Author’s Note: I’m still getting emails from college students asking me whether they should go to law school, and from law students asking me what practice areas they should go into. I don’t know what to offer to the college kids that I haven’t previously said here, here, here or here.
As to the law students, in this market, you’re going to face substantial pressure to take any job you can get. A lot of people are going to offer that tired “beggars can’t be choosers” adage, advise you to grab whatever’s being given. I’m not going to outright disagree. I will, however, offer this caution: The first job out of law school can brand you, set the trajectory for the rest of your career. Don’t take a shit position doing something you know you’ll hate. Law’s a brutal caste system, and if you wind up an Untouchable early, it’s damn hard to climb up the ladder.
Knowledge being half the battle, here’s an outtake from an early draft of the book describing the legal industry hierarchy. The setting was my last practice shift in Philadelphia, when I was offered a job in a field totally unrelated to my previous experience.
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“Let me ask you another question.” The managing partner ran his fingers over his chin. “Who do you think has more at risk here, you or us?” He was implying that if I didn’t succeed as a plaintiff’s lawyer at his firm, the business litigation bar would never have me back. I’d be a victim of the “once you leave, you’re out for good” childishness that permeated that practice area.
Law’s a world of endless hierarchies, more so than any other field. And almost all of them are superfluous, created more to stroke the eggshell egos of the lawyers involved than anything else. Most of the industry is in a constant game of keeping up with the Joneses. Everything – everything – is a dick size comparison. But it isn’t like Wall Street or your golf club. People aren’t fixated solely on money. For the lawyers who work in the billable hour side of the business, “Prestige” is the big measuring stick.
The “Big Firms” representing Fortune 100 behemoths are pathologically fixated on finding lawyers with Ivy League law school credentials, or barring that, top ten placement in their class. Of course, Philadelphia having little to draw those candidates, and firms in desperate need of clients, the rules are broken more and more for anyone with business connections. You can have just north of a Down’s Syndrome IQ and get into a good Philadelphia firm these days if your father’s the CEO of anything paying mid-six to seven figures a year in legal bills. But for the average kid tumbling out of law school, you need those sterling academic accolades, which are very rare.
Everyone in law school tries for those Big Firm jobs, but few get them. The overwhelming majority of graduates are left to scurry into various firms of different sizes and practice areas. The first level below the Big Firms are “Boutiques,” smaller groups of lawyers who’ve jettisoned Big Firms with stables of clients, opening specialized practices that handle one or two types of cases. You’ll see Employment, Bankruptcy and, lately, “Health Care Law” boutiques, to name a few varieties. These are respectable outfits, on par with Big Firms as to skill, only not quite paid as well due to their limited market.
There are myriad categories of firms below Boutiques, but the two biggest by far are “Insurance Defense” and “Personal Injury,” a/k/a “Plaintiff’s” firms. Insurance Defense firms look a lot like the Big Firms if you don’t know anything about the industry. Blurring this distinction further, some firms are both at the same time. Many of the big regional firms in Philadelphia have departments doing the same work Insurance Defense firms do at discount rates but don’t admit it in the professional community.
The real distinction between a Big Firm and an Insurance Defense firm is the amount of complex work the firms do and what they pay. Where a big firm will pay between $120k and $160k to first year associates, and a Boutique pay $10-20k less, Insurance Defense shops in Philadelphia will pay between $60k and $90k. The reason for the difference is simple – where a big firm gets $250 per hour for its associates’ work on an average case, an Insurance Defense shop gets anywhere between $90 and $150. The perception, fair or not, is that Insurance Defense lawyers defend cookie cutter personal injury cases, and aren’t as skilled or committed as the lawyers at the Big Firms. It’s a generalization, but the legal industry’s a patchwork of bullshit hierarchies, so it might as well be ironclad truth.
