Despite the amount of fodder that appears on these pages, I also have discussions with friends that aren’t in the public eye about the issues that concern us. One friend, Stephanie West Allen, who writes a blog called Idealawg and often sends me emails to let me know about absurd conferences for lawyers that have absolutely nothing to do with law or serving clients, wrote something that gave me pause:
I think there are two professions now, both calling themselves lawyers. Different notions of such things as the role of the client (i.e., client service), definition and scope of the word “service,” and most of all the importance of the lawyers’s happiness and his right to life’s fun not balanced with too many responsibilities.In short, a completely different concept of rights and responsibilities.Troubling . . .
Aside: It’s true that not all the futurists are concerned only about new toys, and some are deeply concerned about the welfare of others and finding ways to overcome existing failures in the law to address unmet needs. But the demand that I murder 1,000 words to provide a comprehensive explanation that meets their detailed approval ignores the core of the message, mired in the same old shiny toy nonsense, and isn’t going to happen. If they want praise, they will have to give it to themselves. That they demand I do it for them is absurd, and not going to happen.
Shortly afterward, I was assaulted by someone I don’t know on twitter, something that’s been happening with increasing regularity, to debate the merit of my views. Apparently, I am required to debate all comers on twitter, as far as they’re concerned. While I usually respond, mostly with a shrug which doesn’t translate well to twitter, I’m not inclined to get embroiled, both because twitter is a terrible medium for serious discussion and I feel no obligation to spend my day twitting with angry, incomprehensible people I don’t know.
But one fellow who challenged me on twitter made Stephanie’s point.
This may be one of the saddest, most appalling things I’ve experienced in my time on twitter or blawging, that there exists within the legal profession a wing, a group, for whom the concept of “hard work, competence, zealous representation and client service” means “basically there’s no future.”
For quite a while, it’s been clear that there are lawyers and those who, when faced with the hard work of developing a practice, including the competencies that are required to do so, aren’t up to the task.
This is reflected in the nonsense promoted by the cadre of young lawyers who can’t practice law, so they marketing themselves to foolish and desperate lawyers as rainmaker coaches who can teach them how to get rich as a lawyer without their life sucking.
Or Alexis Neely’s pale reflection, Rachel Rodgers. Of course, it must have sucked when Alexis went bankrupt. But they have a future, as Mitch Kowalski might define it. They are selling snake oil because they couldn’t sell law. And there are lawyers buying what they’re selling.
Stephanie was right, there are two groups that are co-existing under the title of lawyer, but the two groups look nothing alike. It’s unclear when the schism happened, though it’s been coming for years as one group found the work too hard, the time it took to gain experience and achieve incremental success too long. But the core difference wasn’t all about the lawyer, but the client.
Either the future of law is about making lawyers happy or serving clients. If the former, then lawyer happiness is a priority. If a gadget makes the lawyers life more convenient, then the gadget becomes his future of law. If it’s about making money, then any gimmick that makes a lawyer money becomes the future of the law.
Even those who believe it’s all about altruism, notably the proponents of open information for everyone about the law, so they can be their own lawyers as if the only thing needed is access to caselaw to make someone capable of managing their affairs and handling their litigation, thus bringing about the end of lawyers, believe they’ve stumbled upon the future of the law. But they won’t be there to pick up the pieces of the lives ruined by their well-intended by misguided effort.
Stephanie point out to me that there are two words that never find their way into the heads of these lawyers who are dedicated to their marketing and futurist delusions: client service. One groups believes that the only reason for lawyers to exist is to serve their clients. The other believes that clients exist so lawyers can get paid. It’s a fundamental philosophical difference. They deny it vehemently, because their religion demands it. There must be a new way, a cool way, an easier way, a faster way, a better way. There must be.
The problem is the we are all called lawyers. The problem is that people who need our help can’t distinguish the group that believes in “hard work, competence, zealous representation and client service” from the group that thinks such archaic notions mean “there’s no future.”
Perhaps we need a new word to distinguish between those lawyers who believe that they have joined a noble profession whose purpose is to serve clients, and those who pray to the iPad or the unsucky life or a future where we no longer have to work hard. But for now, we are all called lawyers, though we are not the same.
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Greenfield, what you say is much truer than not . . .
There’s a reason work is called “work”; it’s not called “fun” . . .
