CritelliLawBarristers and Trial Lawyers Iowa/New York/London
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Friday, February 11, 2005 Greetings from Salt Lake City Midwinter Bar Presidents Conference As I write this report, I am attending the National Conference of Bar Presidents midyear meeting in Salt Lake UT. The conference provides a great opportunity to meet with bar presidents, discuss common problems and share ideas. A common theme at the conference has been tthe concept of law as a business -vs- law as a profession. There is great concern that due to the stresse of everyday practice we are about to lose sight of the fact that we are a profession. Worse yet clients who don't understand the value of objective legal advice are demanding subjectivity from their lawyer. My position is that if subjectivity were the hallmark of a good advocate, the client would be the best advocate for the case. Of course this would be nonsense. Credibilty is the hallmark of good advocacy and one can only achieve credibility with the judge or jury by being objective...sometimes brutally objective. Unfortunatley clients confuse objectivity with a loss of zeal. They want a "bulldog" advocate not a rational one. It is only after the case is lost do they appreciate the difference. We are again attempting to tackle the problem of compensation differences between men and women lawyers. Both are on parity at the associate level. They part, sometimes drastically, when you analyze the earnings between men and women sole practitioners or partners. Unfortunately this is driven by the marketplace. We must take special effort to educate our clients that there is no difference between men and women lawyers. Those lawyers (unfortunately it is usually men) who are dismissive to their female colleagues ability must be taken to task. Lastly there is the every present problem of career disatisfaction. A 2000 ABA YLD survey indicated that after five years of practice one third of the newly called lawyers had left the practice, one third were looking to leave and only one third were sastisfied. Clearly two thirds of our new lawyers were dissatisfied. This is a horrible finding. Today we received a report from the ABA marketing services that indicated that there had not been much improvement over the past five years. There is still a great deal of career dissatisfaction among the newly admitted. I suspect there are two forces that cause the problem: inadequate understanding regarding the legal profession when the person entered law school and lack of an organized internship after call to the bar. We still refuse to learn from our colleagues in the UK that legal "education" is different from legal "training". We need both but we are only getting the former. Many people go to law school for the education without an intention to actually practice the law. This is fine, as long as they don't attempt to engage in practice. When they do they will find that there is a world of difference between the educational component and the practice component. To those colleagues of mine who still refuse to embrace training ask yourself this: Would you go to a surgeon who did not attend a surgical residency? posted by bbk | Friday, February 11, 2005 |
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