The Uncommon Sensei

A few weeks ago I interrupted a rather heated exchange on one of my favorite blogs, The Lawyerist, with a lengthy comment that was graciously received by both author and publisher.  The original article (you can read it here, comments and all) was one in a series both cataloguing and crowd-sourcing the challenges faced by two young lawyers starting their own firm.  Several readers questioned the wisdom of sponsoring a round robin of potentially inaccurate and dangerous advice.  There followed a bit of a row, which got uglier with every counterclaim, ultimately provoking me to attempt an intervention.  It bears repeating -- if not for my vast readership then for the one or two young professionals I hope will take its message to heart. 

Background: The Curmudgeons

One of the participants in the exchange in question, Scott Greenfield, is a member of a brotherhood of self-identified "curmudgeons", “haters” and “meanies” who make a habit of patrolling the blogosphere and twitter for self-promoters (including "social media gurus"), their more substantive goal being to alert consumers to those lawyers whose internet advice and commentary is reckless or unethical.

When I first spotted these guys crawling all over Adrian Dayton sometime in 2009, I thought them merely mean spirited. ( 'So if you don't like what he writes don't read it', right?)  I was then discovering a fascinating world of gutsy, articulate, ambitious law students and lawyers, a good number of whom appreciated the advice, connections, support and promotion I so enjoyed offering--newly sprung from 30 years of large firm practice.  At first I thought the watchdogs should back off---a maternal, and therefore not especially helpful, response. 

But now it’s 2012, I have sobered up a bit, and I now think these so-called haters serve an important purpose in the blogosphere:  as "scouts", if you will, in the lawyer's version of the wild west-- a place where solo and virtual law practices are multiplying at a rapid pace (exhilarating to some, ominous to others), often at grave risk to their intended clients, and to our profession.  I am concerned by the growing crowd of tweeters and bloggers who celebrate the efficiencies, glory and freedom of solo legal practice, often with insufficient attention to the crucial role of training and prior experience (and, equally often, with minimal experience of their own--as lawyers, much less sole practitioners).

My concern: The internet is especially hospitable to the instant-solo call to arms, but the appeal and utility of a "shingle" varies dramatically as a function of its owner's qualifications, none of which can be willed into existence by courage and optimism alone.  

The Wartime Consigliere

It strikes me that, since Scott and his colleagues cannot watchdog the entire online profession, their scorched earth approach may be strategically justified.  In these increasingly "desperate times", a lot of bad publicity may be better than too little notice.  Measured, gracious advice would be vastly preferable, but the most recent, embattled generation of graduates sets a brisk pace, and includes a few too many impatient souls who use the internet's bully pulpit to offer inaccurate or misleading legal advice, cloaked solely by a disclaimer.

The "curmudgeons" are under-staffed, and working for free, so they cast a wide net. Do I wish they could do so without condescension, without hurting people's feelings, without discouraging those in great need of encouragement?  Of course.  But I am not unhappy they are out there.

Some Advice

The author of the piece in The Lawyerist, like his law school contemporaries, made the leap from the relatively benign world of academia into a rotten economy and contracting job market,  burdened, quite likely, by crushing debt and with few of the practical skills necessary to practice law without the (albeit limited) supervision otherwise available at a firm or in an in-house or government position.   I have enormous sympathy for him, and no quarrel with a blog tracing his efforts to learn about the business of law; but in explaining the true curmudgeon end-game I did suggest he gain as much information and advice as possible "in real life" before offering it to his readers. 

So to all you would-be virtual and solo lawyers, here are a few suggestions I hope you'll consider as you map out the first two or three years after you graduate from law school.  

1.  Get some experience on the ground first.  Going solo just off the bar exam is not a good idea at all, truly.  Think hard before you offer advice--formally or informally-- affecting the livelihood, possessions, families or liberties of another human being.  And if you can put food on your table from another source while you learn how to practice law, do it.

2.  Network intensively, both in person and online.  The people we meet "live" are the ones more likely to be reliable sources of counsel, now and in the future, and the internet can never take the place of a robust in-person professional network.  Nonetheless, social media is an essential, and versatile, tool; and your online friends and mentors can develop into critically important relationships. (A number of the law students and young lawyers I have met on Twitter, such as @t10nbaum, @bradestes88 and @amy2Lsanders, have sourced speaking engagements, guest blog spots, useful connections, leadership opportunities and paid legal research work through their strategic, persistent use of social media.)

3.  Identify mentors through your city or county bar association and your law school alumni network.   Build those relationships with purpose and enthusiasm, all the more urgently if you are practicing on your own.  Don't leave it to your mentors to initiate contact.  Be proactive: Contact them regularly, ask their advice, solicit their support and, most of all, learn from them. If this means taking on piece meal work for minimal compensation, do it.

4.  Search out skills-building resources that are a walk or a bus or subway ride away, and use them: 

  *Bar association and CLE training and networking opportunities,
  *Alumni networks, informational interviews, family friends and referrals,
  *The community and other organizations of which you are a part, and
  *The pro bono and contract legal work you do to gain experience and skills.

5.  Consult the websites and blogs designed to serve young practitioners.  Your state likely has a range of services for newly licensed lawyers, especially those starting their own firms. Those practicing in Red Sox country can rely on the  Law Office Management Assistance Program, which offers a wealth of excellent advice, in person and online (you can follow  @MassLOMAP, @jaredcorreia and @rodneydowell to benefit as well). 

6.  Always remember that your first priority must be to learn your craft.  To do that you must read, study, listen and reflect; and you must observe and learn from experienced lawyers, up front and personal.  The online community can and should be a source of support as you do so, but choose your teachers with great care, and do not limit yourself to the ether so very early in your career.  (Among those who offer advice on solo practice are Carolyn Elefant,  Steph Kimbro and Susan Cartier-Liebel.) 

