Law Firm Training is a Sham

OK, so the title of this post is a bit incendiary. But I am convinced that training at big law firms often ends up being a sham. No, I have not done a survey, and yes, I realize many firms have formal training and mentoring programs in place. But I stand by my statement.

When I was an associate I was actively involved in trying to improve training for junior associates, and we failed miserably. We tried hard, we had at least tacit management support (no one is "against" mentoring), but we failed. Why? Time. No one has time for real mentoring, and sadly that includes the junior associates who really need it. The urgent matter always takes priority over other matters, even vastly more important ones like training your people.

This boggles my mind, frankly. It was always--always--my experience in practice (and now in teaching) that if you tell people what you expect, then you usually get it. "Here's the background of the case, here's where we stand, here are the major issues, and here is the part I want you to do" is a great way to hand off an assignment. And the poor associate has some context and an expectation of what needs to be done. But what you get all too often is something like "Go read the file and then do X" (if I only had a dime for every time I heard that one), or "Call the client and talk to her about it," which is often code for "I want you to call the client so she can yell at you and not me." My all-time favorite, though, is the classic "Just take care of it." As for feedback, too many times it is an explanation of why you are a terrible mindreader: someone tells you to do a memo on X, and then you get "What you should have done was Y." Again, that's a classic. While this post is not meant as a screed against former colleagues, I am trying to call them as I see them.

It would make far more sense--and money, for that matter--for lawyers to train and mentor their people. I saw a lot of time written off over the years because an associate was left flailing in the dark. I saw some careers cut short because people were bad mindreaders. I saw associates learn by trial and error, and then, fed up with a lack of training, leave for another firm--which is a huge loss to the firm that ate that associate's losses as a new attorney. But perhaps most importantly, training and mentoring is good because it breeds loyalty. Associates have someone to turn to, someone they can trust for feedback, someone who does not say "Go and read the file" and then hang them out to dry when they guess wrong. So a firm not only gets better and more efficient work product, but people are less likely to leave.

You will note, of course, that I left. By the time I did I had figured out what the people I worked for wanted (when so-and-so said X, what he really meant was Y), but by that time it was too late. I stayed around as long as it was in my interests, but once I decided I should be elsewhere, there was little reason to stay.

So a word of warning to any senior people out there in a law firm: make the effort to train your people. They will make you more money, and they will be more loyal. Training takes time and significant energy (throwing a file at someone is easy), but the payoff is enormous. You almost never see it in practice, so if you do it you may rise to the top like cream.

Learning About the Dark Side

Having practiced in Chicago and Washington, D.C., it was at least minor culture shock to move to Mississippi and start teaching. I don't mean culture shock in the sense of being a Yankee in the Deep South, although there have been those moments too. Rather, the structure of the legal market in Mississippi is something I have never encountered. There is a deep divide here between the plaintiff's bar and the defense bar. In other words, a lot of lawyers here either sue people or defend them. And from what I gather, there is not a lot of cross-over, and each side of the divide views the other as the "Dark Side."

This was a new one on me. Don't get me wrong; there are insurance defense lawyers at big firms in big cities, and there are plaintiff lawyers there too. It's just that the bar in larger cities and larger states is not divided down the middle, so to speak.

From a teaching point of view, what this says to me is that at regional schools, a law practice management course should be paramount, and the course materials should cover the basic structure of the relevant legal market. When I was 24 years old and in law school I of course knew everything, but I find a surprisingly large number of students today (at my school and others) pretty ill-informed about the nature of legal practice and the legal markets they are trying to break into. Not all legal markets are the same, and students need to understand that.

This approach might be more difficult at a national school--and yet it could be done there too, perhaps at a more abstract level, with comparisons between different types of regional markets and ramifications for legal practice. Come to think of it, that would be a good approach at regional schools too, even those whose graduates stick close by and don't migrate nationwide. We can't forego substantive courses, but practical training like this would help address the all-too-common complaint that law schools don't prepare students for the actual practice of law.

Welcome to Law Career Blog

Welcome to Law Career Blog. This blog is intended to serve as a clearinghouse for those who have questions about careers in law. For nearly a decade I practiced international trade law with Baker & McKenzie (largest law firm in the world) in Chicago and Washington, D.C., and now I am a law professor at Mississippi College School of Law, where I teach International Business, International Law, National Security Law, and Administrative Law. (See the link to my bio and publications on this blog.) Personally, I think my breadth of experience gives me useful and balanced insight into the practice of law, the teaching of law, and alternative career path options.

What do I mean? Simply put, I am a lot like my intended readers. For starters, like many people who end up in law school I was once an undergraduate student who wasn’t sure whether law school was for me. And once I was in law school, I wasn’t immediately obvious what I should do with my degree. Teach? Litigate? Government service? Corporate law? Again, I am not alone in this. Once I graduated I experienced the practice of law, with all its glory and all of its warts—including great paychecks and killer hours. As a result, I have very decided views about the right (and wrong) ways to practice law—and perhaps even more importantly, about the right (and wrong) reasons to stay in practice. Finally, as a law professor (my first choice of professions, by the way), I see all sorts of issues in legal education that need to be addressed—or at least blogged about. So here I am.

My goal in this blog is simply to provide as much thoughtful commentary as I can about careers in law, how legal careers and law schools are changing, and how to find meaning and satisfaction in a career in law. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but the answers I have come up with have served me well so far.

Thanks for checking out the site. I’d love to hear your comments.

Greg