In my experience, just about anything in life that is meaningful involves hard, hard work. Sure, one might love the work they do, they might find aspects of their work “fun”, but to contribute, it always boils down to a lot of work and dedication . . .
No matter how you might define “success”, I’ve never seen it manifested by lazy people having “fun”, because the universe doesn’t allow for it . . .
And, no, there’s not even a special snowflake exception to this universal truth . . .
Now get to work, dammit!! . . .
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I was getting worried that your bail had been revoked. Good to see you’re still around.
But you are a terrible dinosaur (or, as I was called yesterday, a pompous clown) for not realizing that if you have an iPad and a cloud, you can create the perfect online persona to make yourself filthy rich with clients who adore you in only two hours a week so you can spend the rest of your time cruising the boulevard in your Lambo?
Work? It’s for old farts. Unsucking your life is the new normal. As long as people don’t mind throwing their money at us for no work but an iPhone 7 turbo.
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I had a recent experience with a “service” provider that left me shaking my head. She was given a hard, immovable deadline to which she committed. I reminded her of the looming deadline several times as it was approaching and how important it was to me that she deliver. She proceeded to completely miss the deadline so I called and tore into her.
She said to me, “I have a life too; I didn’t have time to finish it. You need to understand.” I explained to her, in a blunt manner with brusque cadence that only few are capable of, that her excuse was no excuse at all; that I didn’t care if she needed to stay up all night doing the required work; that her priorities most surely seemed out of whack, and that she never should have committed to something if she wasn’t going to get it done . . .
She responded to me that I have serious “issues” because of my lack of understanding. I fired her on the spot. On further reflection, I decided I do have serious issues – mostly revolving around lazy, incompetent nitwits, which, so unfortunately, means I have serious issues with most of life . . .
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What we have here is a failure to communicate. You thought you were hiring someone to perform a service. She thought you were paying her money, for which she might provide a service if and when it was convenient to her. You were unaware the the cost of using her was not limited to the amount you were supposed to pay, but to an appreciation of her having other things she wanted to do more than your work. You were still obliged to pay, of course. How else could she afford to have a life?
Unfortunately it’s more than than. I work in IT, and I have both a cloud and a bright shiny iPad (toying this on saidnioad as well), and this problem is pervasive. I have several engineers who look at deadlines the same way, more as guidelines on when something is wanted, rather than deadlines on she. It must be done.
It would be easy to say its the younger generation being lazy, but since I’m assuredly part of that younger generation to you, and I’ve met some lazy older people, I don’t that that’s it. Instead, it’s the fact that people are able to get pieces of paper that they’ve been told will ensured they make a lot of money (a JD, or a BS in computer science come to mind). When they enter the job market, they expect to be able to work minimally and still make good money, after all, they have that piece of paper.
Interestingly, I don’t see this with people who work their way up, and have years of work experience with lower salaries. Whether this is because they never got the golden goose of an easy college experience (I had to forgo college to support my mother, and went into the military to do so, even though I now have a masters), or whether people who succeed and work their way up are exactly the hard workers I want to hire I don’t know.
Either way, hard work is what makes you keep your job, and get raises, but in an environment where firing someone takes time, and they can get another job easily that still pays well (marketing for lawyers or IT for anyone), they may not realize that the reason they keep getting fired is because they don’t actually work, since easy money is still easy.
Give them a few more years until many of those commodity jobs are off shored; the only hard workers will remain with jobs at all.
This post is the equivalent of that type of moment I seem to have more and more as I get older of “I can’t think of a word for what I’m trying to say.” In all my discussions critical of the “law futurists,” I have never been able to codify it as well as Greenfield did here – it’s the difference between lawyers who are here for clients, and lawyers who are here for themselves.
I don’t think it’s the difference between having fun and not having fun (consequently I have a post coming out tomorrow on having fun as a lawyer having nothing to do with tech or social media).
I enjoy being a lawyer, I have fun (not every day of course). But the law futurists now have a good understanding here of how stupid they sound to lawyers like me. They are not teaching us how to better serve clients (although they will argue that having iPads and the cloud better serves clients), they are trying to help lawyers believe that hard work is due to a lack of understanding of all the fancy toys out there.
We have “fun” (which itself isn’t the right word at all) because we enjoy being lawyers, the work we do, the purpose we serve, the satisfaction of doing our job well, the satisfaction of serving a higher purpose than just making a quick buck. We look forward to the next case for the challenge and the opportunity to do the impossible. We embrace hard work.
