Miami criminal defense lawyer Brian Tannebaum, fresh off his triumphant election as President of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, turns his attention to the L.A. Law Syndrome. 

The T.V. show L.A. Law showed us that law offices were nice places, in tall buildings, with nice furniture, and beautiful people. L.A. Law caused a whole generation to go to law school. The work was tedious for those sent to BigLaw, but the golden handcuffs were tight. Where else could a 25 year old make $100,000 the first year out of school? It wasn’t about the “profession,” or “representing clients,” or building a practice. It was about the paycheck.

His motivation came from the comments to an ABA Journal article about a consultant who says that 25% of her clients want to “affirmatively” leave the practice of law.  Many others would be willing to consider it.

The commenters, almost all anonymous, appear to be quite honest about their feelings toward the practice of law.  About half believe that it’s failed them financially.  So much of the discussions on this topic centers around Biglaw, the absurdly huge salaries coupled with the hugely onerous demands.  The oddity of this is that only a small percentage of new lawyers ever found themselves in the employ of Biglaw, cashing those monster paychecks and putting down the deposit for the Ferrari, even in the best of times.  The vast majority were relegated to trenches, where they had to work for a living. 

Apparently, nobody ever told them that.  Neither law schools nor practicing lawyers told the inchoate law students that the practice of law did not necessarily involve Susan Dey and filtered air in hermetically sealed structures.  While law schools continue to send out their pornography to entice the foolish and lazy to join them on Paradise Island, others, myself included, have offered some alternative thoughts to scare away those who really don’t want to be lawyers.

This does nothing, unfortunately, to help those who have already made the plunge into the empty pool.  Three years and $150,000 in the red, no job prospects in sight and just a bunch of old folks (myself included) unhelpfully telling them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps (what’s a bootstrap?) rather than sit in the basement eating Cheetos and whining about the misery of their lives.

The problem is that, aside from working hard, exceeding clients’ expectations, and persisting in the face of adversity, there isn’t much that I have to offer to solve the problem.  However, that doesn’t mean that others don’t have answers.

At the Lawyerist, Alexis Neely offers an alternative.  I haven’t always been very kind to Alexis, calling her a twinkie because of her perpetually perky demeanor, lack of substance and claim that she’s on a mission from God (who also provided her with a price list), but in this short post, Alexis finally offers an explanation of what she has to offer lawyers.

As many of you know, I’m a huge advocate for having a team and outsourcing. By the time I sold my firm, I was doing very little of the day to day activities of the business myself, which meant I only had to work 2-3 days a week. Nice, right?

Yes, very nice.

Alexis notes that the end result of the scheme doesn’t come without a start-up cost.

But, there are some times and some activities that call for you to suck it up and do it yourself. Especially when you are just starting out. When I first started out, I did just about everything myself.

I did my own intake with new clients. I did my own drafting of legal documents. I set up my own marketing events. I remember the first seminar I did and I was carrying the flowers, the projector and the screen in — all myself.

No free ride here, at least in the beginning. But that’s the price of success.  The only question is success in what?  It’s an interesting scheme, a lawyer variation on the bait and switch.  The salesman sucks in the clients with a happy face, smiling reassurance and slick presentation, then hands them off to a grunt to do the work.  That doesn’t mean that the work doesn’t get done, and get done well.  The grunt may be an excellent lawyer, and the client may be well-served by the grunt.  To the extent there’s an issue, it’s only that the client thought she was getting one person when she ended up with another, a person wholly unknown.

Nice?  Yes, very nice.  If you have the desire and ability to be perpetually perky, to instill comfort and security, to close the deal with 97% of  “new prospects,” this may be for you. 

It’s not a foolproof scheme.  It requires you to be willing to say and do whatever is necessary to reel the new prospects in.  There is, of course, a script to follow, and if you can practice the script with a look of sincerity on your face (it just takes a little face time in front of a mirror), chances are you can do it.  Then there is the need to find a bunch of working stiff lawyers willing to do the grunt work you’ve promised your new prospects for whatever piece of the pie is left over after you’ve taken your slice.  This might be a problem if everyone wants to be the front man, but that’s not a real issue since most will never get beyond the grunt stage.  There are always grunts.

So there you have it, an affirmative proposition to satisfy the needs of starving lawyers who are disappointed that their investment hasn’t paid off well enough, if at all.  There is only one real drawback to this scheme that can’t be overcome.  It’s not the practice of law.