Law And More

More than just a spot of tea: Now two Tea Party members on US SC

Can law be separated from public policy?  Of course not. 

We witnessed that in the Rhode Island Supreme Court's ruling in the lead paint public litigation Download Statev.LeadIndustriesAssoc.,Inc.  Such an opinion seemed to reflect changing public policies during the decade of that lawsuit.

So, we have every reason to be concerned that now there are two members on the U.S. Supreme Court who are vocal about their poltiical beliefs.  Clarence Thomas, reports POLITICO, has joined Antonin Scalia in coming out in support of the fundamentals of the Tea Party Movement. Neither has offered any defense of such a balant embrace of an ideology.

 
Something smells rotten in the U.S. Supreme Court, doesn't it?

Given that conservatives aren't all that confident about beating incumbent Barack Obama in 2012, there could be an uprising a la Egypt and Tunisa against having Thomas and Scalia serving on the High Court.  That could easily be organized and orchestrated through social media.  Actually the drill is old hat.

Bernie Madoff: Morality Tale of Crime, Punishment, Redemption

Freshmen in college might be reading the biography of Bernie Madoff instead of the classic novel "Crime and Punishment."  The ongoing saga of this man's crime, punishment, and signs of redemption might the greatest morality tale of all times.

NEW YORK MAGAZINE's Steve Fishman conducted exclusive jailhouse interviews with Madoff. The man who is being revealed is one who seems to have broken open to the kinds of questioning which causes those inner shifts saints like St. Paul and activists like Martin Luther King underwent.  For this journey Madoff has as his guide a therapist at the correctional center.  According to Fishman he wants to know if he's a sociopath.  No, the therapist answered, since Madoff feels remorse. He also wants to tell his story through the filter of what he knows and feels now.

Given that his sentence extends more than 150 years, Madoff has time on his side for this exploration.  At the end of it, he may be a geniune late bloomer who studies in prison to become a healer of souls or a teacher of the three Rs.  On "Criminal Minds" an episode about Madoff could be one of the few inspiring ones.

Emily White: Role model in legal career transition

Seemingly, a combination of pain and curiosity gave Emily White what she needed to migrate from being a lawyer to become a writer and policy analyst.  The pain and curiosity arose from her sense of being apart from, that is, lonely. One product is her unusual book "Lonely: Learning to Live with Solitude."

Perhaps one incentive for White to have gone to law school was the opportunity to belong.  Formal degree programs do that.  They allow even the most withdrawn and socially inept to make friends.  But after school, as many lawyers find, the practice of law is usually solitary.  Some refer to it as a monklike existence.

That aloneness gave White plenty of time to contemplate this feeling she had been saddled with since childhood.  Here there might be a sign that not being the gregarious sort can be a plus in professional success.  While others are socializing and keeping in touch with friends on Facebook, the lonely are focused on lines of thought which can lead somewhere.

For those considering law school as well as entering or leaving the law, White's book could provide refreshing perspectives.

 

Rocket Lawyer: Another addition to traditional delivery of legal services

There was LegalZoom, co-founded by famous criminal attorney Robert Shapiro.  Now, out of San Francisco, California is Rocket Lawyer. 

 
In this help-wanted for a Content Producer, Rocket Lawyer describes itself as:

"... transforming the legal service market with easy, web-based, do it yourself tools and access to a nationwide network of lawyers for consumers and small businesses. The traditional legal process is expensive, complicated and time consuming.  At Rocket Lawyer, anyone can create legal documents through our simple interview process, manage legal affairs and find a lawyer to help with legal issues."

 

2010 JDs from top schools: Only 27.3% working in NLJ 250

In 2009, 30.3% of JDs from top schools got jobs at the NLJ 250, compared to 27.3% for 2010, reports THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL.  And there's no telling what percentage of that 27.3% will hold onto those jobs.

It could be that fewer JDs are opting for the commitment of a job in BigLaw.  It could also be that there are simply fewer slots in BigLaw.  Or a combination of both.  However, what we all know is that lawyers have to make a living.  Most are savvy enough to expect a dead zone between passing the bar and actually working.  However, that dead zone has been extending into years. 

At that point, some lawyers are surrendering to reality.