Alongside the Insurance Defense lawyer is his counterpart, or nemesis, the Plaintiff’s Lawyer. The classic old school Plaintiff’s Lawyer didn’t go to an Ivy, wouldn’t get past the resume screening process at a Big Firm and in many cases lacked the polish or network to even score a job in an Insurance Defense shop. Or was shrewd enough to avoid it. In fairness, this is changing. As a result of worsening margins in billable work, increasingly unbearable demands at Big Firms, and the perception one can get obscenely rich quickly as a personal injury lawyer, the Plaintiff’s Bars everywhere are flooding with well credentialed candidates. But again, fairly or not, it’s considered a bottom feeders market.
Evan was wild, and his firm was just a boutique, but he was considered one of the scarier business litigators in the city, and one of the few who actually knew how to try and win complex commercial cases.** Not too many of the Big Firm eggheads Evan went up against could bring the heat in a courtroom, and working under him had provided me with a unique, enviable skill set. Leaving that air, that guaranteed money, for a job as a plaintiff’s lawyer – an industry characterized by its lack of barrier to entry – was technically a huge goddamned risk.
“Technically” only, of course, as risk assumes there’s something to lose.
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* If you’ve read Happy Hour, this might sound like odd advice coming from someone who switched practice areas four times and leapfrogged in salary. It is, but I’m an outlier, not the rule, and I had the luck of working in a climate of growth and rapid pay increases.
** My boss at the time.
Hi Philalawyer, like many followers of this site, I graduated from law school and became disenchanted very early in the process. There needs to be more information out there for students to digest before they even think about going to law school, and I applaud your efforts, although fear that the schools continue to win the propaganda war.
Once law students enter the stream there’s so much peer pressure and such a heavy debt load that they are forced to try and scrounge for whatever law job they can get. In Canada we have an Articling system which makes it even more dire, because these days you might find yourself begging to get taken on, just for the “privilege” of becoming a lawyer.
I thought it would be a useful public service to compile some of the cold, hard facts to try and warn prospective law students against the profession. It’s certainly not as entertaining to read as your writings, but if it convinces one talented person not to waste their life on this profession, then it’s certainly worthwhile!
http://www.lawschoolprep.ca/studies.html
I’ve been a huge fan of your site for a long time, and hope you find this link somewhat informative rather than just some crap I’m trying to promote on my own behalf! The most interesting thing I came across was that the Chair of the Task Force that found the Articling system to be in disarray was publicly pimping law school. Money talks, and teaching law students is big bucks.
PL: As a threshold issue, I’m happy to promote you. No worries.
As to the propaganda war, I wouldn’t say it’s won or lost based on the number of kids who do or don’t fall for the bullshit the law schools are selling. It’s thousands of unique war, with each kid making a decision based on accurate facts. The battles is in his head, between the lies and narrative and the “cold hard facts” you cite. If a person is armed with accurate information and still goes to law school, good for him. He made an informed decision, and hopefully, it will pan out for him.
This hierarchy is one of the things that helped me decide to not even try to go back to practicing law after I got laid off. It’s nearly impossible to move up a caste, not just because of the way different types of practice are perceived, but also because you just don’t have the relevant experience. I could work at the biggest firm in my home town, but I won’t get much experience in securities, international project finance, or any of the other stuff big firms in big markets do.
PL: I went up and down the caste system. People though I was nuts to tank a specialized skill set to jump into Plaintiff’s work. That was diving down three rungs or so on the ladder. Those people were fools. I’d gotten a first hand education in how Philadelphia’s business community worked, and its future economic trajectory (it’s Fucked), and I realized, business litigators with salaries like mine were in for a brutal period of contraction, with extreme compression to follow. The city’s fading economy simply couldn’t support the glut of hands in that area.
But its hyper-litigious culture, and piles of low income residents, would always support a robust Plaintiff’s bar. The other thing was, you could never “hit a home run” billing your hours. The only chance a lawyer has at a fuck-you cash out is in contingency work. The billable stuff is all churn, and churn is trading hours for dimes. Slow and steady may win the race, but at what cost? Turning 80 and realizing you’ve pissed your life away writing up time sheets for ministerial work? If you’re going to do that, why not jump ship and do it yourself in a suburb? Steal some firm clients and start your own thing. You make less, but the corresponding decrease in overhead makes up for that.