 Take a Breath.  Make the Smart, and Responsible, Play.

The internet can be a confusing place, where innovation and guts are sometimes valued more than talent, ability and experience, and where branding can so easily trump the truth. 

If you "hang out your shingle" after you pass the bar, without job experience and the supervision of a seasoned practitioner, remember that you owe it to the consumers of your legal services, even those who didn't click "Accept" in your "Terms and Conditions", to spare them your advice and counsel until you are certain it is sound.

And finally, a word to the consumer of legal services: 

Of course you do not need to entrust every legal matter to an expensive law firm or a lawyer with many years of experience.  And of course some matters can be properly addressed by more recently licensed practitioners.  This presupposes, however, that these rookies have invested the time and effort to learn the current applicable law, to develop the necessary skills (legal, business and otherwise) and to recognize (and admit) when they are in over their heads.

This week, Stanford Law School commandeered the Sacramento Bee to announce the completion of the first phase of its very substantial curriculum reforms.  If you have been following the reaction of legal educators to the profession’s clamoring for better educated graduates you know that Stanford began this process in late 2006, and that assorted other elite schools have recently undertaken their own reforms as well.

By Stanford Law School

Stanford, however, claims to be breaking new ground, in an open challenge to its competitors, by introducing a comprehensive, interdisciplinary new program “transforming its traditional law degree into a multi-dimensional JD, which combines the study of other disciplines with team-oriented, problem-solving techniques together with expanded clinical training that enables students to represent clients and litigate cases while in law school”.

The press release, appropriately, highlights Stanford’s commitment to teach students to understand their clients' needs and solve their problems.  Dean Larry Kramer asserts that the new curriculum does what “no other law school has done, and no other law school can do, because no other university matches Stanford in the number of top-notch programs and departments relevant to lawyers.”  Wow.  Take that, the rest of you. (I think this is the part that could have used an editor.)

The message to recruiters (and this very season's new admitees) is unambiguous, as well it should be.  The article's single testimonial is sourced from Skadden, one of the very first firms (along with Milbank and Debevoise) to have the eminent good sense and foresight to invest in business education for its associates. (Skadden and Debevoise turned to the Fullbridge Program and Milbank to Harvard Law.)

Skadden’s global hiring partner, Howards Ellin, offers this applause: 

"At Skadden, we value innovation tremendously, and Stanford Law School's curriculum reforms reflect a truly forward-looking holistic approach to legal education.  The law school is dedicated to anticipating and fulfilling the practical and intellectual needs of both its students and the legal and business communities they enter after graduation."

Dean Kramer reassures the skeptics: "In rethinking our curriculum, we recognized that we could lay the foundation of traditional legal analysis in the first year” while still dramatically expanding opportunities in the second and third years to prepare students “for the role they can and should play in practice and in society." 

The press release is detailed and deserves a full read. I very much hope that things are, in fact, what they seem in Palo Alto.   The university at large has a lot riding on these heavily funded reforms, including hopes for a major punch up in global brand. It will take a good deal more to threaten Harvard on this count, but these reforms are an excellent first step.   Certainly, both students applying to law school and those weighing multiple acceptances will consider with care the apparent Stanford advantage.  But it will be many months before we can begin to determine the impact of the changes.

A few of the new program’s claims:

• Multi-disciplinary project courses addressing “real-world business and policy problems”.
• Full-time (no course or exam conflicts) clinical work in a broad range of practice areas, including SCOTUS cases and transactional law.
• The proper philosophy and end-game: Stanford Law will do more than teach lawyers “how to spot problems”, it will train them “to solve them”, by ensuring that they will “be able to think like their client, a way of thinking that can and should begin in law school and ....in a global context."

And some of the “concrete changes”  (already in place) that have generated student interest and success:

• A quarterly school calendar matching the rest of Stanford University (This is good: Many universities encourage cross registration at their business schools--yet students find their schedules don’t match and the basic courses are limited to B-school students).

• 23 formal joint degree programs,  28 individual joint degrees and the continnuing option to tailor a joint program in almost any discipline. (I always wished I had sprung for the JD/MBA.  Much more to choose from here.)

• Sophisticated team-oriented, problem-solving courses co-taught by multi-disciplinary faculties.  (Like many of these course offerings, an option in some other schools, including Harvard's winter term problem solving courses. I'm trying to find out more about these offerings--how many are there? are they full semester courses?) I would have happily registered for all of these examples:

  “..how to bring an invention to market (evaluating the technology, drafting a business plan, protecting intellectual property, and managing the regulatory process), how to engineer a complex business deal, how to translate complex scientific concepts into a courtroom or policymaking setting, and how to develop technology solutions to legal problems”.

• A major reorganization of the law school’s (now ten) clinics to operate like a law firm: The Mills Legal Clinic, with a med-school modeled full-time clinical rotation. (Gratefully this law firm will not self-imolate under the billable hour model.)  

• Substantially greater emphasis on the international curriculum, including the addition of a third LLM program, International Economic Law, Business and Policy. On this count, Stanford is still playing catch-up ball.

• Expansion of the numbers and variety of student and faculty research opportunities and public interest resources. 

And a few mixed cultural/structural changes:

• A new academic building AND five-building housing complex mixing law students with graduate students in other disciplines--a truly “new concept in interdisciplinary living”. (They even have their own grocery store.  That should silence you tuition whiners.  But seriously, this is a pretty good idea, though I'm not convinced the other graduate students are going to be as enthusiastic as the Dean.)
  
  
  By Jrissman (Own work) CC-BY-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)

• Two proprietary online devices:  The first is a curriculum builder that matches courses to practice areas in the law school and the broader university.  If there are also some human beings who understand the multi-disciplinary possibilities--student advisors, for example-- then this software will be a helpful resource.  The second connects students with alumni working in the particular field.  A good number of law schools already have sophisticated alumni networking software, but I don’t know if any reach beyond the JD curriculum and alumni/ae bubbles.  All the schools could probably do a better job with technology.

