Brian Tannebaum’s post about a “request” on the ABA’s “solosez” listserv, has generated some excellent discussion, both positive and exceedingly misdirected.  It began with a young lawyer’s request for a marketing strategy to compensate for threatened loss of welfare payments in the form of indigent criminal defense work, which the lawyer had intended to bootstrap him to success as a civil litigator. 

The lawyer who made the request acquitted himself quite well.  Whether it was an inartfully expressed request or a learning experience is unclear, but the end result was that he was better for the experience.  And from his comments, my bet is that at least a few young lawyers got the message.

Seth Godin, marketing philosopher, made a timely observation about alignment of goals.  Though offered in the context of business, it transcends the banal.

A perfect relationship: I want your company to help me, and your company wants to help me. We’re both focused on helping the same person.

The Walmart relationship: I want the cheapest possible prices and Walmart wants to (actually works hard to) give me the cheapest possible prices. That’s why there’s little pushback about customer service or employee respect… the goals are aligned.

The Apple relationship: I want Apple to be cool. Apple wants to be cool. That’s why there’s little pushback on pricing or obsolence or disappointing developers.

The demagogue politician relationship: I will feel more powerful if you get elected and get your way. You will feel more powerful if you get elected and get your way.

On the other hand,

Compare these to the ultimately doomed relationships (if not doomed, then tense) in which goals don’t align, relationships where the brand took advantage of an opening but then grows out of the initial deal and wants to change it:

The Dell relationship: I want a cheap, boring, reliable computer. You want to make more profit.

The hip designer relationship: I want the new thing no one else has yet. You want to be around for years.

The typical media relationship: I want to see the shows, you want to interrupt with ads.

As the “developing nature” of the attorney/client relationship, at least as expressed by marketers and perceived by young lawyers, is more akin to a commercial transaction than a fiduciary relationship, the application of misalignment seems more obvious.  But alignment, it seems to me, has less to do with commerce, per se, than with relationships, and the relationship between lawyer and client is at the core of our profession.

Using Godin’s framework, consider this:

Clients want lawyers who are reasonably price and capable of providing excellent representation.

Lawyers want clients to pay them as much money as possible for the least amount of work, without regard to their ability to deliver competent representation.

For many lawyers, this is an unfair statement of misalignment.  They are deeply concerned with providing competent, if not excellent, representation.  They want to be fairly compensated, but do not charge more than what is reasonable (though clients may still perceive the cost of legal services to be excessive).  They are fully prepared to forego a case if they cannot satisfy a client’s needs, despite the fact that this means they will not earn a fee.

For other lawyers, this statement of misalignment is right on target.  Their need to make money trumps everything else.  Their vision of lawyering is egocentric, it’s all there so they have a way to earn a living, pay off their loans and achieve the success and prestige they were promised.  The only stumbling block is that they need to convince the walking ATM machine, clients, that they fulfill their needs in order to pry that cash out of their hands.

Many of us believe that young lawyers aren’t truly as bad as all that, but have been misled by the sweet chorus of marketers and social media gurus who are the sirens of the internet.  We try to refocus them on the ideal and away from the easy path to success and prestige.  The marketers and SMGs want their money, and dangle the easy path.  Ours is more difficult and unsupportive. 

They offer apologies and excuses for these unpleasant times, and we tell them that being a lawyer is hard work.  They argue no pain, all gain.  They tell them they’re wonderful and brilliant, just as their mothers did before them.  They offer hope and immediate gratification.  Who doesn’t want a magic bullet?  And so many are led down the path toward wealth and happiness.  Let’s face it, the marketers have a much more appealing pitch than we do. 

What’s wrong with that?  Misalignment.

The  Joseph Rakofsky story is one of the most recent and extreme of apocryphal tales, but stories of clients who entrusted their fortunes or freedom to lawyers who took their money and left them hanging are legion.  The anger and bitterness is palpable, but the lawyers who did the dirty have long since walked away and wiped their hands of it, the money pocketed and gone and the consumer of their legal services (as these aren’t clients to these lawyers, but mere consumers) left broke and dangling in the wind.  Who cares? The lawyers got paid.

It can’t last.  It won’t last.  You can make a quick buck off lying to consumers (and yourself) that you are caring, aggressive and competent, but eventually your inability to perform, or care, catches up to you.  You can lie about your experience and expertise, using the  new-age marketing mantra that Google and six months makes you every bit as much of an expert and worthy of your marketing claims.  But it’s still a lie. 

It might be too much to expect that hungry, desperate, disillusioned lawyers will put honor and integrity ahead of their need to cashflow, their dreams of profit.  They may be too low on the  Hierarchy of Needs to be capable of shedding their self-interest for a higher calling.  So if you can’t do it because it’s the right thing to do, then consider doing it because the scam won’t last forever. 

Worse still, this impacts the entire legal profession, as clients perceive lawyers as being nothing more than selfish, greedy, incompetent liars.  If you won’t do it out of honor, do it out of self-interest.