The third, and hopefully final, prong of the ABA Journal’s challenge to The Onion is called 24 Hours of Rebels. It’s unclear why it’s called that, but it is. The purported purpose is to meet “some of the most creative minds in the legal profession. We’re asking them to answer the question: How does the practice of law need to change in the next five years?”
Molly McDonough, associate editor of the ABA Journal, asked me if I would participate. At first, the idea of having my say on the subject of what needs to change to a different audience than I might otherwise reach was alluring. After all, who doesn’t want to stick his two cents into something as juicy as what wrong with the law. Her only demand of me was that I not beat anyone to death in the process. Keep it civil, in other words. “I’m always civil,” I replied. “I’m also honest.” I don’t know if that made Molly feel any better.
After a day of contemplation, I realized that it would be disingenuous of me to participate in this project. There was far too much to criticize in what the ABA Journal was doing, and with all the otherwise fine folks preferring to be on the receiving end of the ABA Journal’s love, someone had to be the spoiler. If not me, then who?
I declined Molly’s offer. I bet that made her feel better. Molly thinks that I hate her given my civil yet honest critique of this project, but I like her very much. It’s the direction taken by the ABA Journal, its facilitation of the self-promotion, it’s knee-jerk adoration of technology as an end in itself, it’s failure to recognize the core ingredients of true legal rebels, the ones who are willing to put their nuts on the line to fight against the tide of reducing lawyering to used car sales by promoting the lowest common denominator, that I don’t care for.
How could I, on the one hand, enjoy the benefit of using the ABA Journal’s platform while simultaneously challenging it, even ridicule it, as reflecting where a profession should never go? I couldn’t. I demurred.
As it turned out, I made the right choice. Having parsed Day 1 of this 24 Hours offering (there’s a day 2, which makes one wonder what type of clock they are using over there), the problem is manifest. Two examples stand out, the first being Richard Susskind’s essay on the disaster ahead for lawyers who don’t succumb to the “modern ways.” Now this isn’t new, as Susskind has become the leader of the techno/outsourcing movement, and to those who love the cheapest, easiest, least competent way to earn a legal fee, he’s the Man.
As a consequence, law firms will increasingly be asked to reduce their fees, to undertake work on a fixed fee basis, and they will often being selected by hard-nosed, in-house procurement specialists and not solely by in-house lawyers. The legal market looks set to be a buyer’s market for the foreseeable future.
At the same time, new competitors are emerging, such as outsourcers and entrepreneurial publishers; while liberalization of the legal market will bring external funding and a new wave of professional managers and investors who have no nostalgic commitment to traditional business models for law firms, including hourly billing and gearing obtained through the deployment of armies of hard-working young lawyers.
To cap it all, a number of disruptive legal technologies are emerging (such as document assembly, closed communities, legal open-sourcing, and embedded legal knowledge) which will directly challenge and sometimes even replace the traditional work of lawyers.
For many lawyers, therefore, it looks like the party may soon be over.
Of course, not all law is done at the behest of inside counsel, and having enjoyed discussing this subject with them at SuperConference in Chicago, even house counsel isn’t quite as strident as Susskind suggests. Sure, they would like to come in under budget for litigation, but they also want to win. They aren’t prepared to give up billion dollar verdicts to save a few grand on document review. Unlike Susskind, they still respect competence and professionalism, perhaps more so than Susskind can realize.
Predictions of doom like this reflect a trend used by the proponents of each new technology as it enters the lawyer consciousness. If you don’t use it, you’re dead. Whether it’s cloud computing, or blogging, the cutting edge spells life or death to these advocates. That’s what I was told about 8 track tapes.
Had Susskind simply argued that lawyers have exacerbated their financial disconnect from clients by their refusal to consider, integrate and use available technologies to improve their performance and reduce their costs, I would be a fan of his too. Anything that enhances our delivery of excellent legal services to clients, particularly if it reduces the cost of legal services, is valuable to the profession and worthy of our interest. But that’s not what he’s saying.
Nowhere does Susskind concern himself with competence. Nowhere does Susskind address excellent client service. Quite the contrary, he promotes cheaper cost by reduced competence and professionalism. There is no place in Susskind’s future for excellence. Reduce everything to the lowest common denominator, the cheapest, fastest possible, even if it means schlock. Who cares if the legal services suck, at least they’re cheap.
Is this what the ABA Journal exists to promote?
As if to drive Yoda Susskind’s stake right through this lawyer’s heart, next came perhaps the most bizarre exercise I could imagine. It was a debate called “Twitter: Waste of Time or Marketing Goldmine?” Who would have thought that we would ever see the ABA Journal concerned with new ways to use marketing to degrade the profession?
But that’s not what made the experience surreal. Rather, it was the choice of the ABA Journal editors of who should represent the sides of the debate. On one side, the side arguing that twitter was yesterday’s fad, fun to do but of little if any value to the profession, was Larry Bodine. Here’s the quip on Larry’s background:
Larry Bodine, who blogs at LawMarketing Blog, is a law firm business development adviser. Previously, he was director of communications at Sidley, Austin Brown & Wood and is a former Editor-and-Publisher of the ABA Journal.
About as impressive as one could be on the subject of legal marketing, right? And his worthy adversary?
