Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Law Firm Apprenticeship Programs

Law.com recently profiled the growing implementation of apprenticeship programs for first-year attorneys.

Notable firms across the country embracing the apprenticeship model include Howrey; Philadelphia's Drinker Biddle & Reath; labor firm Ford & Harrison; Ohio/Kentucky firm Frost Brown Todd; and Dallas' Strasburger & Price.

"Firms are putting new recruits through additional apprenticeship programs that they say will better train their attorneys for life at a law firm and for handling clients. Think of it as the equivalent of a medical residency, only with suits instead of scrubs."
"The latest -- and so far largest -- firm to move to an apprenticeship model, 659-lawyer Howrey, announced its program last week. Starting next year, first-years at the firm will get a pay cut -- from $160,000 to $100,000 in base pay plus a $25,000 bonus to pay down law school loans -- and they'll spend a good portion of their time attending classes with partners and shadowing them on client matters. The apprenticeship period will last two years.

"Robert Ruyak, Howrey's managing partner, said associates will be doing far less client work, and when they do work on client matters it won't necessarily be billed to clients. "We really want them to focus on learning the skill they need to be first-rate litigators," Ruyak said."

"The old model is broken," Ruyak said. "You're bringing on these extremely bright individuals and letting them waste their careers buried in documents where they aren't really learning the practical skills it takes to be a lawyer."

Ah, yes. Here we see -- yet again -- another real-world distinction between the two separate job functions that have been each historically covered by the umbrella term attorney. On the one hand, there is the redundant, commoditizable, associate level work, and on the other hand we have the role of adviser, counselor, manager, and/or litigator.

As we discussed previously, while the future of the legal profession is changing, the need for the experience, insight, and perspective of a seasoned attorney will always be in demand.

These apprenticeship programs seem to acknowledge that, and then take it a step further by explicitly separating the training of litigators/advisers/counselors from the redundant, high volume work that can be executed at a more cost-efficient level, either by in-house staff attorneys or -- with even more cost-efficiency -- by highly trained attorneys at an LPO.

Friday, June 19, 2009

A Lesson from the Engineers

Marketplace, a radio program run on many NPR stations, recently discussed how the sour economy was eliminating engineering jobs at a faster rate than many other professionals, with high profile companies looking to offshore their engineers.

Obviously, this sounds very familiar to legal professionals.

Interestingly, the American Society of Civil Engineers read the writing on the wall long enough ago to start revising their Body of Knowledge, which was created in a 1998 policy statement to define prerequisites for licensure and practice.

Last year the ASCE published
Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge for the 21st Century, Preparing The Civil Engineer for the Future, Second Edition.

The purpose of the book is to acknowledge new professional challenges and identify improvements to the education and licensure process. The book states:
"The manner in which civil engineering is practiced must change. That change is necessitated by such forces as globalization, sustainability requirements, emerging technology, and increased complexity with the corresponding need to identify, define, and solve problems at the boundaries of traditional disciplines."
Again, to those following the legal profession, there is a familiar echo: Globalization. Emerging technology. Problem solving at the boundaries of traditional disciplines.

Of equal importance, the ASCE also includes a telling word choice in one of their stated goals for the book.
" [to] focus on outcomes to the proposed changes in the way civil engineering is taught and learned, including the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for entry into professional practice."
Pretty striking. The American Society of Civil Engineers -- not a group historically known as wild-eyed, knee-jerk, doom sayers -- is 1) stating that the manner in which they practice their profession must change and, 2) suggesting that a change in attitude is a key component to succeeding in the 21st.

As attorneys peer into the coming years, it might not be a bad idea to steal a page from the ASCE's Body of Knowledge for the 21st Century and acknowledge that a change in attitude may be a successful strategy to address the challenges of globalization, emerging technology, and problem solving at the boundaries of traditional disciplines.

Friday, June 12, 2009

The Business of Law vs. The Service of Legal Counseling

The New York Times ran an article last week on how the most venerable law firms -- we're talking multinational, centuries old, most upper of the upper crust firms -- continue to purge their ranks in unprecedented fashion.

As anyone who is paying attention knows, the landscape of how legal work is organized and delivered is shifting beneath us as we speak. What no one knows exactly is how it's all going to shake out.

But there were a few more interesting signposts offered in the Times article that may at least help shape the way we perceive and articulate it.

Here is what the New York Times had to say (and I'm reordering some of their paragraphs):

"The gentleman’s profession of the law is becoming a vestige of the past, removed enough from reality to be remembered, like phone booths or fedoras."

"... the natural order of this world has been set on end by the economic crisis and the possible disappearance of fixtures like the pyramid system (under which associates are thrown en masse at certain cases, fattening the fees), and the billable hour itself (increasingly replaced by flat rates or retainers in a client’s market). The tectonic plates have begun to shift in a nauseating manner, bringing fear, ambiguity and psychological scars."

Philip K. Howard, a senior partner at Covington & Burling, another multinational firm, laments
that as the bottom line increases in importance, the traditional role of the lawyer as a trusted counselor slips away.

In another passage, Mr. Howard underscores his observation, saying that he's not really "interested in the business of law".

In other words, Mr. Howard is equating the current emphasis on the bottom line with the "business of law", and distinguishing that from the role of lawyer as counselor.

And this is consistent with our conversation regarding the distinction between legal information and legal advise.

The unbundling of legal services that we've been watching unfold in front of us can be framed in this way: the business of legal work is being separated from the service of legal counseling.

If this way of looking at it is accurate, and if this divide -- between the business of legal work and the service of legal counsel -- continues to solidify, that would seem to argue for the continued growth of LPO as attractively priced virtual associates and virtual attorneys to contribute to the business of legal work.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Legal Information vs. Legal Advice

The unbundling of traditional legal offerings -- which is an emerging trend central to Richard Susskind's recent book The End of Lawyers -- has been a hot topic in these parts lately.

The idea of different legal services becoming available in new venues and formats is one that we're seeing manifest itself in a number of ways from web-based companies offering legal forms, legal facts, entreprenuerial start-up guidance, copyright filing, and more.

And it's happening in both the U.S. and the U.K.

In fact, the U.K.'s Legal Services Act 2007 is a national initiative providing a legislative framework to actually reform the way legal services in England and Wales are regulated and delivered.

The Act specifically allows legal services "to be provided under new business structures" with a stated goal of promoting "competition and innovation".

The BBC recently reported on this, highlighting that "future providers, including large retail brands, could seek a license to offer legal services."

The article includes opposing views, including an attorney who says the move "demonstrates utter contempt for the consumer of legal services. The solicitor profession faces being all but wiped out by a government seemingly intent on robbing the public of access to good quality, local legal advice."

Ah, but here is something to keep in mind: As we talk about the fragmenting of legal offerings, it's important to be consistent in distinguishing between legal information and legal advice.

In fact, it could be argued that the BBC's reporting fails to do this. Or, at the least, it allows for the interchanging of the terms.

The American Bar Association distinguishes between legal information and legal advice. Legal information is general, non case specific, and can be provided by anyone. Legal advice, on the other hand, is "provided by a trained lawyer who uses his or her knowledge of the law to tell you how the law applies to your specific circumstances."

When listening to all the voices on both sides of the conversation, it's important to keep the distinction in mind and remember that legal advice isn't going anywhere.

Legal experience, insight, and strategy aimed at an outcome will always be in demand. What is evolving, and will continue to evolve, is how the more rudimentary and "commoditizable" aspects of the law will be unbundled and delivered.