Many of the approaches described in the captive-Bee article have been adopted on other campuses in some form. The beauty of the Stanford strategy, however, appears to be in its comprehensive, university-wide reach, including what appears to be exquisite attention to the whole student: her living arrangements and community, her courses and clinics---all offered with sophisticated, structured support and a thoroughly modern pedagogy committed, nonetheless, to classic foundations. 

Nothing piecemeal for Stanford, at least on the surface.  And Dean Kramer is all in. Game on.

A new day?  An honest to goodness game-changer?  I hope so: 

If Stanford’s program comes even close to fulfilling its promise, then other elite schools will follow and the value of legal education will substantially increase.  

And then we can worry less about the impossible dream---that the ABA might take a break from accrediting new law schools and strike that pesky, pricy third year. 

What do you think?  

(And those of you with the scoop on other schools, educate us please.  Stanford isn't first to claim many of these innovations.  Send the Bee the full story.  I figure they must have some reporters available now that Valentine's Day is behind us.)

I can think of a million reasons why I don’t have the time to write this article.  Pressing reasons.  I’m “flat out”.  Last week was “crazy” and it’s all I can do to catch up.  I need some sleep.  Did I already say that I’m “flat out”?  I also have “a full plate”.  And I’m “buried”, really.  I’ve been preparing for next week’s training program “24/7”.  Wow, my back is “killing me”, again.

If you push me I can always fall back on: “I can’t charge for blogging.”  And the equally compelling: “Tweeting doesn’t pay the bills”.

But that would be ill advised, short-sighted and self-defeating.  Blogging doesn’t pay the bills in and of itself.  But, blogging is one way I get better at what I do.  The process keeps me fresh, focused and reflective.  It also offers me ways to deepen my network of legal professionals, those who offer me advice, collegial support, valuable industry information, writing and speaking opportunities and, occasionally, client and other referrals.   And it helps me build my reputation as someone who is very good at what she does.

Sure, you say, but you don’t have a hefty annual billable hours requirement hanging over your head.

Billable vs. Non-Billable?  Not Always a Useful Distinction.

The fact is that I am developing my coaching and consulting business in very much the same way that my partners and I, then in our twenties and thirties, built a large transactional law practice serving the media and communications industries.  

To build our practice we adopted a strategy, in a mix of intent and intuition, that applies every bit as much to you as it did, and still does, to me.  

Of course we worked long, hard hours.  Anyone building a career must be prepared to pay her dues.  We spent nights and weekends at the office, negotiating and drafting documents and closing financings, mergers and acquisitions and leveraged buy-outs.  Most of this was “billable” time, but we weren’t just counting hours--we knew we were worth more.  

After all, anyone can run up billable hours.  Our toughest competitors worked just as hard, charged as much (or more) and were (usually) just as smart.  We had to offer more.

What set us apart?  What will distinguish you from your peers in the adjoining offices or cubes or at other law firms? 

Consider these four benchmarks.  None are rocket science, but if you set each as a daily priority, blending the billable and the non-billable, you’ll soon have a career on your hands.  

• An absolute commitment to responsive, proactive service--to the client, of course, but also, where possible, to a rich and ever-expanding network of friends, contacts and prospects. 
• A proven and detailed understanding of each client’s business, industry and competitors and the challenges (both legal and financial) they face.  
• Ongoing interaction with clients, contacts and prospects, by telephone, email and mail and in person- in their offices, in yours, and at the conferences and other settings where they convene with their peers, customers, investors and business partners.  
• Commitment to a single, overarching principle of business generation and career satisfaction (on a par, I would argue, with The Prime Directive...): 

  To add value to the client’s business and prove ourselves worthy partners  in its growth-- not infrequently without the meter running.  

A Career, Not Just a Job

Along the way, the members of our network became our friends, our “jobs” became life careers, and business generation transformed from obligation to privilege to way of life.  

And my point is?

No lawyer (in fact, no service professional) can prosper, especially in the current economy, without a rich strategic network and a first-rate reputation, in both his or her law firm and community.  These goals cannot be achieved solely by billing hours and going through the standard “marketing” motions (attending the annual bar association “Gala”, sending out those dreadful “Holiday Cards”, attending a panel presentation in body only, and so on).  They cannot be reached by crafting the quintessential "executory" contract" with your beleaguered practice group manager:  The two-page  "Marketing Plan" she distributes once a year.

Most young attorneys begin their careers with minimal practical skills, a narrow professional network, an inadequate understanding of business transactions and disputes, the cautious habits of a student and the risk-averse nature of the pre-modern lawyer.  With very few exceptions (those with business degrees and relevant prior work experience), the newly minted JD has little idea how to be a lawyer, much less develop a law practice.   Neither of these skills gets much attention in the average law school, even during the inexplicable, oft squandered, third year. 

Nonetheless, if our youngest lawyers want to get and keep good jobs and earn enough money to retire crushing tuition debt and fashion a meaningful future, they will need to be as productive as possible, as fast as possible.  And this does not happen on its own.

Choose Your Path Now, If You Can

Just bearing down, billing hours and getting the job done is not enough.  Everyone is expected to work especially hard in a large firm, and the ethic is often equally (and justifiably) strong in small and medium sized law firms.  In fact, partners often work harder than associates--so be careful what you wish for.  If you have an inflexible  personal life that draws on your time, reconsider large firm practice and focus your job search on much smaller firms, in-house practice, government service or other career tracks, with a careful consideration of each prospective employer’s culture.

Remember:  Websites are commercials. They are not designed to give you the inside scoop.  Find out, however you can, whether lifestyle and family are truly valued.  If you look closely, spend the time and are prepared for a lower financial return, you may happen upon a firm that has instituted alternative billing practices for key clients and can afford to stress results and value over hours. 

