Success and the summer associate: what’s a law firm to do?

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A lawyer dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter isn’t really sure what to do with the guy because they never get lawyers in heaven. So he makes a deal with him that they’ll let him spend a week in hell and then one in heaven and then decide where he’d like to spend eternity.

So, the lawyer goes to hell. Gets off the elevator and there are all his friends. They’re having a great time. The Devil is a nice guy, his minor minions are carting around drinks. They play poker, go out and golf, basically live high on the hog for a week.

Then he gets on the elevator and winds up in heaven. He spends a week there and it’s fine, but not real exciting – floating by on a cloud, playing a harp, etc.

So at the end of the week he comes to St. Peter and says “You know I never thought I’d say this, but Hell was just a lot more fun. I’d like to go to Hell.”

So he gets back on the elevator and the doors open in Hell and now there are lakes of fire, and his friends are covered in boils, and the Devil is a jerk, and the demons are sticking him with pitchforks. And he says “I don’t get it, when I visited before you were so nice and we had a great time. What happened?”

And the Devil replies “Ah, then we were recruiting you. Now you work for us.”

This often-circulated joke always makes its guest appearance about this time of the year.  There’s a perception, which has some truth behind it, that big-firm summer associates don’t actually work much; instead, they’re wooed over fine dining and fun outings, presented with interesting work assignments, and welcomed with open arms by everyone at the firm…. And when they return as first-year associates, everything has changed and they’re working heavy hours on dull assignments with senior lawyers who don’t know them and, really, don’t care to get to know them.  (Fortunately, it isn’t quite like that.)

On the flip side, many firms are getting serious about summer associate training programs. Some firms offer a shortened, but otherwise almost identical (i.e., “Oh no, not this same case study… not the same questions… not the same presentation!”) training program to summer associates and first years.  That suggests, probably correctly, that firms believe that substantive summer training is unlikely to be useful when summer associates return for full-time employment more than a year later.  So, what training can a law firm provide that will benefit students and, in the long run, the firm itself?

  • Soft skills training, especially communications skills.  Students will use writing skills and oral communications skills between the summer associate and the full-time associate period.  They’ll be able to incoprorate and build on the training they receive in this area.
  • Networking skills.  Students will meet a lot of people during the summer associate period.  If law firms teach them how to approach and follow up with these people, they’ll help students develop the beginnings of a professional network.  Again, student will be able to incorporate and build on these skills during their third year of law school and while in bar review classes.  By developing these skills, the student will enrich his or her network, and that will sow the seeds for client development in future years.  That’s money well spent.
  • Staff relations skills.  This is something often overlooked in training.  Many law students have never worked with a secretary before.  Almost none have worked with paralegals.  And this is an area that’s often challenging for young associates.  Presenting a program on the boundaries of delegable work (i.e. what’s using a paralegal’s skills and what’s facilitating the unauthorized practice of law?), on how to partner well with a secretary (including issues like how a 25-year old associate can “supervise” and learn from a 55-year old secretary), and on how the firm’s support and administrative staff works will pay huge dividends.
  • Legal research skills.  Although students may use these skills less during their final year of school than some of the previously-discussed skills (except, perhaps, in moot court and practical litigation classes), these skills will pay off immediately in helping the summer associate deliver higher quality work.
  • Professionalism.  It’s much discussed, but professionalism is a fuzzy topic to a lot of law students.  It shouldn’t be, and it’s a great topic for a lunch-and-learn.

And what if you’re a summer associate and your firm isn’t providing this kind of training?  Ask for it.  It doesn’t have to be formal for you to benefit.  Find a senior associate or a partner and ask what she wishes she’d known when she was a summer associate, then ask how she could have learned it.  This is a small but important step toward being the CEO of your career.

The other side of work/life balance

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Generally, when anyone discusses work/life balance in the context of lawyering, the assumption is that the focus is on the “life” part of the balance, because the “work” part comes with the turf.  That’s usually quite true.  But today, I’d like to examine the “work” part of the equation.

“[The law] is a jealous mistress, and requires a long and constant courtship. It is not to be won by trifling favors, but by lavish homage.”  The Value and Importance of Legal Studies – Joseph Story, (1779-1845)

This quote is well-known for a reason: it’s true.  The law isn’t a 40-hour a week job (at least, not for most practicing attorneys).  I’m sure scores of writers have observed that our work is called a legal “practice” for a reason: we become good lawyers through practice, through trial and error (and, one hopes, correction), and through mentorship.