I’ve got nothing against shiny toys or whatever the latest new idea is, but never mistake the tool or the method for the duty to serve clients. We serve our clients, using whatever tools we have and whatever tools will work. If it’s an iPad, great. If it’s a rock, great. It’s the service, not the gimmick. And there is no amusement park or ice cream that will ever bring the satisfaction of having saved another human being from misery.
It’s possible that I’m missing context provided by past discussion, but this post seems to create two straw men (involving ‘hard work’ and ‘attorney client relationships’) and take off running with them. The ironic part is that the importance of the latter is an excuse often used by attorneys to ward off the former–specifically, the effort and patience necessary to adapt one’s practice in a way that both serves the client *and* the legal community as a whole. What you ignore is that many ‘futurists’ aren’t necessarily concerned with the lawyer, but with the integrity of the bar, which is supposed to come before the interests of both client and attorney individually.
Also, you come off as a bit of a dismissive dick, but that’s neither here nor there.
Sorry if this is choppy, my niece is climbing all over me and shouting something about a ‘Maizey’.
No, the duty of a lawyer is not to the “integrity of the bar” before the interest of the client. As for my coming off as a “dismissive dick,” you are correct. I dismiss ignorant people.
Interesting. I’ll take you at your word; after all, you’re a hard worker. This’ll come in handy the next time some big shot judge tries to tell me the duty of candor supercedes MRPC 1.6. I should also probably disregard any prohibitions on making false statements of fact, at least where said statements advance my client’s interest.
Snark aside, try taking a less polarizing tone, unless you’re merely looking to elicit an affirmation of your opinion from those who agreed with you before you even voiced it.
So “integrity of the bar” has now become making false statements? Interesting twist indeed. Whether someone agrees with me or not isn’t key. It’s whether they offer something insightful or nonsensical, like a lawyer’s foremost duty is to the “integrity of the bar” rather than his client.
Edit: It just dawned on me: so what part of the futurists’ concerns apply to lawyers making false statements? Is there an app for that? Is it the futurists’ contention that lawyers have been lying to courts for years and they’ve got a technological solution to put an end to it? Did I miss something here?
You’re not working hard enough on this one, bub. Ours isn’t a pure teleology; placing the integrity of the bar ahead of the interests of the individual client (where required) maintains the trust of the public, and thereby serves the client. Say it five times fast and you’ll have it.
You’ve lost my interest.
What can “integrity of the bar” mean if divorced from duty to the client? If there were no clients, there would be no bar. Bar associations aren’t social clubs. I must be missing something.
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crickets
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The phrase has no meaning and he had no point. Just another aspirant to the bar trolling the grownups.
Scott: I just discovered your blog and its fantastic. On this particular post, gentlemen: you raise excellent points. And yet I would have never been privy to your insight but for your use of a very modern tool – blogging. Snake charmers aside, as they exist currently practicing every occupation known to men, is it possible that other professionals servicing the legal industry actually have something to offer? Is it possible that they too, may nobly deliver a service? Are we saying that coaching, marketing, etc. are not as valuable as law? Or do we only resent these services when delivered by lawyers no longer practicing law? If the latter, are we implicitly arguing that lawyers don’t know better? I don’t mean to be difficult; it’s just that I am sincerely troubled by these questions. Just two days ago I was wondering why lawyers disdain certain methods/ advice. For example, they dismiss blogging, yet I see them at bar association meetings tripping over each other (to put it mildly) to land that same client? Why do they behave so dishonorably on the one hand, yet act as though they were Atticus Finch – too exalted to blog, to Tweet, for example? My only insight was a question to myself: Not every lawyer out there is Atticus Finch, is he? Socrates would be proud. I on the other hand, am still troubled – particularly when I think of the type of legal work/claims many lawyers today are churning. Thank you for the blog and comments. Keep up the great work!
That’s quite a string of questions. There seems to be two overarching points in there. First, there is nothing wrong with using whatever tools exist for whatever purpose they serve to the extent they don’t cause harm, whether ethical or otherwise. But it’s critical to remember they’re just tools, not ends in themselves. They aren’t “game-changers,” but like the quill giving way to the ball point pen, a means to an end.