Make a Plan

Before things get away from you, make a career plan for the near future, hopefully with the help of your professional development or marketing department.  (What kind of work will you go after at the firm?  How will you keep it?  Who are the best teachers and mentors?  What do you need to learn and do to be the best associate possible? How will you build a network and reputation in your firm and the legal community? Can you identify a promising specialty or industry niche? How about writing for the firm’s blog? Or starting one?  And so on...)

Then implement your plan, with discipline and optimism.

But, you say, I’m FLAT OUT!   There isn’t time to get your billable work done, much less draft and implement a career plan.  

This is not exactly true. 

Make the Time

The trick is in the discipline.  You’ll have to learn to better balance your work (clarifying assignments, tackling them efficiently, organizing tasks and projects efficiently, accessing time-saving resources and staying in front of deadlines), then setting aside some time each day (as little as 5 or 10 minutes on some days, more as you get the hang of it, and at least one lunch, drinks, coffee or dinner hour a week) to build and maintain a strategic network, learn about the businesses and people you represent or hope to market, and identify leadership, speaking and other opportunities through which to enhance your reputation and hone essential communication skills.

Consider this sampling of activities.  The stand-out associate will make the time for:

•   The monthly departmental or practice group meeting.
•   A networking event hosted by the Firm to which associates are invited.
•   An affinity group event organized for your benefit.
•   Establishing a dignified presence on social media platforms that are well populated
    by influential or rising members of your network.
•   Training programs organized for your benefit.
•   Contributing to a marketing pitch or a Firm blog or client alert.
•   Serving on a bar association committee, with the ultimate goal of running it.
•   Absorbing the critical news: local, national, global, financial.  (And don’t forget your
    town’s sports teams, especially on Mondays.  As a native of New York and a longtime
    resident of Boston I speak from experience.)

Two Birds, One Stone

Make no mistake about it---the partners are looking for you at these events.  And yes, they also expect to see your light on in the evening and to receive prompt responses to their emails--whatever the time.  Only some of them may consider billable and non-billable hours mutually exclusive.  They understand that their own success depends on your performance.

Discipline.  Drive.  Self-reliance.  Proactivity.  Responsiveness.  Enthusiasm.  Focus.  All are portable skills,  as are many of the business relationships you develop as a young lawyer.   All are essential to your success within your law firm and in developing a practice in the business community.  The partners and others who will determine the length of your tenure, and your compensation, will expect you to demonstrate these qualities.  So find the time to do just that.  At the same time you will be letting the world (and maybe your next employer) know who you are and what you can do.

Carpe Diem

Remember:  No one else has any intention of taking care of you now.   Only you can truly invest in your future.  Gone are the days of mentoring that is both willing and useful. No matter how generous your assigned mentor appears to be, no matter how supportive the lawyers and staff seem to be at the first year associate orientation, the truth is that you can only rely on yourself.  If you take charge of your career now, you’ll be ahead of the game.

Photo by Gordon Hatton via Wikimedia Commons

This is the first in a series of posts on the gender double standard applied in large law firms.  Not breaking news, to say the least.  But with the JD class of 2011 now studying for the bar (truly the dreariest summer of my life) a pep talk of sorts is in order.

It pains me to observe that gender diversity in large law firms has, during my career, progressed at a snail's pace. I graduated from law school (men and women then enrolled at an approximately 5 to 1 ratio) with the highest hopes.  My generation took for granted that we would pave the way for gender equity in our professions.  Yet, decades later, parity of enrollment has barely moved the partnership needle at large firms, where women normally account for less than 20% of stakeholders.  

To be clear:  Gender bias has informed, but not defined, my career.  At times it has infuriated me.  At others I have felt myself tougher and better for having avoided or overcome it.  Much of the time I haven't noticed it (or I haven't looked for it).

Easy for me to say.

The truth is that I have led a charmed life compared to so many of my colleagues, especially women lawyers of color.   (The National Association of Law Placement reported that in 2010 lawyers of color accounted for 19.7% of all associates and 6.1% of all partners. Worse, women of color were just 11% of associates and 1.9% of partners.)  In building my practice, I mainly partnered with male lawyers (there were few women my age), in a highly collegial firm culture, and my clients were about 30% female. Of these colleagues and clients the vast majority offered me friendship, loyalty and respect throughout my career.  (I know few similarly blessed young lawyers.)

While I do not, therefore, seethe over my treatment as a woman in the legal profession, I am deeply worried about the young women I mentor and coach---so I make sure I consider their reactions to remarks such as those following a recent post in The Careerist.  Today I rise to the apparent bait, to offer suggestions (albeit imperfect) for dealing with the double standard of which those remarks are a symptom.

Declining Numbers

In “Women Spurn Law Schools”, Vivia Chen examined the steady decline in women enrolled at preeminent law schools, citing statistics from the MBA site Poets and Quants and the ABA Blog that show women lagging behind men at 9 of the top 10 ranked schools.  (Only Boalt broke 50%.)   Equally disheartening: Women at law school have it all over their sisters in B-School, who consistently occupy barely a third of the class and face disproportionately greater challenges in post-grad job searches.

"Harvard Law Review: Ante Femina

The organizations Chen surveyed echoed the blogosphere's message of the moment:  Although women continue in "meaningful numbers" in the legal profession, the relentless flow of dispiriting information on law schools, law jobs and the economy (not to mention lackluster progress by women lawyers) would discourage the toughest-minded female applicant.

Harpies

None of this, of course, is news--most certainly not to those jaded doyennes who have practiced for more than a decade or two.   But it is painful.  And the caustic comments to Chen's blog (reminiscent of an Above the Law open thread) will remind some of you of at least one not so recent encounter:

 One member of Chen's audience scorned her for over-examining “the woes of not having male genitalia in the legal profession”.