But I digress. The point I was trying to make, badly, was, Yes, the caste system exists. However, you’re only hemmed in by it to the extent that you let it control you. Who cares what area of law a person works in? If you can make $300k running a slip and fall mill, what’s the difference between doing that and working as a partner in some big office building in Philly for the same salary? Does anyone “need” to work in intl finance? Law’s not a career to be enjoyed… not as the forces that control it have shaped it over the last couple decades. It’s a business, what Milton Friedman described as a “license leveraging scheme.” The game now is to wring as much cash as one can out of that degree. Nothing more, nothing less. Thankfully, the ways one can do that are only limited by one’s imagination and willingness to hustle.
This piece was aimed at the 90% of law students who can’t see beyond the blinders of the narratives they’ve ben fed… the future service partners of the world. I don’t know you, but from your writing, I’d say you’re smarter than the people who’d be hemmed in by the caste system. More entrepreneurially minded. I think you can “surf” with your degree and do well in a variety of arenas. You’ve just got a shit sandwich on your plate at the moment.
The difference between working at a big fancy firm and a slip and fall mill, even if the pay is the same, is, as you already said, prestige. Unfortunately, getting knocked out of the big leagues doesn’t make you instantly care any less about prestige.
If realizing a desire was stupid got rid of that desire, girls would stop dating assholes, drunk guys would never bang fat chicks, and I’d love eating lean protein and working out. But, I’m as likely to stop caring about prestige as I am to give up eating McNuggets. Damn you sweet chili sauce!
PL: It’s hard for me to bridge the gap between us on this because I’ve been through the whole prestige thing, and I think you’re right – one has to “age” out of it. It’s hard to explain, but as you get older in the field, you look more and more at the money and care less and less about what anyone thinks about what you’re doing. You realize life’s short (I had the benefit of a health scare a few years back to set me straight about my priorities… I chose not to write about that in the book because it would have detracted from the comedy, and luckily, it turned out to be nothing in the end).
I’ve had a garage full of nice cars, the closet full of pricey suits, the Italian shoe collection, the 4000 sq foot house, the swiss automatic watches, all that shit… What’s it all worth in the end? Not much. I mean, yeah, it’s nice that my wife and I have it, but ultimately, all that matters is Time. How much can you spend with people you actually like, doing things you actually enjoy? There’s a value in working at something you’re invested in that nobody ever gets from working at the drudge we slog through as lawyers. If you can reach that, even for a little while, it clues you in to what it really means to be actualized, to be happy. All the prestige available in the world doesn’t add up to the value of the Time you spend with the people you give a shit about.
What on earth would I care about what some fucking nerd who works down the hall from me thinks about my ability, or some dumb gold digger in a bar off Rittenhouse thinks about me? They’re irrelevant. What does their being in awe of you or anyone else matter in this world?
Perhaps its because I grew up in the orbit of nice shit that I just never gave a fuck… Was never all that impressed. I couldn’t care less about joining the golf course, I don’t give a rat’s ass what the Joneses think and only wanted the money the field offered because I was deluded enough to think at one point that if I made enough, I could somehow retire early and travel and write comedy pilots for living.
The sooner you get past the ego, get past the barbed wire of worrying about being respected and having the bling, the sooner you’ll be free. But yes, there is an age thing at work here, and I’ll admit, I’m a strange motherfucker. Most people want to climb to the top of whatever tribe or hierarchy they’re in. I’ve just always wanted the money, and to be left alone. …Well, except as to the people I like.
My advice? Think past the hierarchies. Carve your own path and set your own goals. Measuring yourself against everyone else is folly. The winner’s the guy who wakes up every day excited to do what he’s doing. Or at least excited to finish it successfully, quickly, and do well enough and have a balanced enough existence to get home and spend time doing what he likes. Unless you’ve the chance to make Ibanking dollars, the Treadmill’s for suckers, and the billable hour treadmill sheer madness. But we don’t need to discuss finance workers’ low opinions of lawyers. That’s universally understood.