It’s foolish to dismiss a tool that works without compromising our responsibility. It’s similarly foolish to become so enamoured of the tool that we are willing to compromise our responsibility to use it. You found me by my blog. Twenty years ago, you might have found me by my op-eds in the newspaper. In a few years, when blogging has gone out of fashion, maybe you will find me somewhere else. Minor changes of no consequence. It’s what I write, not where it shows up, that distinguishes what I try to do.
As for whether “coaching, marketing, etc. are not as valuable as law,” they are not. Law is not an occupation that exists so lawyers can make money or be happy. Law is a profession that exists to serve clients. There is nothing whatsoever comparable between law and “coaching, marketing, etc.” To even ask the question is to grossly conflate the two. I find your question sadly shocking.
And yes, not all lawyers are Atticus Finch (even though they think they are). In fact, none of us may be worthy of the attributes of this fictional character. This makes the goal to make lawyers more like Atticus Finch rather than excuse and follow those who aren’t in the race to the bottom.
Saw that Mitch Kowalski posted this on twitter in response to Tannebaum’s tweet about evaluating what could go wrong:
“@btannebaum I thought the best lawyers differentiate pebbles from boulders, then design paths around them. But that’s just me.”
Any thoughts?
It’s a cute, artful generic phrase. Unfortunately, it’s simultaneously loaded and misguided. By writing “the best lawyers,” he’s trolling Brian to see if he can suck him in. After nobody doesn’t want to be one of “the best lawyers.” I see that Brian didn’t fall for such an obvious ploy.
The rest of the twit is just generic silliness, and could just as easily be turned around on the futurists and their refusal to recognize or address the problems with their schemes. After all, shouldn’t the futurists differentiate pebbles from boulders in whatever new schemes they come up with? Which help, which are worthless? Which raise ethical or pragmatic problems and which don’t? Which are so fundamental or vital that they’re worth the effort to design paths around significant problems? But they never mention problems, and try to spin it back on Tannebaum.
No matter how cute the appeal to emotion or ego may be, it’s just another empty phrase used to game the ignorant who like artful platitudes but don’t like to think very hard.
Many of my “hard working” clients’ jobs have been automated or outsourced out of existence. Similarly, many of my “brick and mortar” business clients have been forced to close down by online competitors. Those who think that “hard working” lawyers operating in a traditional law firm business model will survive, when all around us industries are being transformed by these forces, are deluding themselves out of existence.
Despite the bar’s role as protector of the public interest, the public generally sees the profession as a cartel and the Rules of Professional Conduct as the mechanism by which that cartel is kept in place. The Rules would look very different if the public had more input into their content. The Rules would focus on access and affordability, not unauthorized practice. They would give preference to choice and convenience over security. They would enable law firms to engage clients online with the option to switch to “face to face” when required.
There is much we can do to improve client service and lower fees for clients without negatively impacting law firm profitability, individual lawyer satisfaction or the profession’s role in society but it requires courage to acknowledge that the forces that are changing our world are permanent.
I don’t believe that in the twenty-first century we should charge $300.00/hour to provide clients with basic legal information they can now easily get online for free, nor do I accept that everything a lawyer does on a file is worth $300.00/hour. Except for the most complex litigation, I refuse to believe that we lack the skill, knowledge and information to properly cost out a file for a client at the outset. Technology can help address all of these issues but technology’s greatest benefit is in freeing up legal talent to focus on those client issues that truly require the $300.00/hour expertise, hard work and creative talents of the lawyer. It creates a win-win for the lawyer and client on several levels.
It’s the prospect that technology can enable me to ensure that my clients are spending the bulk of their money where they need it most, and where my skills and efforts can create the greatest value possible for their legal spend, that I find truly exciting about the use of technology in the practice of law.
“Perhaps we need a new word to distinguish between those lawyers who believe that they have joined a noble profession whose purpose is to serve clients, and those who pray to the iPad or the unsucky life or a future where we no longer have to work hard”
I suppose “hacks” is out of the question?
So your profession is a cartel to oppress poor people? At least we can both agree that your time isn’t worth $300 an hour. Nobody makes you overcharge and underdeliver. If you fail to provide value to your clients, it’s not technology. It’s you.
I just find it so unproductive to simply define the two extremes of the spectrum then debate which extreme is right and wrong.