 Another suggested a better name for the blog, including my favorite: “The Harpy”.   (This one, I'll admit, suggests an education in the classics to which I offer an enthusiastic hat tip.)

To be fair, Chen's detractors likely share the frustration faced by the many lawyers now faced with making a living-- and having a life --in a rapidly transforming profession offering fewer jobs, decreasing opportunities for advancement and a profoundly uncertain future.   Even so.

Hen Parties and Cat Fights

In my effort to rise above it all (not so simple in The People's Republik of Cambridge), I found myself recalling a few representative vignettes.

I remembered coming back to the office, after running a two-day retreat for all the women lawyers at my firm, and (1) being asked how the "hen party" went and (2) feeling irritated but unsurprised. 

 Then there was the Friday afternoon when a group of colleagues and clients hoisted a glass to celebrate closing a contentious $500 million acquisition financing.  As I described with amusement an especially colorful exchange with my talented female counterpart at the opposing law firm one of the clients gleefully cried: "Cat Fight!".  Not especially funny, but routine.  

These types of wisecracks - if (a) not the norm and (b) confined to the acknowledged profilers in the crowd--are best ignored. Often, they matter little in the grand scheme of things.   However, if enough credible, respected and powerful people nod, chime in or laugh at the quip in question, the workplace culture will suffer.

When my practice was booming (and I considered myself immune to sexism) I was rarely troubled by this sort of silliness, at least coming from beloved colleagues who had long since demonstrated their respect, affection and loyalty.

But now I am fighting the good fight for the future, not for myself:  That night at the bar my female associate didn't find the "cat fight" remark especially hilarious.   Worse, the clever "hen party" line, with its progeny, convinced several star female associates to stay away from the next women's event, rather than be associated with the petulant, insubstantial members of a "special needs" affinity group. 

"Women Lawyers Retreat :  Break-Out Session on Work-Life Balance"

So, yes, the gender double standard is no less alive and well in BigLaw than it is in business.

How Should We Manage and Deter Gender Bias?

There are absolutely no easy answers to that question.  Any advice will vary broadly depending on personal style, character, interpersonal strengths and career strategy.  But I can offer a few examples of the gender double standard in action, and some thoughts on ways to understand and manage, if not avoid, the results.  Here's one from my own experience as a transactional lawyer. 

 #1  Male and Female Negotiating Styles

The Contradiction:  

Male lawyers who are combative, testy or aggressive are often described as tough or brash or, perhaps, as "street fighters". They are usually considered worthy opponents and decent (if not masterful) advocates, albeit "sharp-elbowed".  Irritiating to their colleagues, these guys will nonetheless get the good work if they are smart, effective and self-confident.

By contrast, a women attorney who is sharp tempered or edgy risks being seen as high-strung, emotional or, that reliable leitmotif, bitchy.  If she switches gears to be more accomodating she could fall into the so-called "likeability vs. competence" trap, emerging "just-not-tough-enough" for the big city. (The good news: If the client is happy, all will be forgiven.)

"Rachel:   Top of her class.  Law review.  But oh so abrasive.   So shrill."

 Example: Document Negotiations

In negotiating loan agreements for borrowers I took genuine umbrage at so-called "standard", but over-reaching, provisions.  To spare my client an awkward exchange with his or her business partner, I preferred to express my displeasure during document negotiations, respectfully but firmly challenging the banker or his counsel to justify the provision as both fair and necessary.  I rarely yielded the point without registering genuine disappointment and bewilderment (but never anger) at the unsporting flavor of the lender's legal documents. 

My clients liked this comon sense approach and we frequently won the point. (The unspoken message: Man up and do the right thing--strike the paragraph, even if in-house counsel wants it in, and preserve--even enhance--your reputation as a fair-minded businessperson.)  But I assure you that on every such call there were several men leaning on the mute button and rolling their eyes as they remarked on the harpy lawyer from Boston. 

I chose this example because it is one of the easy ones; one of the situations for which I can offer concrete advice to all. It is also an area in which there is real room for hope, at least according to a recent Marquette Law School study showing that experienced women lawyers more often than not defy stereotyping in negotiations. 

My Advice to Women Associates:  

Negotiate strong and straight up in a forceful but balanced tone of voice.   Know your stuff. Be authoritative (in a collaborative kind of way....). Keep it simple. If possible, appeal to your opponent as a business person, not on legal grounds.  Finally, follow the concluding advice offered in the Marquette report.   And better yet, sign up for a negotiation training program.  (Be prepared to pay for it yourself, if your firm will not.)

And to Women Law Students

Do not graduate from law school without taking your school's negotiation course or workshop, one which covers both the transactional and litigation contexts, if possible.  In an ideal world wide-band negotiation skills would be part of every law school's core curriculum--but they're not, so you may need to cross-register at a nearby business school or find a training program when you start work.  You must know how to argue your point, get your way and represent your client effectively in a fashion that suits your personal style and character, one which also takes into account the experience and biases of your audience.

In my next post I will consider several other examples and offer my thoughts.   In the meantime, if you have your own stories to tell, please pass them along:  

Have you (or has someone you have mentored) been challenged by the gender double standard?

How did you (or your mentee) meet the challenge?

What advice would you offer?

Thanks for reading!

When I was building my media and communications practice, the internet was just a glimmer in the Pentagon’s eye and a flash mob would have prompted an investigation.  No one blogged or tweeted; no one closed a transaction or handled a major negotiation other than in person. We, by necessity, had the luxury of frequent, thorough personal contact.   

In the boomer glory days transactional documents were rarely finalized and signed until most of the players (clients, lawyers and advisers) had convened in a conference room for one or two days, often developing the camaraderie born of close quarters and a lack of fresh air, sunlight, sleep or healthy food.  