Many lawyers will tell you that their quickest professional growth occurred when they were working on a case or a deal that required hours upon hours, when their focus was riveted on work, when they saw sunrise and sunset from their office windows.  Periods like that reinforce the truth that we have to work in the law to get skilled at it.  There are no shortcuts.

Aside from those periods that occur in almost every lawyer’s life when life becomes work, there’s a balance to be found between work and non-work, and the price for getting out of balance is equally high regardless of which way the imbalance tips.  To succeed in the law, it’s necessary to put in plenty of billable time.

On an average day, most people’s billing limit is somewhere in the range of 10 hours — and that’s for more senior attorneys who are able to maximize the billiable time yield from time spent in the office.  (Brand new lawyers may have a ratio of nonbillable hours to billable hour of as much as 3:1.)  Some increase in that limit is possible, whether it’s by ensuring a good night’s rest before every working day, by eating mostly lean proteins and fruits and vegetables, or by training the body through regular exercise — all tactics to increase energy.  Exceeding your limitations on hours worked on a routine basis will result in reduced efficiency, so it’s a losing proposition long-term.  The answers is to learn to be efficient and energetic in the office, so you can make the most of your hours there.

How’s your balance today?

New lawyer skill: Commit to setting aside time for yourself.

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Although I’ve titled this as a new lawyer skill, it’s applicable to all of us.  One of the challenges in creating work/life balance lies in the fact that it doesn’t just happen.  It must be created.  And, once created, it must be protected.  Zealously.

One of the fastest routes to balance is to block out some time for yourself every single week.  I’d suggest at least an hour two or three times a week, but everyone has a personal minimum that needs to be maintained.  What’s this personal time for?  Anything other than work.  Remember that gym membership?  This is when you can actually use it.  Or get a massage, visit a museum, browse the bookstore, or have lunch with a friend.  This is [a part of] the time that will make you a well-rounded, interesting human being rather than a worker-bee “human doing.”

The tricky part lies in protecting this time.  So often, we make commitments to ourselves and break them when something else comes up.  The key to getting the benefit of these self-appointments is to regard them as being as important as an appointment you make with someone else.  Yes, sometimes you will have to cancel them.  But if you find yourself canceling on more than a rare occasion, I’d suggest that you aren’t really making an appointment; rather, you’re making a plan that will fold if anything better comes up, or if someone else asks you to do something work related.  Getting the benefit requires making the commitment.

Pull out your calendar, your PDA, whatever you use to keep track of your time and schedule some time for yourself.  RIGHT NOW.  Waiting until you know what demands may be coming your way won’t make it easier to do, it’ll make it less likely.  Although spending time away from your work-related commitments may feel strange in the beginning, commit to trying it for 6 weeks and see what happens.  I predict you’ll feel more relaxed and find renewed energy for your work.

The client perspective

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I am party to some litigation right now.  I am a client.  Although my case is completely outside the scope of the practice I maintained in patent litigation, I am learning to appreciate what it means to be a client.  Because these lessons would have served me very well when I was in practice, I share them with you today.

1.     Communication is key.  Clients want and need to be kept informed of what’s going on.  If I were to go back into practice, I would make it a habit to dictate a short note describing any case developments to each client on at least a biweekly basis, more frequently if the case is quite active.  And I would be certain to return calls within 24 hours, if only to let the caller know that their message had been received and that I would get back to them with a substantive response on a later date.

Example:  I called a lawyer (we’ll call her A) to whom I was referred by another lawyer I know personally and respect deeply.  Because she was on another line, I left her a voicemail, briefly outlining what was going on — including conflict information — and advising A that I would like to meet with her on a particular date to provide more information and discuss what alternatives I might have.  More than 24 hours later, no one from A’s office has returned my call.  Can you imagine what the rate of communication would probably be if I hired A?  I can.  And I’ve called someone else.

2.     It’s a subset of communication, but clients want to know when there’s a problem.  Whether it’s something directly relevant to the case or whether it’s a potential problem you’ve identified while working on the matter, let your client know about it as soon as possible, especially if you can propose a solution.

3.     Be honest.  Although many lawyers pride themselves on saying that they can do anything a client wants — to paraphrase one firm’s slogan, “We don’t tell you whether something can be done, we tell you how.”  That’s all well and good, but clients want honest advice.  The fact that something can be done doesn’t necessarily mean it should be done, and that’s something I as a client want to know.

