Opening Bell at NYSE

Popular Pope Francis put a lot of negative labels on capitalism.  Those range from "exclusive" to "opportunistic."  Time will tell how sticky they will turn out to be.  Here is coverage of his remarks in POLITICO.

But leaders of capitalistic institutions should get busy now on public relations push-back.  One tactic could be for the New York Stock Exchange to invite him to ring the opening bell, right after the New Year.

The incentive for him to show up for that would be to allow him about five minutes to speak.  The guy is smart.  After all, he tools around in a Ford Focus, not a designer model.  Therefore, he would understand that at the NYSE he had to tone down his recent condemnation of capitalism.  It's the tamer version that can be then fed the media. 

Fat O.J. - Leverage that as deterrent for youthful miscreants

O.J. Simpson has been denied a new trial, based on alleged defense lawyer error.  Here is that story.  

Probation officers can leverage the photos of Fat O.J.to warn youthful miscreants what can happen even to celebrities in jail.  Fat is a crime against every young man's image of himself in command of life. 

 

McKenna Long & Aldridge Nixes Merger with Dentons: Did "virein" structure do it in?

First we heard that Orrick and Pillsbury weren't merging.  

Now, as Jennifer Smith reports in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, some equity partners at McKenna Long & Aldridge nixed a merger with Dentons.  Here you can read the article.

The buzz is that equity partners balked about the culture at Dentons. Actually what they might not have liked is the virein structure.  Some law firms are experimenting with that type of organization which is centralized in its branding but the entities keep profits separate.

For worker bees at all the firms the non-mergers should be good news.  Mergers eat jobs and spit out the people.   Those who get to stay could be in the dark about the real state of merged entity's finances.

Legal Reporter Peter Lattman Promoted to Media Editor at THE NEW YORK TIMES

We who love Peter Lattman's coverage of top legal stories will have to suck it up and adjust to losing his coverage at THE NEW YORK TIMES.  As FISHBOWL reports, he has been promoted to media editor at NYT.  Here is that story.

I first bumped into Lattman's writing on the law when he headed up the legal blog at THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.  At that time it was a pioneering site.  Now the hot legal site is, of course, Abovethelaw.com.

Legal Research: No longer one market

Legal research used to be simply understood as finding the statutes, regulations, court orders,  court decisions, and more to construct and support an argument. Founded in the 1970s, LexisNexis has dominated that market.  And don't expect any disruptions any time soon.

To begin with, the barriers to entry are high.  Yes, there are upstarts such as Judicata. But, as Hugh Logue of Outsell Inc. tells THE RECORDER, "success requires substantial investment, experience, and years of development." Here is that article.  The LexisNexis infrastructure is huge and complex. 

In addition, unlike the start-ups, LexisNexis can offer and guarantee comprehensive coverage of all sources.  Law firms and in-house counsel need that assurance.  When the stakes are high as in law and malpractice lawsuits are possible, established brandnames have clout. 

Third, the profession of law tends to be conservative.  To change vendors involves risk as well as the expense of training and getting up to speed.  Few partners are eager to learn a new system, including its strengths and weaknesses.

And, fourth, LexisNexis hones its tools to, as its website explains, "put relevant and trusted information in context to determine the most effective strategy and achieve better outcomes."  That is, it functions as a problem-solver, not just a reference.  For example, it can retrieve and aggregate cases, approaches, and judgments, providing users with the ability to formulate positions and see the probability of various scenarios. 

Another market emerging in legal research goes way beyond this kind of help in problem solving.  It exists to do novel things.  It does that by processing huge amounts of data, which is automatically analyzed, to frame whatever in whole new ways.     

A classic example, points out the American Bar Association (ABA),  is the client which aggregates the data from the 10 law firms it uses.  Then it analyzes that in terms of comparative billing.  What percentage of the work at Firm A is done by partners versus the percentage at Firm B.  What was the expense per each million dollars for settlement for Firm A versus Firm B.  This could level the playing field between BigLaw and all the rest.  The client might realize that the boutique firm in central Pennsylvania produces better outcomes more cost effiiciently than does a brandname large firm in Los Angeles.  Here is that article by the ABA.

On the other hand, inside the law firm, data analytics can be used as a more objective approach to determine expenses for the case and therefore estimating the fee for the client.  In providing this estimate, the law firm can present all the analytics. 

In actual practice, lawyers are already leveraging data analytic software for processing and interpreting in e-discovery.  This is the era of emails, tweets, blog posts, e-commenting, PDFs, and memoes.  The predictive coding in use is creating order out of chaos. 

 In addition, data analytics could generate better picks for who should be selected for the jury by the defense or the plaintiff.  

Players in traditional legal research like LexisNexis may or may not come to also dominate this newer market.   What those leaders have going for them include their infrastructure, ability to fund experiments, and sales force.  As we witnessed in the Greek yogurt niche market, an established player can outspend the upstart which created demand. Danone ate Chobani's lunch.  Here is the BLOOMBERG BUSINESS WEEK coverage of that.

 As for law firms and lawyers, those coming to understand unique ways data analytics can be leveraged will have the edge.