The Mixer (Closing a Cable TV Financing)

This gave even a young pup ample time to display the smarts, savvy, poise and other qualities predictive of success as both lawyer and counselor.  Grace under pressure, a sense of fairness, a feel for business, a good sense of humor....how can a young lawyer display these essential strengths without even having a voice on a conference call?  How can you inspire confidence with a barely visible presence on the deal team?  

It’s not easy. For some associates, it is close to impossible.   My colleagues and I were lucky.  We got out a lot.  We traveled more, did more, engaged more.  We did not spend every minute hell-bent on billing hours.  We were busy building business.  We got to know our clients and their advisers; we spent quality time with the people with whom our clients did business and their team of professionals.  Many became our close friends; most came to respect, trust and like us; and plenty sent us new, and repeat, business. 

By contrast, today's young (and not so young) lawyers must fight just to meet the partners in their firms, much less clients and prospects.  Too often they yield to the temptation to hunker down and just bill hours, conducting business (and personal) relationships online and avoiding the in-person interactions essential to professional growth and business generation.  

Our group's marketing mantra is just as apt now as it was in our glory days:  Spend as much quality time as possible with the client (if you can, make that happen on the client’s turf) and always enjoy yourself. This should still be the goal. It's better business, and it's a better life.

No need to change the basic plan--but young lawyers need to come up with new ways to execute it, ones that work in a down economy, a digital age and a period of seismic change....which, conveniently, is where the Vegas analogy comes in.  Stay with me. 

Glory Days

Every year, when I was a young lawyer, the cable television and radio and TV broadcast industries convened in Las Vegas or Dallas for their national trade shows.  Among those who attended were the banks, insurance companies and private equity investors who financed these industries, as well as some of the service professionals, like lawyers and accountants, who -- though near the end of the food chain --understood its purpose.

We spent two or three days at each show attending sponsored cocktail parties (most of which we crashed), organizing late night outings to restaurants and clubs and, basically, doing a lot of old fashioned milling around in hotel lobbies and on convention floors being very much in evidence--very much in the thick of things.  If you were at those conventions, you saw us. I promise.  We were the ones with the rental van outside the Anatole waiting to ferry the Northeastern contingent to Gilly's.

(When one of my colleagues couldn't make it to the Vegas NCTA one year he just had himself paged at the MGM Grand and Caesar's Palace.  If you asked after him, everyone would swear he was there anyway, no less in the very thick of things than the rest of us...)

 Hurricanes at Houlihan's: National Association of Radio Broadcasters Convention in New Orleans

In Vegas and Dallas, in New Orleans, Anaheim and Atlanta, we deepened existing friendships, built new ones and learned everything we could about the cable and broadcast businesses.  For years, amazingly, we were often the only non-regulatory lawyers in the room, distinguishing ourselves as having drive and business savvy and busy assembling the professional network on which we would build a nationally recognized law practice.

Back at our firms, at first, partners and associates alike regarded us and our “boondoggles” with a mix of suspicion and amused tolerance, even as the business poured in.  Silly us… 

But those were the glory days--when the media and communications industries were still neighborhoods, of a sort, the massive consolidations of the nineties had yet to occur and the legal profession looked and felt altogether different.   Lawyers still convene for national and regional bar association meetings, and most industries still offer opportunities to rub shoulders (and mix drinks) with potential clients. But large-scale marketing events are far more expensive today and much more difficult for young lawyers to access.  Of equal importance, the crucial, early-round "mixers" -- in person closings and deal negotiations-- are virtually non-existent.  How do law firm associates build business now?  (Wrong answer: By doing the very best legal work they can.)

It’s not as easy as it was for us--but much remains the same: Industry and skills specialization is still the fastest and smartest route to practice growth.  Client contact, on the client's turf, is still critical.  Developing a reputation within your target industry or practice area (cleantech? healthcare? China?) still requires vastly more than a thorough understanding of the laws and regulations that affect it. You'll have to know who the players are, and why.  You'll need to understand their business, talk their language and know what keeps them up at night (or, better, what OUGHT to keep them up for two or three).  Most importantly, you'll have to be sure they know that your opinion and guidance will give them a leg up.  And that last one is hard to do from inside your office, and impossible so long as the only thing that gets you up in the morning is the dream of meeting your hours goals for the year.

So, what does Vegas have in common with blogging?

Blogging, tweeting and strategic participation in LinkedIn, JDSupra and other social media platforms help the industry-specializing lawyer build a robust expert reputation among his clients and their competitors. In a world in which personal interaction is at a premium, tweeting and blogging can offer the only available substitute for the rich social mix of an industry convention.  Both the practice group blog and the tweets and status updates through which it is distributed provide an informal, inexpensive, collegial and highly efficient way to engage with clients, prospects and influencers within their business communities or, in other words, on their own turf.  

By participating intelligently, and in true voice, a lawyer who tweets or blogs on a narrow band topic can be recognized for his business savvy, perhaps even as a “thought leader”.  Just as importantly, an attorney who self-promotes online can convey her distinctive style, personality and –notably– sense of humor.  No website, wide angle newsletter or published article ever really communicates the human beings behind the firm’s letterhead.  But a narrow topic blog, and a properly managed twitter handle, will do this, and do it well.  

Online networking offers ample opportunitities to take the next, and essential, step--to connect ever more directly, and on multiple platforms--progressing from social media exchanges and follows to online collaboration and cross-promotion; from messaging and emails to old-fashioned telephone calls and business or social visits.  

So in the absence of a convenient watering hole, look for your community online.  It's there. 

And if you're already blogging or tweeting, tell us how and why and whether you think it's helping you grow your practice or your network.  Do you recommend that young lawyers, even law students, blog or tweet?

(I can say with pride and certainty that, had my partners and I been digital beings, we would have been early tweeters and the very first lawyers in our market to blog.  For now, we'll always have Vegas.)

