Mismatches

• Author: Randall Kiser
• Profession: International authority on attorney and law firm performance
• Pages: 39-74

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Mismatches

If law rms were attempting to assemble a “dream team” for client

service or law rm leadership, they might select attorneys who

are quite dierent from their current partners and associate attor-

neys. e recruiting, hiring, professional development, evaluation,

and compensation practices that produced the present generation

of law rm attorneys and leaders were not based on empirical

methods and tended to promote personal similarities and existing

hierarchies within the legal profession. ese practices did not con-

sistently identify and promote attorneys who possess the skills and

qualities most important to clients, and they did not reliably assist

law rms in recognizing and developing many attorneys who could

have become outstanding partners and leaders.

Law rms’ employment practices continue to disaect and

exclude many superb attorneys, perpetuate biases against female

attorneys and racial and ethnic minority attorneys, and lead to the

hiring of many attorneys unsuitable for client service and uncom-

fortable with collaborative professional relationships. From an

empirical perspective, law rms’ practices are failing to meet the

expectations of both their external market (clients) and their inter-

nal market (law rm employees and partners). ese practices are

suboptimal in at least six respects:

• ey give undue weight to Law School Admission Test

(LSAT) scores and grade point averages (GPAs), despite

research indicating that these two factors are not predictive

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of attorney performance and may, in fact, signal perfor-

mance problems.

• ey result in a low level of diversity and a high level of attri-

tion among female and racial and ethnic minority attorneys.

• ey promote gender biases in law school admissions and

discriminate against female attorneys in hiring decisions.

• ey deprive clients and law rms of the superior service and

outcomes provided by a diverse workforce.

• ey fail to objectively assess and properly weight personal

qualities and “soft skills” predictive of attorney performance.

• ey cause astronomical attrition costs that ultimately are

borne by clients.

Each of these problems is analyzed and discussed below.

LSAT Scores and Grade Point Averages

Undergraduate GPAs and LSAT scores are the primary determi-

nants of law school admissions decisions and, most importantly,

whether an applicant is accepted by an elite law school.1 Enroll-

ment at an elite law school thus serves as a symbol of and proxy

for high undergraduate GPAs and LSAT scores. Although these two

factors are positively correlated with law school grades, they bear

little or no relation to attorney success after graduation from law

school.2 Law school grades, moreover, are not predictive of attorney

1 Henderson, William D., & Zahorsky, Rachel M. (2012, July 1). e pedigree

problem: Are law school ties choking the profession? ABA Journal. Marks,

Alexia Brunet, & Moss, Scott A. (2016, June). What predicts law student success?

A longitudinal study correlating law student applicant data and law school out-

comes. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 13(2), 205–265.

2 Gerkman, Alli, & Cornett, Logan. (2016, July). Foundations for practice: e

whole lawyer and the character quotient. Denver, Colorado: Institute for the

Advancement of the American Legal System. Gerkman, Alli, & Harman, Elena.

(2015, January). Ahead of the curve: Turning law students into lawyers (p.21).

Denver, Colorado: Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal Sys-

tem. Gibson, Steve, Henderson, William, Stacy, Caren Ulrich, & Zorn, Chris.

(2011, October 10). Moneyball for law rms. e Am Law Daily. Marks & Moss,

supra note 1 at 205, 217. Lempert, R. O., Chambers, D. L., & Adams, T. K. (2000).

Michigan’s minority graduates in practice: e river runs through law school.

Law & Social Inquiry, 25, 395–505. Shultz, Marjorie, & Zedeck, Sheldon. (2009,

40 American Law Firms in Transition: Trends, Threats, and Strategies

performance after graduation; and other academic achievements

like undergraduate honors and law review “have been strong neg-

ative predictors of essential associate competencies or success

traits.”3 Since the determinants of admission to an elite law school

and a student’s grades at the law school are practically irrelevant

in assessing future performance as an attorney, law rms’ practice

of hiring attorneys based on academic credentials appears to be as

sensible as selecting Olympic sprinters based on shoe size.

Summarizing the results of a study that identied 26 factors

essential to an attorney’s success after graduation, law professor

William Henderson notes, “Remarkably, LSAT scores, under-

graduate GPA, and rst year law school grades were correlated at

statistically signicant levels with between zero and six of the 26

success factors.”4 us, the conventional attorney hiring factors

(LSAT scores and GPAs) are related to 23 percent or less of the fac-

tors that determine an attorney’s success. Academic credentials,

Henderson adds, “were negatively associated with other success

factors, such as networking, building relationships, practical judg-

ment, ability to see the world through the eyes of others, and/or

commitment to community service.”5 In other words, high aca-

demic performance actually signaled possible shortcomings in

critical success factors such as judgment, relationship skills, and

perspective taking.

Other analyses have found a negative correlation between attor-

neys’ undergraduate GPAs and integrity, suggesting that conven-

tional measures of academic success could portend unconventional

January 30). Final report—Identication, development and validation of predic-

tors for successful lawyering. Retrieved from http://ssrn.com/abstract=1353554.

Stilwell, Lisa Anthony, Dalessandro, Susan P., & Reese, Lynda M. (2011,

October). Predictive validity of the LSAT: A national summary of the 2009 and

2010 LSAT correlation studies. Newton, PA: Law School Admission Council.

Shultz, Marjorie M., & Zedeck, Sheldon. Predicting professional eectiveness:

Broadening the basis for law school admission decisions. Law & Social Inquiry,

36, 620. Weiss, Debra Cassens. (2008, October 16). School rank and GPA aren’t

the best predictors of BigLaw success. ABA Journal Law News Now.

3 Gibson, Henderson, Stacy, & Zorn, supra note 2.

4 Henderson, William. (2009, June). e bursting of the pedigree bubble. NALP

Bulletin.

5 Ibid.

Mismatches 41