 
That usually means considering alternative paths both in practicing law and in transitioning to careers in which a legal background can be leveraged.  On this blog Susan Cartier Liebel discusses flying solo as well as putting together an atypical career.

The old-fashioned way of exploring what's possible is to get a cup of coffee and study the help-wanted listed in a number of different kinds of online boards, ranging from CareerBuilder.com to Craigslist.  Before the web, the courageous among us used to do this with the Sunday THE NEW YORK TIMES.  Someone in-the-know told us to ponder the help-wanted from "A" to "Z."  The outcome was that we became ready to try new things. The players among us recognized that it might require a few short term jobs to get hired into the one that paid well.  Soon enough the rest of us learned that jobs are gas stations in the desert.  Get what we needed at the time and then be on the look-out for the next fill-up.

Lawyers: Perhaps time to exit your comfort zone

For 2011, applications to law schools are down about 13%.   Increasingly I am getting email and phone calls from law students and lawyers who want to explore how they can leverage the knowledge base, experience, and skills they already have to fields outside practicing law - or in addition to law. Could the rigid mindset among those considering law or in the law finally be breaking open?

Last week Susan Cartier Liebel discussed on this blog how to put together a solo practice.  She was wearing her hat as founder and head of Solo Practice University.  Now she's returned to explain how anyone with a legal background can reach beyond the traditional path and carve out a new or additional one.  Here is that exclusive interview.

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JG: Lawyers keep telling me that employers tend to "pigeonhole" them to being considered only for jobs or assignments directly related to the law.  How can lawyers bypass that stereotype?

SCL: Lawyers can be hired for just about any job or assignment which anyone without a law degree can be hired. They simply present themselves as X, with a legal background.  And that new path or additional path may lead to a plum position practicing law if that is what you want.

JG:  What you're saying, Susan, is that law students and lawyers have to do that all-important initial step of redefining themselves for the marketplace.  They can't expect the marketplace to do that for them, can they?

I remember when I opened my communications shop after being laid off from Kraft.  The manager at GE Capital where I made my first sales call told me bluntly that it was up to me to learn how to present myself.  It was not his job to market me to his organization.

SCL:  Yes, no matter what our field, we have to learn the fundamentals of marketing and sales. We also need to change our mindsets.  If you think the only way into a law job is to get hired immediately into a predefined slot, then you may be disappointed.  You also have to stop thinking that if you don't get a law job upon passing the bar that you are a failure or your legal education was a waste.

JG: Can you provide examples of fields outside law where someone with a legal background could apply?

SCL: The field of loss prevention is growing. Let's be a little extreme to showcase an example:  How many lawyers have considered getting a job or assignment as a security guard in Target?  There, if they behave like a security guard and think like a lawyer, they could present to management all the weak links in the system and the vulnerability of the company to being sued.  They could also keep their eyes open for possible OSHA pitfalls.  Or, they could establish loss prevention or some niche within it as part of their legal practice.

JG:  One former lawyer has decided to work as a long-distance truck driver.  Right now that's a growth field.  His plan is to approach the company's legal department with recommendations how to reduce legal risks of all kinds.  If that doesn't pan out, at least he's getting a decent pay check.

SCL:  That may be effective as a way into law through a back door. Or, as he senses, it's a pay check right now.  The key point is to continue to think like a lawyer.  You may gain enough insight about the field to establish a practice based on it.

There are also all the services and products which lawyers can develop or simply market which are associated with the legal industry.  Those range from publishing to search firms.  Who better to fill those jobs than someone with a legal background?

JG:  And, what about the solo lawyer cultivating multiple streams of income?  There is a tendency in the legal profession to be one-dimensional in how lawyers approach making a living.

SCL:  That seems the mindset in law:  You do one thing.  However, when you're getting your practice started, it could be very useful to have other sources of income.  That could be from managing other's rental property, being a part-time librarian at the public library, or tending bar. Again, if you're thinking like a lawyer, those earning opportunities could eventually be a gold mine for your practice or future employability.  You could even publish a book or documentary on the subject.

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Susan Cartier Liebel can be reached at susan@solopracticeuniversity.com.  

Grief: Everyone's talking about it, except lawyers

Both in literary and performance art, the theme is grief.  Actually, it's almost a new age of sentimentality in which anyone suffering loss has license to tell their story. 