2010 In Brief

I went pretty much native, digitally at least, in the year 2010.  In 2009, after almost 25 years as a law firm partner, I decamped to start my business providing career development coaching.  I used a new Mac and assorted Geniuses to dispatch the news and build a website and I refined my training curriculum through a Ning-powered worksite.

But I truly crossed over in 2010:  I renovated my presence on LinkedIn (complete with upgraded profile, membership in a few alumni groups and several rather pompous status posts), endured severe RSS burnout, adopted a dignified Twitter handle, started and sporadically populated a brand new blog, guest blogged for @thecareerist, published several online articles, held forth on #LawJobChat and accepted invitations to take part in three online ventures in the new year.

My breathless hills-are-alive wonderment at the results of all this online activity was observed with alarm by my three daughters, who texted their disdain (Twitter, Mom? like, seriously?) and asked that I just act my age.  

This I expected.  Making fun of one another is a four-season sport in our family.  What surprised me was the number of smart, savvy, competent and competitive friends, colleagues and former partners who have ignored the prodigious power of social media, especially high-end opinion blogs and private rapid-information platforms like Twitter, whose simplest use is to educate, inform and alert--often ahead of everyone else.

Minutes ago I checked my "Best Content"  stream on Hootsuite (my Twitter dashboard) and found, via @LucyMarcus,  a splendid response to this question: "Is Twitter a waste of time or a valuable wealth of information?"  Consider this excerpt from a Quora answer posted by Bill Gross (who, by the way, knows a thing or two):  

"I find that I am getting more valuable and timely information from the people I follow on Twitter than almost any other news source.... Twitter has become... like a newspaper ... dynamically configured perfectly for me. Of course it's not perfect..but its closer than anything else I have ever seen."

As my 21 year old would now remark, eyebrows arched: Just sayin'.

I am reminded of a beloved partner at my firm who flatly refused to use email, preferring to issue take-a-memo styled responses through his refined and formidable, and equally beloved assistant. Much is forgiven those - like him - who generate many millions of dollars in revenues. But a word of caution: Bucking progress becomes definitively less charming as one's revenue ranking drops.  Ultimately, it is bad business to reject efficient new technologies.

2011 New Year's Advice:

Be a News Scout  (Networking with News)

First, a few learned truths:

• It is the rare young lawyer or business professional who will succeed, much less survive, without a vigorous professional network.
• Successful networking and business generation depend in large part on one’s ability to add value and, over time, to become indispensable.  
• The best way to build relationships is to help others advance their careers and personal agendas.  To roughly quote more than one direct tweet I've received from the notorious Hokies fan, Cordell Parvin,  “What can I do to help you advance your career?”   The thing is, he means it. Cordell is both rainmaker and gifted coach because he really does want to know the answer, he will indeed help if he can and he sincerely enjoys doing so, whatever the return.
• Finally, one simple and highly effective method for adding value, especially for the unproven young professional, is to become the purveyor of superior information.

This brings us to Twitter --a community in which information is the coin of the realm:  

The immense and unwieldy internet offers a super-abundance of broad-spectrum, as-it-happens news and information, ranging in value from priceless to middling to worthless to false.   It provides wonderful opportunities to assist or command the attention of prospects and clients alike. 

Unfortunately, in my experience, no browser, RSS reader or other compilation filters the web's wealth of data both simply and effectively. 

• For example, even a carefully refined Google search, inevitably SEO-slanted, is likely to steer me to the most popular (often banal or shallow) answers, the mainstream view or the potentially inaccurate, though democratic, wiki-response. 
• Bing and Google searches rarely generate the results I really need--- links to current, cutting-edge, thought-provoking and imaginative blogs and other online media.  
• "Google Alerts" are great in concept, but--in my experience, the results are bizarrely slow, and never, ever comprehensive. 
• And no amount of tinkering yields a Google Search that is, as Bill Gross puts it, "dynamically configured perfectly for me".

I want breaking coverage of political, business, health, "green" and other news, of the shaky state of the legal profession, of women's careers and Gens Y and X.  I can neither learn from, nor trade in, old news.

Recently, the New York Times devoted a major feature story to one of several current crises facing the legal profession: the exhorbitant cost, and questionable value, of a JD.  As is often the case with the print media, the story was very well written and documented but way late to the game.  The surplus of lawyers and law schools, the astronomical levels of student tuition debt, distorted employment opportunities and woefully inadequate practical training have for many months been headlined and hyperlinked in the blogosphere and on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.  

My point: My best shot at scooping the news and information I need before it gets stale is to read the links tweeted by the smart, creative, opinionated and occasionally offbeat thinkers I choose to follow on Twitter.

With a few hours invested in start-up, a good dashboard application (such as Hootsuite or TweetBank), a bit of informed guidance and a regular commitment of time, you can channel Twitter, and other rapid-information platforms, to serve up valuable data, opinions, advice and predictions to your grateful audience, often at light speed. 

Two hard-learned caveats:

Before you consider upgrading your online networking strategy, be sure you know what your audience needs to hear, see and learn.  Listen---to them and their colleagues and employers and to the word on the street about their companies and industries.  Know what they think about, what they read, what they hope for and what keeps them up at night.   Don’t pitch them.  Just ask good questions and listen hard to the answers.  Then be their web filter.  Be their best scout.  Watch for ways to help, and ways to protect.  At a minimum you’ll learn to speak the language, a critical step in developing any business relationship and in winning the confidence of a potential client or referral source.

Social media assisted networking and business generation enhances and enables, but cannot substitute for, disciplined, inspired, follow-up and personal contact. (And by inspired, I mean something over and above "random acts of lunch or dinner".) 

Thank you for continuing to visit my blog.  I wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2011.

