Professional challenges in large firm practices.

• Author: Green, Bruce A.
• Position: FOREWORD

Two years ago, I invited Patrick Schiltz to my professional responsibility class to discuss his 1999 article on large law firm practice. (1) Drawing on his earlier experience as a law firm associate and partner and on copious research, Schiltz argued in his article that the increase in the number of hours worked by lawyers in large firms denied them the ability to lead balanced lives and contributed to disproportionate levels of depression, divorce, substance abuse, and general misery. (2) Schiltz's article received considerable attention and some notoriety when it was first published. Since so many of my students were interested in beginning their legal careers in large Manhattan law firms, I thought they would be interested in exploring this subject with him.

Afterwards, many students let me know privately that they were both discouraged by Schiltz's account of large firm practice and reluctant to accept it. The students' discouragement was not surprising, but perhaps their skepticism was. Over time, Schiltz's thesis has become increasingly less controversial.

Despite labor-saving advances in information technology and communications, the average number of hours worked by partners and associates in the nation's large law firms has increased progressively over the past ten or twenty years. (3) The American Lawyer, the profession's leading national monthly publication, has documented this trend. (4) Some say The American Lawyer has also contributed to this trend by fueling competition among law firms that measure their success by the number of hours billed or dollars earned. (5) One result is that law firm profits and associate salaries have skyrocketed. (6) But the silver cloud has a black lining. Commentators describe how recent Internet and communication technology makes large firm practitioners available to clients around the clock ("24/7"), (7) and how forces, including economic pressures and aspirations (some might say "greed"), (8) lead lawyers to let their corporate clients exploit their availability. (9) Because so much time is devoted to serving paying clients, large firms are challenged in their ability to pursue other professional aspirations and commitments, such as training young lawyers and rendering pro bono service. Individual lawyers at large firms are challenged in their ability to meet family and other personal commitments outside law practice.

One may disagree about the scale of the problem (10) and whether the billable hour is at the root of it, (11) but in recent years, anxiety about the evolution of large firm practice has emanated even from within the professional mainstream. A task force of the Boston Bar Association recently issued a thoughtful and detailed report on the difficulty of balancing professional challenges and personal needs. (12) It began with the warning that "[w]e are in danger of seeing law firms evolve into institutions where only those who have no family responsibilities--or, worse, are willing to abandon those responsibilities-can thrive." (13) Responding to similar concerns, the American Bar Association ("ABA") Section of Litigation launched a new initiative this year titled the "Raise the Bar Project." (14) Its five subjects of inquiry are: "A Delicate Balance--Real life vs. Real work," "Firm, Inc.--Law as a business," "Partners and Associates--Can this marriage be saved?," "Living with Technology--and never sleeping," and "Sink or Swim--Who is mentoring and training the next generation?" (15) Most recently, recognizing both "that law firm demands on [one's] time and economic pressures may make it difficult for [a young lawyer] to engage in public service," and that professional dissatisfaction is leading young lawyers to leave large firms in droves, Michael Greco began his term as ABA President with a call for a "renaissance of idealism in our profession." (16)

Law firms' worries reverberate throughout the legal profession. For better or worse, large firms exert a gravitational pull on the entire profession. They serve as a training ground for thousands of associates who later move into other practice settings and their lawyers are among the most prominent and powerful and therefore serve as models for the rest of the bar. Therefore, these worries merit a response not only by lawyers practicing in large firms and the future lawyers who aspire to do so, but by the profession as a whole.

This collection of articles reflects the efforts of Fordham Law School's Stein Center for Law and Ethics ("the Center" or "the Stein Center") to respond to these issues. In the past, much of the work of the Center has focused on lawyers in public service (17) and public interest practices, (18) but my students' reaction to Schiltz's visit prompted us to turn our attention to corporate law firms. By casting further light on the professional challenges these firms encounter and on how they and other institutions of the legal profession are now addressing these challenges or might address them in the future, we hoped to further discussion on these subjects within the profession and ideally to advance the profession's thinking. Additionally, we hoped to develop writings that would assist our current and future students and others like them seeking careers in large firms to do so with a greater degree of sophistication and with greater insight into how best to benefit personally and professionally from the experience.

Toward these ends, the Stein Center joined with five co-sponsors (19) to organize a full-day conference titled, "Professional Challenges in Large Firm Practices." Held at Fordham University School of Law on April 15, 2005, the conference brought together practitioners, legal academics, and others--including the Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court and the editor-in-chief of The American Lawyer--to examine professional challenges facing large law firms as the nature of legal practice changes in the early twenty-first century. Speakers and attendees were invited to offer reflections and recommendations in response to four broad questions:

* Can law firms continue to meet the challenge of enhancing young lawyers' professional development?

* Can they maintain a high quality of practice--and their lawyers' quality of life--given the pressures of the billable hour?

* Can they serve the public good?

* And what, if anything, can other institutions do to encourage and support law firms in the pursuit of new and better management practices?

Additionally, participants were invited to contribute articles and essays expanding on their reflections for inclusion in this book of the Fordham Urban Law Journal.

This Foreword has two modest aims. First, it offers a flavor of the discussions at the Conference. Unless otherwise indicated, quotations in the Foreword to comments made by the participants are to the transcripts of the Conference. (20) Second, it introduces the writings contained in this collection growing out of the Conference. I commend these writings to lawyers who work in large firms and to future lawyers who seek to do so, as well as to others in the legal profession who are rightly concerned about the nature of large firm practice.

1. THE ROLE OF THE LAW FIRM IN THE EDUCATIONAL CONTINUUM

   Given how long and hard lawyers in large firms work, do associates have time for professional development--that is, time to learn how to practice skillfully, knowledgeably and ethically, and to develop sound judgment--and do senior lawyers have time to teach them? If not, will associates learn enough anyway in the course of their hard work? These are serious questions for law firms, young lawyers, and the legal profession alike.

   In 1992, the MacCrate Reportal (21) began with the premise that law school is just the beginning of a lawyer's professional development and described the "educational continuum" that stretches until the end of one's legal career. As law practice becomes increasingly complex and specialized, the gap has widened between what lawyers can learn in law school and what they need to know to represent clients, especially in the complex commercial matters on which large firms concentrate. Even a century ago, it was well recognized that newly admitted lawyers needed to continue their education. Today, it is understood that junior and senior lawyers alike must do so. Continuing Legal Education ("CLE") requirements underscore the point. (22)

   While individual lawyers have the primary responsibility for their own education and development, (23) institutions of the legal profession have an important role in supporting lawyers in these efforts. The MacCrate Report, for example, identified the critical need for newly admitted lawyers to receive training in the law firms and other professional settings in which they begin their practices. (24) While describing the expansion of in-house training programs at law firms, (25) the report also emphasized the importance of learning on-the-job, and thus, the importance of "training senior attorneys to become more effective supervisors, to make better work assignments, to manage the efficient flow of work done under their direction, and to provide effective critiques of that work." (26)

   Large firms express a commitment to educating associates, if only for the firms' own survival. (27) Thus, Donald Bradley (28) challenged the idea that "mentoring, training, and professional development take a backseat to the demand for the billable hour, to the quest for ever-increasing profits per partner." He contended that "large law firms recognize very clearly that the long-term success of their institutions rests on developing great lawyers, generation after generation. If they fail in that task, the firm will fail." (29) One might question whether law firms' self-interest will, in itself, sufficiently motivate them to focus on their associates' professional development, given increasingly high associate turnover and the highly...