Rex Gradeless, who blogs at Social Media Law Student, is a well-known advocate of the use of Web 2.0 technologies by the legal community.Through his blog and Twitter streams and other use of social media, Gradeless is considered a leading source of information on the use of blogs and social media for lawyers and law firms.That’s right, our old friend Rex7, the unemployed law school graduate from the class of 2009, whose claim to fame is the collection of more than 70,000 followers on twitter. Now I actually feel rather badly about writing these words, as I truly don’t want to pick on Rex, but he keeps popping up in places where he has no business being. I certainly didn’t urge the ABA Journal to chose Rex as the front man for twitter, and I certainly didn’t urge Rex to accept the role. But he did, and he’s there, and that leaves me no choice but to deal with it.
Rarely, in the history of the law, has there been such a lopsided pairing, one that demonstrated by its very existence the silliness of the debate. Indeed, the first thing Rex says in the debate is that he feels like it’s David against Goliath, recognizing that he lacked the credentials to be in the same room as Larry. Had it been Kevin O’Keefe against Larry, it might have been a contest.
The substance of the “debate” isn’t consequential, though anyone who cares can hear it at the link. Unfortunately, it wasn’t available live as the technology failed. There was really only one question worth asking: With his 70,000+ followers, has Rex been able to get himself a job? The answer, unfortunately, is no. Now if one could trade followers for stuff like, oh, food and housing, maybe the numbers would matter. Any farmers out there in need of twitter followers?
While it is deeply disturbing that there is so much discussion about how to make lawyers less professional, less responsible, less competent, so long as they have work/life balance, it is incomprehensible that the ABA Journal has become a primary cheerleader of the lowest common denominator. Would it kill Editor Ed Adams to promote the notion of excellence in lawyering without the abject greed and self-promotion that have become the hallmarks of lawyers online?
For many years, the ABA Journal was viewed as the house organ of the Old Guard, the stodgy old white men in three piece suits smoking cigars and giving orders to the lowly associates to work harder and longer. It’s now new, cool, trendy, cutting edge, for the ripped jeans, flip-flop, Starbucks mocha frappucino crowd that leaves the office by 5 even if the brief is due in the morning.
Is there no one to speak for lawyers who just want to provide their clients with excellent legal services? Well, I’m trying, and that’s why I can’t be anyone’s Legal Rebel.
Edit. Note: The name David Susskind was mistakenly used instead of Richard Susskind. My bad. All Susskinds look alike to me. It has now been corrected.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Molly rocks!!!!
I don’t know everyone at the ABAJ, but the few I do know are somewhere between “stodgy” and Starbucks. Not sure what market they’re aiming for, but I assume it’s — lawyers, any kind, all kinds.
As for Twittering farmers, Molly is one (a farmer anyway). I am overjoyed you don’t hate her!
Pick on ALM for equal time sometime. They actually co-opt/hire bloggers.
But ALMs a business; it’s supposed to do that. And so you know, one of their people tried to get me to become part of their network, to which I replied, “What in the world would I want to do that for?”
Nuts to Twitter. The best way to support this worthy (ahem) initiative by getting one of the “legal rebel” skateboards available through the ABA website. There is nothing more rebellious than a lawyer on skateboard.
OMG, you are just wild!
I’ve ignored the ABA since 1987 when one quarter of their group tasked with rating US Supreme Court nominees found Robert Bork to be not-qualified to serve as a Supreme Court Justice. That act showed me that the ABA didn’t deserve to be taken seriously. The Legal Rebels piqued my interest because they purported to be “rebels” (taken by me as “not the ABA”). I left some comments on their “manifesto” and signed the end product. I guess the jury is still out over whether Legal Rebels deserves to be taken seriously, or not.
Basic thought experiment for Rex7 and other “gurus.”
Let’s take two out-of-work law grads. You get one. I get one.
I will take my law grad to the library. I’ll sit his or her ass down on a table for 5 hours each day. I will give the person a study schedule. The person will read cases and treatises for those three hours. I will even work with the law grad to determine what area of law she’d like to work in. We’ll cater the study schedule accordingly.
You will take a similarly talented law grad. Troll Twitter for as hours a day as you want.
At the end of one year, who will still be out of work? Who will have a better job?
Want to bet me? I will bet you or any other social marketing guru $1000 that my law graduate will be hired more quickly and on better terms and conditions.
Here is some basic math for your thoughtless, attention-deficient, unable-to-concentrate self: A person who studied for a mere 5 hours daily, 6 days each week, for 50 weeks (talk about work-life balance! would have nearly 1500 hours of substantive knowledge in her head. That’s a lot of law.
What would your law grad have? A head full of twits?
Your point on Susskind’s lack of attention to competence deserves more play. While his arguments about the distinction between “bespoke” and commoditized legal services are well-taken, he typically underplays the role of bespoke services. The most effective legal dollars spent by in-house lawyers are devoted to high-level guidance that either avoids costly problems, delivers the company a competitive advantage or ensures a win in important litigation.
While there is room for technological efficiency and moving routinized legal work to lower-cost channels, that discussion is in the margins for most companies.
I would take the bespoke analogy a step farther: Even though it costs more, it fits better. It isn’t cost effective simply because it costs less. Such a view ignores cost-benefit analysis. Most companies and individuals realize the tradeoff.
It’s Susskind’s “change or die” posturing that disturbs me most. This is an effort to use fear as the wedge to force others to follow his future vision. Of course tech efficiency enters into the equation. But die if you don’t do it his way? I don’t think so.
Blawg Review #234
Sociologist Elise Boulding has said that we live in a “200 year present,” a “social space which reaches into the past and into the future” — a space in which “we can move around directly in our own lives and…