Exhibit No. 1 ON WHY OUR PROFESSION HAS LOST ITS WAY

I don't know why others went into the practice of law but here is why I did.  It provided me with a career that included intellectual stimulation and challenge, while at the same time would, if I worked hard, provide me decent remuneration.  My parents were both professionals.  So I came to appreciate and respect the non-monetary pleasure that they derived from helping people with their intellectual abilities - from well heeled businesspersons to school teachers to laborers.

This was the ethos of a professional that I understood.  The primary driver was helping clients.  The pleasure was in employing your intellect to do so.  And the money was something that would come along as a result.  Not necessarily big bucks but enough to live comfortably - very comfortably. 

Granted,  there are and have always been lawyers who made big bucks - sometimes equivalent to their business counterparts.  But those were entrepreneurial lawyers who took risks equivalent to those on the business side.  But when one enlists to be a professional the money should not be the sole driver.

Click here to read an article, "The Bottom Line on Client Analysis", that is further evidence of why our profession has lost its way.  One would think that by its title this article was about how to better serve one's clients through better analysis.  But like the book in the now famous Twilight Zone, entitled "To Serve Man", you are in for a surprise.

It is an article discussing techniques for how firms - presumably the larger firms - can, like their accounting and management consulting counterparts, better analyze which clients or practice areas are providing them the most "realization" - e.g. which clients or practice areas are the most profitable. Presumably this is so the firm can weed out the less profitable clients, practice areas, or lawyers.

What is going on here?  Lawyers are now striving to adopt business models similar to our "counterparts" in accounting and management consulting?  Since when were they ever our counterparts?  We are lawyers. We are not accountants and we are not management consultants.  Or are we?  I hope for our sake, for the sake of the profession, and for the sake of our country that this is not true  [yes I do believe that the private attorney tradition of our country distinguishes it above every other democracy in the world].

If a client retains a law firm at an agreed to level of compensation acceptable to a particular lawyer in that firm and then pays the bills, what else need be analyzed?

What is going on here is that those running law firms and those that advise them are turning the practice of law into a business to the exclusion of everything else.  Clients are no longer individuals in need of our professional assistance.  They are pieces of meat that law firms engorge themselves on so that each firm can keep up their profits per partner.  Likewise, the most valued lawyers within firms are no longer the high quality professionals - rather the most valued are those whose "realizations" are the highest.

This is yet another example of the New Yorkification of the practice of law. "Bonfire of the Vanities" on steroids.  Some day clients - big and small - are going to realize that the only outsourcing they need do is to make sure that they outsource their legal work to firms who are no longer trying to keep up with the New Yorkers.  It will be a better day for clients and for the practice.

Comments

[Michael Baltaxe]

A very entertaining blog, thanks

[Michael Brown]

Thank you for your post, which comports with my experience. I am a plaintiff's attorney who regularly opposes corporate opponents, and I am concerned about what I sense on the other side, as well as some colleagues at prior jobs.

I sense many lawyers are no longer acting as problem-solvers, which in my view is lawyers' primary function to our clients. First and foremost, our services should be geared to solving or reducing our client's problems. If my client pays me $2500, I should make (or save) him more than that. My services should be directed toward problem-solving, and delivering tangible value.

But I sense too much focus on the "business" of law, and billable hours requirements, etc., which distorts the lawyer's problem-solving focus. The focus is diverted to the finances: writing a brief more so because it's 5.6 billable hours, rather than based on the belief the brief will move a client toward its goals.

Like you, I consistently get the feeling that the world of big law is buying into short-term financial goals, and not looking at the big picture. You can only fool a client for so long before they understand (1) they did not get value for the services provided; and (2) the attorney didn't care all along.

[C Bailey]

As someone involved in attempting to get "Justice" in a matter where an Attorney filed a baseless and frivolous suit(he lost). It was a blatant attempt to extort money from my business with a settlement offer. I can not agreed more with your premise.

Attorneys I contacted refused to handle our suit against the Attorney in question because the "damages" we were seeking where not high enough for them to bother.

Such an attitude permits unscrupulous Attorneys to scam the system and the public.