4.     Lawyers know that procrastination sometimes pays off in litigation; if there’s a likelihood that a deadline will be extended for a brief, we sometimes prefer to wait to start writing until we know the date is firm.  This gives clients ulcers if they find out about it.  And, on those occasions when we guess wrong and the date isn’t extended, it reduces the amount of time a client can spend reviewing the filing.  This makes for angry clients with ulcers.  Communicate!  And allow adequate time for client review.

5.     Underpromise and overdeliver.  I’ve blogged on this topic elsewhere in another context, but it’s important.  If you promise a client you’ll deliver a memo, set a reasonable deadline for yourself and send it before that deadline expires.  Even if you’ve already given an oral report on the content of the memo, the client will be waiting for the promised document.  Don’t disappoint him.

6.      Be aware of the context in which you’re providing advice.  If you’re advising a company, know about its business and its officers.  If you’re advising a person, consider her overall situation.  No matter exists in a vacuum, and clients appreciate lawyers who not only recognize that, but who also acknowledge it.

7.     Don’t make excuses.  If there’s a problem, if you’ve failed to communicate as often or as clearly as the client expects, apologize.  Frankly, the excuse doesn’t matter.  Make it right.

I’ve learned many more lessons as a client, but these are the bedrock principles.  How well are you serving your clients, from their perspective?

What is work/life balance? Take the long-term view.

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I was talking with someone recently about finding balance, and she had some interesting comments.  In essence, she’s stressed out about meeting her responsibilities in the various areas of her life, and she feels guilt on top of that stress because she’s out of “balance.”  Easy to understand, since we’re all supposed to be in balance these days.  But, what is balance?  More specifically, what is work/life balance?

We talk about balance as if it’s a concrete object or a well-defined state of being.  People ask, “Am I in balance,” much as a woman might wonder whether she’s pregnant.  Yes or no.  I think that view is limited, limiting, and essentially unhelpful.

Balance is better understood as flow, in my opinion.  For instance, I’m building my business right now.  It’s been my full-time occupation for about six months, and I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time during that six months on my business.  Since I’ve made the choice to pass up a variety of recreational activities — everything from going to the movies to taking a spa vacation with a friend — it would be easy to conclude that I’m “out of balance.”

As I look at it, though, I’m working to create something.  That takes a lot of time, effort, and energy.  But once it’s created and sustainable, I’ll be able to refocus some of my energy elsewhere.  There’s a tipping point that divides creation from existence; Newton’s First Law tells us that objects in motion tend to stay in motion; and so once I am satisfied that my business is ticking along on its own, I’ll be able to shift the creative energy from that endeavor to something else — probably R&R for a while.  I’ve identified that point, so I know what I’m looking for, and when I get there chances are good that my work time will decrease somewhat, to a maintenance/slow growth level as opposed to creation.

The same is true for a lawyer who’s in trial, who’s preparing SEC filings, who’s working to get a big deal closed.  It isn’t reasonable to say that we’ll work only X number of hours a day, no matter what — at least, not if we seek to be responsible professionals.  At times, we need a period of (relatively) short-term extreme productivity, sustained by adequate self-care and followed by a period of replenishment.

I advocate using an Absolute Yes list to ensure balance.  List your top 3-5 priorities for whatever amount of time you choose.  I like to copy the list and put in places where I’ll see it frequently: in my calendar, taped to my visor in my car, in a desk drawer, etc.  The list serves two functions.  First, when a decision comes up, if the activity I’m considering doesn’t serve one of my Absolute Yes items, that means it’s almost certainly a NO, and I’ll pass.  And second, the list reminds me to pay some attention to each priority.  If I’ve gone too long — a few days, a week — without touching on one of my listed priorities, I make a special effort to include something related to that priority in my schedule.

With this system, balance is measured over the space of days and weeks, not in 24-hour blocks.  It’s also a recognition that if a particular work-related item is the top priority, it’s ok for that item to take the lion’s share of time for a while.  Although I’d love to suggest that we should all balance our work/family/self-care responsibilities each and every day, that’s just a recipe for frustration for most professionals.  Take the long-term view instead.

Associates want communication from law firms; who’s responsible for professional development?

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A recent survey by the American Lawyer (no longer available) indicates that law firm associates are frustrated by the perceived lack of communication from law firm partners and management.  Problem topics include everything from finances to an associate’s development and advancement to the context for assignments.

Clearly, some firms have more problems with communication than others, as indicated by one associate’s plea just to be notified when new lawyers join the firm, something that is routine at most firms.

Three paragraphs stuck out to me:

If partners are too busy to critique the day-to-day work of their younger colleagues, then they’re even less likely to offer advice on career development, associates say. Associates who aggressively seek out this advice can find an unreceptive audience. One Proskauer Rose midlevel brought to her last semiannual review a wish list that included requests for more writing and deposition experience and a mentor for business development skills.