Thanks Philalawyer. I think you’re entirely correct about the narrative versus facts issue. Knowing what I know now, it’s hard to say whether or not I would have made the same decision to go to law school. The sad part is that I probably would have – although being presented with facts and actually living through them are two entirely different things. As you say, it’s all about making an informed decision. Despite the information available, however, I still think that a large information asymmetry exists and that the market is having trouble reaching an equilibrium where some of the more talented undergraduates opt to pursue careers they are more suited for.
PL: I hope I’m correct, because that’s the niche into which I’m selling books. The only writing anyone should ever do is that which challenges the Narratives. Ideas work like cancer. The more you put them out there, the more they quietly metastasize and damage the consensus. Takes a long time, but ideas are resilient things.
I’ve been thinking, is there an industry more ripe for unionization that professional services (law, accountancy, etc.)? Hollywood has been my inspiration for this thought process (and it’s not well formed because I’m preoccupied with something else). There you have an industry with a glut of “sellers”. People who want to be involved in the industry and an industry that would be more than happy to stick the plunger handle all the way up their asses and accuse the people of being gay in the process. But they have a cripplingly powerful union that ensures people who don’t pass the “sniff test” don’t get a sniff of work and it ensures that the people who pass the sniff test don’t have to work any harder than minimally possible.
Of course there’s some huge issues with that (run away production being a good example) but there’s still a shit-ton of people working in Hollywood every day.
I think it’s time for lawyers to step up, unite and use the collective power to bring some sanity back to the profession.
Besides, if that happened, I’d have more time to work at my puppy mill. And who doesn’t like Puppies?!
Pizza! Pizza!
PL: Problem is, professional service workers are tricked into competing against one another and adopting a dim view of collaborative efforts. I think it’s be hysterical to see lawyers unionize and go on a strike. Law firms’ margins are so tight they can’t bear for three or four days the revenue dip an associate sick-out would create. Could you imagine what would happen if a bunch of lawyers decided a months or so before a huge trial or deal to hold the firm up for extra cash? Be pretty amusing.
When I kissed it off, I remember hearing from one older lawyer, “You’re a lawyer. What else are you going to do?” Considering the amount of money I was leaving on the table (shit for your neck of the woods, but pretty serious for Philly) and the fact that I was taking a huge shit on every notion of leverage they figured they had, and every sensible prediction about what a lawyer in my situation would do, I think I bent the guy’s brain.
The answer, of course, was “Whatever I want.”
Well… Until this economy threw a clawhammer into my exit strategy. But one adjusts… And it’s in that learning to adjust that this downturn may cause professional services workers to reconsider ideas like unionizing, formal or not. The people coming out of this mess will have learned the hard way to shift firms, practice areas and geographies. They’ll have gained a confidence in dealing with adversity and volatility the common “wind up doll” associate of the past didn’t have. The next time management starts cutting heads or salaries, they might be quick and shrewd enough to close ranks and put management to an all or nothing decision.
All it takes is one services group in one corporation learning it can fuck with management as the auto unions did Detroit and the copycats would come. It’s a long shot, but this recession is only getting started. Lots of crazy, unexpected shit might still happen. Or not.
Thanks again for saving me from law school after undergrad. The $25 tuition fee for bartender certification seems like a better fallback.
PL: Always remember, though… Never say no to it just because I’ve a dim view of the profession’s future. Do your homework, and make your own decision. I’m just a guy with my own view.
Lawyers are pseudo-unionized. First, we have the ABA, law schools, and state bars acting as market barriers, the same way unions keep non-union workers out by dicking over companies that want to hire both.
Second, there are the NALP guidelines for hiring summer associates and making offers of “permanent” employment to 3rd year students. Though, this year has shown that when push comes to shove, law firms will ignore the guidelines, but for the most part they’re followed.
Finally, there’s social media. Abovethelaw.com posts tons of information about salaries, hiring practices, law offs, and any generally dickish behavior law firms engage in. Add to that other blogs that run stories about what goes on in law firms, often naming the firms (I post stories on firms screwing associates, and then edit their wikipedia pages) and firms get pressure to keep bad news from getting released. So far most of the efforts have been to clamp down on people leaking information, but I think eventually the media will be so sophisticated that the only option will be to stop being such assholes.