The exception are those associated with the legal field.  I had to inform a lawyer I was coaching that his major clinical depression was plain-vanilla grief.  He had labored in the vineyards of BigLaw, then did not make partner.  His solo firm was producing one-sixth of what he used to make.  He didn't know what career path to commit to - law or something else.  Meanwhile his wife had to get a job. 

Why are lawyers so slow to recognize and then embrace their grief? In 1982, when I lost my pet, I knew what I was going through, wrote an article on loss, and it was the first piece I had had published in THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Lawyers, I have concluded, have taken refuge in the defense of analytical thinking.  That would be fine if it worked.  But for most lawyers, it hasn't been working.  They prolong that painful state of depression, delaying a solution to their temporary professional problems. As a result, they could lose years stuck in a depression which should have run its course in several months.

Here are some ways out of that denial:

Admit a terrible thing happened.  This may be a simple as a senior in college recognizing that going to law school is not a promising path.  That senior has lost a dream.  Of course, there's pain.  It could be a complex as being an equity partner and being forced out. The shame. Those over-50 belong to the generation which still experienced shame.

Get a third party to talk to.  Everyone in your current life has an agenda.  A disinterested third party can provide safety.  That could be a minister, medical doctor, therapist, coach, or outplacement adviser.   When I hit bottom in 2003, I relied on both a medical doctor and therapist Download Geezerguts.  I called that "putting myself in productive custody."  I stayed in it for about six months.

 

Break open to new possibilities.  Endings mean new beginnings.  There is a big world of professional paths out there.  The good news is the economy is picking up.  Taking a job, any job, means income for today.  It also means lifting yourself out of the past and into having to cope with the present obstacles like bosses and co-workers.  The name of the game is keep making new enemies, not stay obsessed with the former ones.

Think about how to market your story.  Loss is a hot seller.  You could get funding to do a documentary on getting from where you are now to where you wind up.

Next Ticket? Applications to law school down 13% for 2011

Call it the lousy investment of slow news, at least for that news to pass denial and penetrate the consciousness of Generation Y.  But the news finally did arrive and was absorbed. 

 

Applications to law school are down about 13% for 2011.  Now, of course, ambition-watchers are scanning the horizon for the next career ticket which will be sought after.

Well, promising paths include:

• Obtaining the MBA at a non-US school of business.  First of all, the ticket is cheaper and comes faster than in US schools of business.  Secondly, everything is global, at least everything in high growth sectors.  Find an emerging economy and stick with it.
• Being with a service which assists those holding lousy tickets reinvent themselves.  Those loser fields include law, journalism, middle management, and the humanities.
• Operating a trade school with a respectable job-placement rate.  Blue collar is everything.

 

What does a drunk and a solo lawyer have in common?

Answer: They can both do what they want.  Aside from that, nothing else. 

Charlie Sheen is having a ball.  Those who have been around "the rooms" [that is, 12-step meetings] understand the powerful pull force public intoxication can be.  The person in that antic disposition gets plenty of attention and on his or her terms.  Out of the corner of the drunken eye the person spots the fear in the faces.  Nothing better than that for a bully. And given that this is America which is protective of its drunks, that person will be safely deposited in a medical facility, not shot as a menace to society.

At the end of the day, being a drunk is, as Sigmund Freud described it, being his majesty the baby - with all the rights and rituals.

 

Premium Billing: Nothing New

In professional services, there will always be star players, practice areas, and bet-the-company kind of litigation which allow for  premium pricing.  In public relations, experts in reputation restoration have earned about $1000 an hour.  Some probably earn way more than that when the crisis involves a high-profile deep-pocketed client as in financial services.  In addition, to the brandname who heads that account, there will be his or her team who also will earn a nice hourly fee.

Today, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL focuses on those in law able to command at least $1000 and even up to about $1250 an hour.  This isn't new. 

 
Before the Great Recession when companies refrained from filing new litigation such as in patent cases, there were plenty of lawsuits which were so critical that most assumed the defense lawyers associated with them were earning premium fees. Right now, you're probably going to witness that for stars like David Boies and practice areas such as bankruptcy and M&A.

However, as in all professional services including the once prestigious area of managment consulting, the legal sector is facing push-back on billing by corporate clients. One has to wonder if a General Counsel would lose a job if it becomes known the in-house legal department is paying for too many of those $1000+ hours.