International Trade Lawyer Eugene Theroux to Visit Mississippi College School of Law

Regular readers of this blog are aware that in addition to being interested in law career matters, I am also heavily involved in teaching and researching on international trade matters. It is my strongly held belief that the practice of law is becoming increasingly globalized, and that today's law graduates need to appreciate how international legal issues can affect all domestic practitioners, no matter what their law practice focuses on.

I started Mississippi College School of Law's International Speakers Series for that very reason. Through the series we have hosted visits to the law school by a variety of people, including U.S. Senator Thad Cochran, USAID lawyer Donna Wright, and former UK Solicitor General and Attorney General Sir Nicholas Lyell.

On April 3, 2007, we will host a visit to the law school by international trade lawyer Eugene Theroux. Theroux, who practices with the law firm of Baker & McKenzie, will discuss how globalization is changing the practice of law, and why international trade and international law really do matter for all of us. He is an acknowledged expert on Chinese, Russian and Indian law, and he opened the first western law offices in the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. In other words, he has had a storied career. He is a frequent lecturer on international law matters in both the U.S. and abroad, and we are looking forward to his visit.

This event is open to the public, so if you are in the vicinity of Jackson, Mississippi and are interested in attending, please do so. The event will take place in Room 251 of the law school from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Information the law school is available here; directions are available here.

Law Firm Salaries from the Client's Perspective

Over at Legal Blog Watch, veteran law blogger Caroline Elefant recently blogged about associate salaries from the under-explored point of view of clients. It is common wisdom that any hikes in associate salaries generally get passed on to clients unless the clients push back or object. In other words, the assumption is that there generally is an inelastic demand curve for legal services--as prices go up, demand does not go down all that much.

Certainly that's not true in all cases, but it is not a bad place to start for purposes of discussion. Surely some types of legal projects--IPOs, white collar criminal defense cases and the like--are far less sensitive than others to the cost of services being provided (read: what attorneys charge). In fact, an assessment of what types of legal projects are more price-sensitive might be an extremely interesting and valuable empirical study.

But again, the generally accepted view is that the cost of associate raises gets passed on to clients. And I can say from my own anectodal experience that whenever large firm associate salaries go up, so do associate billing rates. Whether the same thing happens at mid-sized firms in regional markets might be another interesting empirical study.

But I digress. Elefant's post discusses in detail how the increase in associate salaries plays out in terms of cost to clients. Her post centers on an excellent discussion of the issue by Susan Hackett, who is general counsel of the Association of Corporate Counsel. Hackett's article on the subject can be found here. Both Elefant's post and Hackett's article are well worth reading.

My questions on the subject are as follows:

• Will Hackett's solution--she suggests that companies push more legal work to midsized firms in regional markets--lead these smaller law firms to underprice, and thus undercut, the larger ones? She suggests that these smaller firms can do most work just as well as the really big firms, and for much less cost. Will this result in a market correction against escalating legal fees?


• Or, will Hackett's solution just mean that the biggest firms end up with the hardest, most specialized work that other firms aren't as good at doing? If so, is that an undesirable outcome? Or might such segmentation of the market actually be preferable, in that big firms will be able to justify their very high billing rates for very difficult work?

This is a point on which my thinking is not yet congealed, and I can summon anecdotal experience from my own days in practice to support either view. Perhaps both are right to an extent. And perhaps that's the real point: perhaps we simply cannot answer these questions without meaningful data. Absent such data, maybe we are doomed to argue and talk past one another, using anecdotal evidence to support our views.

As I think about this further I will post again as appropriate--and of course, I welcome comments on the subject in the meantime.

Court OKs fees, residential school deal can proceed

Looks like Tony Merchant will get his bucks. Does anybody know whether lawyers are still picking up clients for this settlement? Or has that phase already passed?

Dalhousie Law School is OLD!

Here's a tidbit for you : "Dalhousie is the oldest university-affiliated common law school in the British Commonwealth."

That's the claim on the Dalhousie Law School index page of their website. Who knew!

Defining Your Practice - Your Area of Law

One year ago, definitely two years ago, and unequivically three years ago, I never would have thought of myself practicing anything but corporate legal work. Litigation? Family Law? Dependent Adult Law? No way. Absolutely no way.

But, now law school has come and gone, the articling year has come and gone, and nearly a year into my practice, I am now practicing not only corporate stuff; I am also practicing real estate, wills and estates, litigation (some of it class action stuff), family law, and dependant adult stuff. It just goes to show that you just shouldn't peg yourself too early on in your legal career. Let things steep for a while. The stuff that you don't like will settle down to the bottom of the barrel, and the stuff you like will rise to the top. You will naturally move towards the work, the clients, and the outcomes that you want to spend your time on. Don't try to go against the grain.
I never would have thought (OK, I admit I had some far off John Grisham inspired fantasies) that I would like courtroom lawyering. But, I am learning that I really quite like it. I love the collegiality with the other members of the bar, and the judiciary. I love bantering with the court clerks.

So far, I enjoy mixing a solicitor and a barrister practice. It suits me well, and keeps things interesting. As my law firm grows, I can start pushing work that doesn't really suit me to others in the firm -- stuff that they might really like. Eventually, I will find my niches and be even happier than I am today.

2008 US News Law School Rankings Leaked

The internet is abuzz right now with unofficial, leaked versions of the 2008 U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings. The rankings are to be officially released on Friday, March 30, 2007. (The official U.S. News rankings site can be linked to here.) The leaked rankings are available on the Law School Discussion website, LLM Guide, and Concurring Opinions. Law School Discussion and LLM Guide have the full rankings--both the top 100 and the 3rd and 4th tiers. TaxProf Blog has a comparison of the 2007 and 2008 rankings here. Brian Leiter weighs in on the topic here, and on the Volokh Conspiracy Orin Kerr provides his views on rankings (note: the post was at 9:21 p.m. on March 27, 2007; you have to scroll down).

I've got my own views of the rankings, which I can opine on at some later date, but in the meantime, what do readers think of the rankings? I'd like to hear your views.

Also, for those who are interested, there is a growing body of legal academic literature on the subject of law school rankings (now there's an irony for you). For starters, try Theodore Seto, Understanding the U.S. News Law School Rankings (available on the Social Science Research Network here) and Alfred L. Brophy, The Emerging Importance of Law Review Rankings for Law School Rankings, 2003-2007 (available on SSRN here). For those who do not know, SSRN is a free service for finding scholarship, although you have to register for it (you can register at the SSRN homepage at http://www.ssrn.com/.

Clinical Experience in Law Schools

Law.com has a recent post regarding clinical programs at law schools--namely, how some law schools are beefing them up substantially. Given that a lot of internet commentary bemoans the divide between legal education and legal practice (perceived and/or actual), and that law school clinics can be a very good way for law students to gain practical legal experience, the trend toward more clinical experience is generally seen as a good one. But given that clinics are time- and faculty/staff-intensive, and thus fairly costly, some law schools are not doing as much in the clinical arena as they might like.

I was particularly interested to see what my old Ethics law prof, Larry Marshall, is up to as Stanford Law School's clinical program director--namely, trying to raise $30 million to cover part of the budget for Stanford's 9 (soon to be 10) clinics that serve around 200 law students. That's quite an outlay.

I'm curious to hear readers' views regarding law school clinics. Has anyone participated in one? What did you like? Not like? Were they beneficial? For those in law practice, did clinical experiences in law school really help? Or are law school clinics at least partly just an effort by law schools to be trendy?