PL: True, but that’s all soft unionization. Nothing’s a real union as that animal is understood in economic terms until it can mobilize labor and impact the the production of the company in which its members work.
There are loads of stealth lay-offs and shove-outs of partners going on neither Abovethelaw.com nor any other website will ever learn about. Firms around Philly have been de-equitizing partners on the sly for more than half a decade now. But as part of an agreement, the victim gets cash in trade for his silence. If it’s happening there it’s happening everywhere else, and yes – it’s a whole lot bigger than the numbers or the massaged press releases would have anyone believe.
In the end, the press won’t “out” the truth about the industry because it’s not that interesting to the general public. And though it’d be amusing, and I won’t count anything out, I doubt lawyers would form actual unions. The closest they’ll probably ever come to that is getting together in groups, stealing clients and jumping ships, which they pretty much do all the time now. But then, I’m no oracle. Here’s to hoping for some entertaining craziness.
PL
Your article could not be more timely. I am a 7th year assoc at a big firm in Atlanta (or what passes for big firm in Atlanta). I went to a top 15 law school and feel like I am going to make partner at my present firm. I bill 2000 hours each year. I am married and expecting my first child soon.
My problem is, there is no way I am going to be anything other than a service partner at my firm (even if I make equity and they give me a piece of the pie – I would still be working for other corporate partners with an even bigger piece of said pie). There just is not enough big time commercial litigation in Atlanta for a commercial litigator to have regular, repeat business (unlike L&E, products, etc). I am drawn to jumping to the other side and doing personal injury work because, as you said, it is the only way for a lawyer (expecially a litigator) to earn F You money. My biggest fear about doing PI work is not the “law” part, but the client origination part. The PI lawyers with whom I speak say to not worry about that, that when other PI lawyers realize you are a capable lawyer and can go to court and win, the work will come to you. The possibility that it will not scares the sh*t out of me.
Any thoughts on the subject? Advice? Is it all a question of balls?
PL: They’re right. Origination is only limited by the local population’s litigiousness. You might not need to jump all the way over to PI trial work. There are other “split the baby” options:
1. Go to a smaller firm that does comm lit, but is open to the idea of doing the occasional PI case.
2. Open your own comm lit shop and target the smller business market.
3. Invest in a “referral shop” with other lawyers.
As to #1, boutiques and smaller firms are soaking up all the small to mid sized companies’ business right now because the big firms have priced themselves out of the market. Also, there are so many disputes with lenders, vendors and the like caused by the credit crunch that the pipeline of work is going to stretch on for years. And doing workout stuff is cookie cutter. There’s minimal paperwork and none of the discovery bullshit or dicking around with a pack of eggheads on esoteric issues. It’s a bluffing game usually, and all you really have to know is numbers. The other thing is, you can’t get sued for fucking up because if represent someone who’s getting hammered under a note or an agreement, it’s all contract law. With an event of default, they couldn’t win in the first place. If you save them from execution, it’s a win.
On the PI part of #1, the way you pitch this to a small firm is to say, “Let’s invest in a phone/Internet/phone book ads, etc… buildout to attract clients. I’m willing to take less in salary and allocate the difference to the project in exchange for a piece of the action.” Do loads and loads of client interviews, keep the sure wins (It’s not a high percentage, so don’t expect too much there) and refer most of the stuff out to trial lawyers. You don’t want to be on the trial side of that deal because that’s serious work. The referral fee side is 1/3 of the trial lawyer’s take with 1/20th of the effort. So you give up 2/3 of the fee. You easily make that up in volume. Here’s the model (from the trying counsel’s side… reverse it for purposes of this discussion): http://www.bitterlawyer.com/index.php/site/columns_detail_comment/five_steps_to_being_a_plaintiff_lawyer_machine/?sort=desc&cat_id=13 Just be careful. Some states limit who can get referring fees to discourage this business from growing.
