I’ve long been a big fan of Carolyn Elefant, and saw her as one of the few honest voices among the cheerleaders at their self-proclaimed cutting edge of the future of law.  But her participation in Ignite Law, and the glow of good feelings among the iToy apostles, may have colored her view.  Just a little.

Carolyn writes about the “big news” out of Chicago.

Perhaps the most surprising piece news from last night’s Ignite Law was Jay Shepherd’s  announcement that he’s shutting down his firm to focus full time on his business, Prefix LLC which teaches lawyers how to price knowledge.

Given Sheperd’s  recent revelation that his legal “expertise” was a publicity stunt, this doesn’t seem at all surprising.  Practicing law is hard.  It’s much easier to teach hungry lawyers how to “price knowledge.”  If all goes well, he can open up a string of “Knowledge Pricing” shops in malls across the land and make a bundle.

But this is no big deal. The internet’s full of schemers and scammers who come and go.  Big whoop. No, nothing to see here.  But this concerns me:

This isn’t a post about whether those who leave the law are better or worse than those who remain. Instead, more generally, I wonder about the implications of the loss of energy and talent and teachers from our profession. Knowledge once imparted through the ages as mentorship has now been product-ized and commoditized.

Yet at the same time, informal mentorship can’t keep pace with rapid changes in the profession, or offer the same level of advice – nor can mentors develop products and new technologies that help solo and small firms advance. Perhaps in fact, the whole concept of mentorship doesn’t even make sense in an age of new ideas where lawyers may be better off buying the advice that they need instead of relying on tips from colleagues. Selling mentorship makes our profession a far less collegial and generous place – but perhaps it’s more effective and efficient.

Carolyn’s fear, that mentorship is dead, is confused and confusing.  To the vast number of practicing attorneys, the Jay Shepherds of the internet are completely unrelated to anything remotely resembling the practice of law.  At best, he’s a one trick techno-pony, and to those of us in the criminal defense niche, the trick is as old as it gets.  To lawyers who aren’t consumed by the significance of every shiny new toy developed by Apple, the notion that Shepherd’s flight from law to consulting reflects a mentoring issue at all is ludicrous.

If lawyer mentoring is the topic, then look to a lawyer.  Jeff Gamso, for example.  He’s a lawyer. He practices law.  He has no tricks to sell and he’s not about to announce the opening of Gamso-r-Us at the local strip mall.  Instead, he speaks to  the stuff lawyers do in the course of practicing law.

Earlier today, on a strange legal listserv, I’ve been looking at for a few months, a new lawyer (or fairly new or something, it was less than clear) wrote this.

I am on the precipice of hanging out a shingle. I’m wondering two things:

(1) What is the minimum I should get done before I start. I.e. does it matter if I have no marketing up via websites or even business cards? What is absolutely necessary before you start other than office space and malpractice insurance. 

(2) My background is in civil law. However, even after three years, I don’t feel as though I am really equipped to do that over many other areas of law and I’ve been thinking about opening as a criminal practice but open to civil litigation. Is this too broad? Do I need to focus on one area? I have no background in criminal law, but my deepest desire is to get trial work and I feel that is the area of law best suited for the experience.

After three years in civil law, he’s not “really equipped” to do that work by himself.  But criminal? even with “no background”? The only issue is whether to limit himself to death penalty work or represent whatever sort of bad guy walks in the door.  Oh, and whether he needs a website and business cards before he starts.

This ought to be a matter close to Carolyn’s heart, having to do with a lawyer on the “precipice of hanging out a shingle.”  Carolyn, if you don’t know, is probably the most credible voice for solo practitioners in the blawgosphere, having written the premier instruction manual, Solo By Choice. 

My bet is that the listserv to which Gamso refers is the ABA flavor, SoloSez, populated by a curious mix of lawyers in solo practice, lawyers who want to be in solo practice, and people who may have practiced law at one point or another who now have an agenda to flog or a service to sell to the uninitiated.

Gamso has nothing to sell, yet he apparently bothers to read the listserv.  Despite there being nothing in it for him, except the likelihood of argument, aggravation and angst, he informed the inchoate solo criminal defense lawyer wannabe that he was headed down the road to perdition.  No doubt, he won a fan for his sound advice, particularly since the questioner didn’t ask whether he should leap blindly into a practice area where he had neither competence nor experience, but whether he needed business cards before doing so.

Compare Gamso’s advice with what someone like Jay Shepherd would have said.   Don’t worry about experience or competence kid; just glom onto some high profile case even if you don’t get paid for it, bluff your way through, and make sure the newspapers spell your name right.  What if you lose?  Then try it again, and just keep trying until you get lucky and fool them all.

The loss of this advice isn’t a flaw of mentoring, but a feature.  At least if we’re talking about mentoring lawyers.  If there are people out there who are foolish enough to pay someone for their snake oil, despite the readily available sound advice of someone like Jeff Gamso, so be it.  Gamso as done what he can to mentor young lawyers, to guide them toward responsibility and competence.  He can’t force them to ignore the prophets of profit.

But don’t bemoan those who flee the practice of law to sell front row seats to their tricks.  These aren’t the mentors that lawyers need.  There is no “rapidly changing pace” of the law, but only of some of the tools used to perform the fundamental functions of practicing law. 

Mentors are still here.  Mentors don’t “develop products or new technologies.”  Mentors don’t confuse an iPad with competence.  Mentors don’t claim to have discovered magic bullets that others have used for generations.  At least not lawyer mentors. 

The problem, Carolyn, is that if you are troubled by Shepherd’s decision to sell his new trick,  you’re looking for the wrong mentors.  At least if your concern is about mentors for lawyers.