First, a Warning

 Many of the associates I have mentored and trained during my 30 year legal career (frustrated perhaps by the abundance of my suggestions for filling their non-billable time) have challenged me to summon up a single nugget of advice for building a successful and satisfying career as a lawyer.  This is my answer, uttered in urgent tones:

Do not listen to anyone who, in your first few years of practice, or at any time thereafter, warns against spending otherwise billable hours building your network and personal reputation in the community.   This deeply flawed advice is commonly offered up (in all good faith), not just by baby boomers, but by young partners over the age of 35 for whom “the best marketing is excellent legal work” may have been a pretty workable mantra.  But they are struggling now, with the rest of the profession, to maintain and grow their practices, and should know much better than to discourage you from learning how to fend for yourself. 

To put it another way:

Any lawyer or professional development director who tells you to wait until your third or fourth year to learn the basics of business generation or to develop a networking strategy is WRONG.  Follow his or her lead and you’ll fall behind your contemporaries in short order.   

The Five Fundamentals

Trick answer, I’ll admit.  A nugget is supposed to be just a sentence, or a few bullet points, like the lists you find in all the e-books or on the Power Point slides shown at your associate orientation or last month’s practice group presentation on “marketing".

Since I can do bullet points with the best of them I’ll serve up a slide’s worth, consisting of the five elementary principles on which my colleagues and I based our marketing efforts.  They still apply. Sadly, there are few professionals (and certainly no law schools) who will step forward to teach them. 

•  Being a great lawyer with a self-sustaining practice requires much more than superior work and service.  
•  For long-term success and satisfaction you must target (as early in your career as possible), two fundamental and  interrelated goals:

The development of a distinguished and expansive reputation as lawyer and human being, and

  The seeding of a varied network of talented, ambitious people in your community (and in other markets) to be a source of advisors, allies and superior information, as well as direct referrals, new business and job opportunities. 

•  It's all about relationships. To build enduring relationships you must listen carefully to the members of your network, learn about them and their businesses and identify ways to offer value, professionally, personally or both.
•  Strive to be a source of superior information, connections, influence and wise advice--perhaps even to become indispensable. 
•  Have a plan, establish the systems it requires and execute it.

The problem? Time.  We can all agree that time is short.  You are under constant pressure to produce high quality work, and, I hope, you want “a life”.  Nonetheless, it is essential that you do more--much more--than put your head down, churn out the best work possible, hit your hours target and make your bonus.   This is true whether or not you intend to stay at your firm, or even in the law, for more than a few years. 

 Your law school taught you nothing at all about this topic.  And, in all likelihood, such skills as your law firm elects to teach you will be insufficient to the task.  In a down economy, and a profession undergoing potentially radical change,  all law firm associates (including those claiming imminent “exit strategies”) must lock on to the fastest possible track to productivity, expertise, advancement and business generation. 

Time spent developing good marketing habits, and a broad and coherent business network, is a direct investment in your future.   Whether it's billable is irrelevant.

The Game Plan

The devil being in the proverbial details, let’s consider some specifics:

Everyone does better with an outline, a To-Do or Task List, an Outlook calendar reminder.  If you are serious about business development then you must have a business plan.  It need not be grandiose.  Depending on your level of experience and the breadth of your connections within your firm, the bar and the community, you may wish to limit your initial goals to building up a network, rather than randomly targeting prospects and giving chase.

If your firm has no program through which to develop a career plan, seek out your professional development or marketing director, a colleague worth emulating, a mentor, a coaching blog or a personal coach and locate a few template business plans.   Research and draft a detailed four month plan with specific, achievable goals. Finally,  enlist someone you trust and respect to help monitor your progress. 

At the very minimum, your plan should include:

• An “A” list of 10 to 15 key contacts you commit to develop for your network,
• A strategy for substantive participation in bar and community organizations offering leadership and other opportunities for visibility and networking,
• An “internal marketing” component designed to help you advance within your firm, and
• A “best practices” segment establishing the routines through which you will implement your plan.  

The Infrastructure

No matter how good your plan looks, it will collapse of its own weight unless incorporated in your daily routine, and to do that efficiently you will first need to establish guiding  “systems” to support your efforts.

When I work with law firm associates to implement their business plans we first design two charts.  (Some lawyers tack them to their bulletin boards or folder them next to the phone, but all that really matters is the daily discipline they impose.)  One is the “Systems Set-Up” table, consisting of five columns:  “Coordinating with Support Staff”; “Address Book/A-List Database”; “News Management”; “Professional Associations”; and “Calendar”.  To give you a sense for the chart’s content, here are a few entries from one client’s “News Management” column:

Maintain online database of web news, Twitter follows & RSS/blog feeds (include industry & financial  news via WSJ, Law.com, NYLawyer, Energy/Cleantech/Biomass blogs). Target & forward information of interest to A-List, environmental dept. partners & prospects.

The second chart, titled “Establishing a Routine”, covers daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly tasks. Here are a few items from the same associate’s “Daily” column: 

Read web news feeds; note ‘current’ article/white paper/blog topics; clip articles for emails to  A-Listers, dept. partners.  Contact one A-Lister by phone and another by email. Answer all calls, emails by 5pm.

And from the same lawyer’s “Monthly” column:

Attend or present at PLI/NY Bar Assoc. conference/panels on “” topics. Organize NY bar young lawyer’s event?

It never takes long to develop these charts.  With a little careful thought each lawyer can build a workable routine in an hour or two.  Remember--it’s not rocket science.

No Time Like the Present

One final bullet, this one in bold:

• Be self-reliant.  It’s your career.  No one is taking care of you.

No matter how demanding your obligations in the office, both billable and non-billable, it is essential that you protect your own future by building a strategic professional network and establishing your reputation both inside and outside your firm.  Getting a job, keeping it and finding the next one all require a record of excellence and and a healthy network of personal and professional contacts. 

This is no time to get careless, and no time to depend on others to chart your career course. It’s your life, and your responsibility. 

 Make it happen.

 Copyright  2010 Elizabeth Munnell & Associates. All Rights Reserved