“They kind of laughed and said, ‘You shouldn’t be worried about [these things]’ at my level. It was frustrating: It was like talking to dead air,” she says.

That kind of response seems to exacerbate the us-versus-them mentality at firms. “Partners don’t care about our development as long as we keep billing the hours expected; much like the printers and the computers, the associates just serve a function,” grumbles another Proskauer associate. Proskauer chairman Fagin says he’s aware of and concerned about these complaints: “The fact that any of our associates feel that way is something that is troublesome to us,” he says.

This thread is partially a return to some topics I’ve recently discussed, so I won’t harp on those.  But a new thread emerges: who’s responsible for an associate’s professional development?

I had a conversation with a 2nd year associate recently, in which he conveyed his concern that other associates at his level were advancing more quickly than he was.  We explored that worry, and I agreed that it seemed to be true based on the facts he told me.  So I asked how he would like to develop his practice.  “Practice?”   He laughed.  “I don’t need to develop a practice, I already work in a law firm!”  Although perhaps that way of thinking would have carried the day in years past (perhaps), it certainly won’t suffice now.  Whereas firms used to hire associates and provide mentoring, expecting to grow them into partners, today’s partners are (for the most part) simply too busy to take new lawyers under their wing.

The path of least resistance now is to accept the work that comes, maybe to ask for work in a particular area, but essentially to be a worker bee.  That doesn’t cut it.  Instead, young associates need to focus on collecting the skills they need to develop the practice they want.  I hope this will seem so obvious as to be silly to many readers, but a lawyer has his own practice whether he’s an associate with the largest firm or a sole pracitioner.  It’s the lawyer’s responsibility to ensure that his practice is developing as he wants it to (i.e., don’t sit quietly by and take real estate matter after real estate matter if you really want to do securities work) and to go after the experiences and skills that will permit that development to continue.

How does a young associate manage to accomplish this?  She needs a mentor, a collaborator, someone who can provide guidance and request accountability.  A professional mentor is ideal, as is a coach who is experienced in practice.  (While coaches who are not lawyers can serve well for certain needs, it’s my bias — perhaps as a former practitioner myself — that a non-lawyer coach is less useful for this kind of task.  Your mileage may vary.)

Who’s working to help you succeed in your professional development?

New lawyer skills focus: client development by cross-selling

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Every lawyer working in a law firm is aware that she will someday be expected to bring in new clients.  Rainmaking is a key skill for professional advancement, and it’s never too early to begin building those skills.

New lawyers face particular challenges in beginning to build a business development program, simply because they’re new.  It’s tough to promote a firm or its lawyers without knowing the lawyers fairly well, knowing who cover what area of practice and what experience they have, and even how the firm approaches potential clients or how it handles new engagements.

Networking is the place to start.  There are two basic kinds of networking for lawyers: internal and external.  I alluded in an earlier post to the concept that all lawyers have internal (i.e., in-firm) clients in addition to the external clients we normally refer to as such.  New lawyers need first to learn about the internal clients: who handles real estate work?  Is her practice limited to commercial real estate?  Who are representative clients?  Some of this comes naturally as you get to know other lawyers, but particularly in a large firm it can take quite a bit of effort.  Best ways to begin learning:

  • Go back to the firm’s website.  Read, carefully, each lawyer’s profile.  Yes, you probably did this when you interviewed, but now you’re reading so you know who to call when a potential client needs to talk to someone in another area of practice.
  • At all-attorney meetings or cocktail parties, or over informal lunches, make it your habit to learn more about at least one lawyer’s practice.  Ask good questions, keep the lawyer talking, and you’ll be regarded as a sparkling conversationalist — because, after all, we all enjoy talking about ourselves, and lawyers love telling their war stories.  A terrific question to ask: “Who is your ideal client?”  Or, “How would I know that someone I’m talking with would be a good client for you?”  (Caution: be sure that you’re really engaged in the conversation and genuinely curious.  Otherwise, this question will sound fake and uneducated.  Common sense required.)
  • If your firm publishes a newsletter of recent developments, read it.

These tips will help you to develop your awareness for cross-selling opportunities.  So, if your client mentions a problem in another legal area (say you practice IP and your client mentions an employment issue) you can be ready to suggest exactly which lawyer in your firm your client should talk with, and you can make that connection.  Cross-selling to satisfied current clients is probably the easiest kind of client development you can do.