On the one hand there are those young lawyers looking for the elusive “work-life balance” whose commitment to the client is questionable. As a practicing lawyer of 23 years I have come across my fair share of self-absorbed “me” generation students and lawyers. Thankfully they are a small minority.
On the other extreme, however, are those who define “hard work” as racking up as many inefficiently produced billable hours as possible on a file without regard to delivering any real value to the client. This equally small but vocal group puts down any attempt at using technology or alternative business practices in the legal profession because it threatens their livelihood. While this group uses words like “hard work”, “commitment”, “competence” and “service”, in reality that are no more committed to client service than the former group.
Unfortunately, it is those on the extremes that impact public opinion about the profession and not the vast majority of lawyers somewhere in between.
It helps neither the public nor the profession to focus on these extremes. The conversation should be about the role of technology and alternative business practices in making legal services more efficient, accessible and affordable, especially for those who have been priced out of legal marketplace.
As professionals, and not merely business people, we owe it to our clients to take such a critical look at our business practices.
I initially wrote a rather lengthy reply, because your comment is so utterly full of shit that it pissed me off. But then I realize that it also so obviously full of shit that it wasn’t necessary for me to point out its epic failings. You are a disgrace to Canadian lawyers.
I have only one piece of advice: hang out with better lawyers, because it seems the ones you know are worthless.
I have no idea why SHG is being so nice to you. Maybe he’s getting old. But I’m not.
“While this group uses words like “hard work”, “commitment”, “competence” and “service”, in reality that are no more committed to client service than the former group.”
This is the most absurd, self-serving piece of crap I’ve read in a long time. Well, actually since your earlier comment. You argue against the “extremes” and then try to pass this off, tarring anyone who puts hard work above the wonder of technology as a liar?
The only conversation I want to have with you is the one where I tell you that you can stick your scam where the sun don’t shine. Cute how you pretend to be the middle when you just another snake oil salesman trying to softsell your bullshit. But I’m not buying.
Isn’t it great how you use blogs and e-mail technology to deliver your missive against the use of technology in the practice of law.
Am I to assume sir that you don’t use a telephone, fax machine or computer with e-mail in your practice? Did these technological advancements not improve the quality of your services to your clients while at the same time lower your costs and make things faster for you? Unless you are still drafting your documents with a quill by candlelight spare me your hypocritical BS and try to engage in a civil adult conversation.
Start by telling me why the internet and other new technologies are any different than the communication technologies I mentioned above? Tell me why these new technologies cannot be effectively employed to improve client service? Are these technologies to be avoided solely because they may also have the side effect of simplifying our lives?
Nowhere in my previous comments have I said that these technologies are a substitute for in depth knowledge of the law or the development of critical legal skills that every lawyer has to cultivate in order to become a valued trusted advisor to his or her clients. Most new technologies just make it easier to communicate with clients by giving both lawyers and clients more choice as to how, when and where we communicate with our clients.
If your clients don’t expect you to deliver your services through these new technologies that’s great for you but my clients do. I’m just responding to their changing expectations yet that makes me a “snake oil salesman” in your eyes? How absurd is that? I’m sorry but with all due respect, any lawyer who refuses to respond to such changing client needs is being neither professional or competent.
God bless you if your clients are not making those demands of you.
How wonderful that you’ve finally come around to realize that technology is just another tool that we use in the practice of law. It’s not a game-changer, the New Normal, Reinvent Law, or the Future of Law or any other such nonsense. Just tools.
What a shame that you had to murder so many words, write such foolishness and embarrass yourself in the process. It certainly took long enough.
I think that “fun” is actually one of the most miserable words and concepts in our language. I sometimes think the entire society needs to drop People, Cosmo, Popular Mechanics and Juggs and pick up a copy of Man’s Search for Meaning by Dr. Viktor Frankl. It almost makes one wish for conscription; conscription is cruel and a seizure of free people’s lives, but it also introduces people to the non-fun concept of duty and objective performance in a way that college in this country mostly doesn’t.
“Fun” is appropriate for kids, of course, and on occasion for adults, I guess. In other languages, the translated word for “fun” has a stronger emphasis on its lightness of being: Spaß, divertido, etc. “Fun” is silliness, but life is short. Especially when you are 44.
Better words than “fun” – satisfaction, accomplishment, meaning, purpose. It’s OK to leave law for something more meaningful, but asking law to be “fun”? Please; we are adults here.
Fulfillment is the word at least to me.