As to #2, that kind of speaks for itself. If you can share office space with someone and you can hustle, you can build a stable of clients who want value (read: not large or mid firm staffing and “unit maximization” billing) and get yourself up to a decent in salary in a couple years. Just be smart about it. Keep the overhead next to nothing. The guys who who fail there are the ones who do the buildout then sit around waiting for clients to come in. Do it in reverse, and if people ask why you don’t have a glorious office space, tell them, “That’s the difference between my fee and what you’ll pay the guy with the oak-lined conference rooms.”
I know the next question: “But how do I live in the interim?” Get a line. The SBA backs those loans at decent rates. Or just suck up a few years as a service partner, bank a pile of savings and use that.
As to #3, it’s a variation of #1. Instead of going to a firm where you work on business disputes and do some plaintiff’s work, just find a lawyer in a bad part of town (I don’t mean to offend with this, but generally, lower income people get hurt a lot more, and tend to sue a lot more) and financially back his firm using the same business model described in #1. I don’t think there’s any preclusion on his sharing fees with you. Basically, use the license as something akin to a “qualified investor” status that allows you to invest in certain funds. Keep your job and let the referring business return additional income for you passively.
Why not just try PI cases? Well, because not everyone can do it. Even for the best plaintiff’s firms, the model involves bringing a lot of dubious claims and living off the two or three out of five that turn out to have serious merit. Unless you can really detach yourself from a case, it’s hard as hell to put on the emotional act required to beg a judge or jury for compensation for a claim you secretly think is a frivolous piece of fluff. Not everyone has that skill set, and it’s not exactly compatible with a business litigator’s purely rational approach. You could find yourself doing something you really, really aren’t wired to do.
The ABA is more likely to put on a game between the Buffalo Braves and the Philadelphia ‘76ers than it is to do ANYTHING that smells like the intent and purpose of a labor union. Where’s World B. Free when you need him… PIZZA! PIZZA!
PL: I had a “Holy Shit!” moment the other night. I was watching some Robin Williams’ special, drunk as hell, only half listening and reading the paper, when all of the sudden, Williams says, “Do you know who Dock Ellis is? Dock Ellis, for those of you who don’t know, is a pitcher who threw an entire baseball game, and not only an entire game, but a no-hitter, on L… S… D.” He then went into a lengthy routine on it.
I’m not a man of faith, as you know well. But sometimes the Will of the Great Magnet causes me to rethink the absence of the light at the end of the tunnel. Not enough to consider there’s a form of earnest karma, anything approaching a plan, or an active governing entity involved… But just enough to think, Maybe there’s a huge cosmic drain, and as we all surf the whirlpool toward Infinity, shit we’d never expect to collide starts doing so. The circle gets a little tighter. And maybe that’s a form of Greater Wisdom, or luck… That our filters become overwhelmed by the contradictory strands of nonsense slamming together from our fragmented memories and in the absence of any ability to coordinate the stuff, we’re just left to pleasantly note there are a lot of other people around us, all without a prayer of aim. A Confederacy tied together with nothing but punchlines and esoterica.
You know, I may be the first person to voluntarily turn into a communist after the age of 40… But what you’re talking about is something akin to the flush of the great societal toilet and the water spinning faster before it sucks us turds down into oceanic oblivion… Much more likely in my mind than that our perceptive filter is incapable of grasping ahold of the Ariadne’s thread that ties all these eerie coincidences together and leads us out of the maze… You know, sometimes you’re the bull and sometimes your the matador. Ole!
PL: I view it as The Illusion of Entropy. Everyone thinks things spreads out endlessly, all things degrading as they splinter from the center. I think that’s an illusion. As you progress along in this extended sitcom of ours, it starts to get tighter, and you realize the splintering effect was you thinking it was all going out of control. In fact, everything’s always been fairly compact, with minimal deviations… It all goes nowhere on a very tight track.
“How did this country get away from us?!”
If you’ve been looking, we’ve been driving down a very narrow ditch for a very long time.
And you know… Frankly that’s the thing that gets me about Doc. Not that he played professional baseball on LSD. The fact that he excelled. Better living through chemicals, dude.