 

More on loyalty (or the lack thereof) between associate and firm

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Associate retention continues to be a hot topic, especially as law firms seek ways to hold tight to the associates they’ve attracted at least in part by paying top dollar… and as associates eye the rising pay scales.

Arnie Herz of Legal Sanity has posted an interesting discussion (no longer available) on the disengaged employee, using a lot of buzzwords to suggest, I think, that legal employers need to focus on leadership development and employer/employee relationships.  He cites several reports for support, including a Deloitte report entitled, It’s 2008: Do You Know Where Your Talent Is? (no longer available)

I find it interesting that relationship seems to be in vogue now, and I wonder whether the trend will continue.  Are we moving toward a softer, gentler business environment?  And if so, what will be the effect of the softness on the business?  Is this just the current version of Emotional Intelligence?  I suppose only time will tell.  What I do know for sure, though, is that genuine interest is what will help the legal profession.  Lawyers need to be genuinely interested — invested, even — in their clients’ aims.  Associates need to be genuinely interested in the goals of their law firms.  Partners need to be genuinely interested in the associates’ development and their goals.

And money… Associate loyalty can’t be bought.  Although it’s less often discussed, neither can partner loyalty — as is illustrated by the large number of partners who now jump from one firm to another (and perhaps back), something that would have been anathema only a few years ago.  It’s possible to purchase a widget, to purchase a set amount of a lawyer’s time.  But retention requires much more.

Underpromise and overdeliver

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One of the most critical parts of establishing a career, as well as finding work/life balance, is conducting oneself in a way that lets others know they can rely on your word.  We’ve all had the experience of counting on someone to carry through on a promise and discovering that they didn’t.  Even when there’s a great reason, the next time we have an opportunity to count on them, we may well choose not to, or to build in a backup plan just in case.  Being a professional requires on-time delivery; life requires flexibility.  So how to manage?

Underpromise.  Overdeliver.  Every time.

If you’re asked when a memo will be ready, figure out what’s a reasonable amount of time, add some breathing room, and deliver before you say you will.  If you mention an article that might be helpful to someone and they respond, don’t stop there — send a copy to them.  (This is a good networking skill, too.)  If a more senior lawyer asks for the stack of cases referenced in a memo, go the extra mile: create a table of contents, including a few words about the key proposition of each case, so it’s easy to see what’s in the stack and why.

It’s about time and presentation.  Excel in both.

Now, the caveat: know when it’s appropriate to surpass a request and when it isn’t.  If someone wants bullet points as an outline for a telephone hearing with the court, writing out narrative paragraphs won’t be helpful.  Always use common sense to figure out what would be useful, and be sure to make your evaluation using the “Platinum Rule”: do unto others as they would have you do unto them.

And if you’re wondering why this has anything to do with work/life balance, think about this.  Suppose an associate works from home a couple of days a week.  Wouldn’t you feel comfortable with this only if you know that associate will deliver every time and will meet (and probably exceed) your expectations?

This level of professionalism opens doors.  It establishes a reputation that will serve you well.

New lawyer skills focus: Are you losing time?

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I don’t know a single lawyer who enjoys billing.

I do know a bunch of lawyers who leave completing their time sheets until the end of the month.

That means that I know a lot of lawyers who lose time.

It isn’t a sexy topic .  There’s no way that billing can be sexy, unless it’s at the heart of a criminal case that brings a lawyer down — but that isn’t the kind of sexy any of us wants to experience.  None of us wants to work without billing for it, though, so it is an important topic and one that’s simple in the abstract but challenging for many of us.

So, what works?  Plenty of legal management programs offer billing software that allows you to enter your client and a description of your work and then to monitor your time when you click start and stop.  It can be a pain, but if you get in the habit, it works beautifully.  I was able to track my time far more accurately by using software and increased my billing (legitimately) by about 10%.

If you don’t like software, make your own time-tracking sheets.  You (or your assistant) can make up a table with each of your active cases and a space to track your time and a few notes about what you’re doing.  Just making brief notes throughout the day will help, especially if you then transfer that data to your “real” timesheets.

Or get a calendar that divides the day into 15-minute increments, mark what you worked on every 15 minutes, and use your calendar as your timesheet.  Of course, that really only works well if you bill in .25-hour increments; otherwise, it gets messy quickly and whoever transcribes your time (especially if that’s you) will not be happy.

I think the best tip of all, though, is to make it your habit never to go to bed without making sure you’re current on your timesheets.  Don’t go to bed angry with your spouse, and don’t go to bed with your time unrecorded.