PL: No non-hitter, no story. That’s what makes the thing so great. Is there a narrative out there it doesn’t stand on it’s head? Or maybe I’m just a sucker for anything that takes a long beer shit on revered totems.
Sage advice from Philly as usual. As one who has been there and is still there, let me share with you a secret to big law that makes it almost bearable. So you just MUST go to law school, as too stupid in math to do something that matters, i.e., engineer and you are too ugly or socially challenged for business. Don’t despair, the phoniness and obsequoisness in businesspeople makes lawyers look like mavericks! So here’s what you do, learn a specialized administrative practice like FERC, FCC, FDA, or some other acroynm. If you are young and can afford it, work at the agency. If not, work at a boutique where they will make sure you learn the area. Once you pick up these skills you are pretty marketable. Plus, I can attest having done it myself, reasonable deadlines, sometimes interesting cases and a lower asshole factor, even in Biglaw. You are NOT going to be managing partner or even all that high on pecking order in most Biglaw, there just isn’t enough money to be made and not much leverage. But like Philly says, once you realize happiness trumps ego, you will be better for it. In fact, the gig is so good I cannot justify leaving it to start my own non-law company since I just cannot afford to trade off 250K for almost zero with shot at millions. I almost wish I was laid off!
One more thing I found amusing and disturbing, recently inquired about job with biggest and most presitgious of biglaw and they sent a questionaire screening form asking not only for my race but “What gender do I consider myself?” WTF! If I decide to consider myself female, does that make me female? I thought this question was settled at conception. What happens when my obviously non-female self shows up to interview. This is the craziness that is law firm diversity and for those of you for whom it is not too late, find a career where who are you matters more than what you are.
PL: True as the day is long, particularly in our newly enhanced regulatory climate. Get to learn the inside handshakes at some agency and you’re set.
As to the diversity thing, how else would robots attempt it? I’m glad I basically live in a compound now. Too much time around people like that can permanently damage a person. What hope in anything’s left sitting in the midst of so much clueless, wasted intelligence?
“I’ve been thinking, is there an industry more ripe for unionization that professional services (law, accountancy, etc.)?”
Rosie, I’ve had a similar thought for a few years. Most white collar workers don’t want anything to do with a union in terms of all of the bullshit with paying dues, the politics of it, and the collectivization of a group of people that all individually think very highly of themselves as eventual power players.
But what if there was something like a rogue negotiator a labor pool could hire that could temporarily represent a small group of employees that only collectively could have leverage over management?
“Could you imagine what would happen if a bunch of lawyers decided a months or so before a huge trial or deal to hold the firm up for extra cash? Be pretty amusing.”
I’m in the process of interviewing out of my job and my current employer would be ripe for what you guys are talking about. It’s a group benefits broker with 25 employees total – take out the 6 admin people and we’re left with 3 owners, 3 Managing Directors under them that each lead a team to service clients, and 13 employees under the MD’s that do the vast majority of the intensive day-to-day work.
Here’s the bottom line: two years ago, the 3 owners sold out to a large company for millions. The sale was a 3-year agreement with millions more at the end if our firm could maintain a certain level of profitability, revenue growth, and compliance with the large company’s internal systems over 36 months. We’re in the last 9 months of the agreement and morale is at an all time low. There are 5 (including me) of the 13 that are willing to leave and we could bring the firm to a halt if we all stopped working unless we received X, Y, and Z.
A rogue negotiator would be perfect for us. None of us have the balls or gravitas to represent the other 4, it would be awkward as hell if our demands are met enough to stay when every day we bump into the 3 owners who we were just across the table from, and we don’t have a leader out of the 5 who knows exactly what to say and has the backup support (i.e. outside job offers for all of us) to maximize our leverage.
Are there instances of the above happening?
PL: I don’t know, but what you have just described is labor’s last hope of fighting against the private equity takeovers, which buzzsaw through redundant labor and wring the blood out what’s left.
It’s not labor vs. management. It’s workers vs. the investor class. The tricky thing is, as workers age, they become dependent more and more on investment for income, so it really winds up being the old vs. the young.