How To Help Unhappy, Laid Off BigLaw Lawyers: Disbar Them

Almost a year ago I wrote that BigLaw was dead. I was chided, called "jealous" (as I am anytime I say anything negative about the useless BigLaw lawyers of our generation). I was told I was writing the post a bit "early."

So now the New York Times has come out with this article, entitled "No Longer Their Golden Ticket, filled with all the whiny complaints of those that should have never been lawyers in the first place.

Cue the violins.

....associates do not just feel as if they are diving into the deep end, but rather, drowning.

Lawyers who entered the field as recently as a few years ago could reasonably expect a life of comfort, security and social esteem. Many are now faced with a different landscape. Bonuses for those who survive are shriveling, and an increasing number of firms now compensate associates based on grades for performance — shades of law school — rather than automatically advancing them on the salary scale.

“I thought, ‘Great, I can afford to buy a house at 23,’ ” said Jacqueline Muna Musiitwa, recalling her first year as an associate in 2006 at Pillsbury in San Francisco. “If I start this way at 23, goodness knows what it will be like when I’m 40.”

She accepted the notoriously grueling workload for the prospect of Caribbean vacations, a convertible and a big loft apartment. But young lawyers now entering the field can feel no such assurance, said Ms. Musiitwa, 27, who left Pillsbury after a year to start a boutique firm. If she were an associate now, she would “have to work a million times harder,” she said, “just to make sure that next time there’s a cut, I’m not on that list.”

“We used to gather in someone’s office, close the door, and say, ‘I hate my life, why are we doing this?’ ” she said.

Even associates who find plenty to do worry that outstanding performance is no longer enough to protect them, said Daniel Lukasik, a Buffalo lawyer who runs an information and outreach Web site called Lawyers With Depression, adding that his traffic is up 25 percent since June, to about 25,000 visitors a month.

A midlevel associate in the New York office of a white-shoe firm, who writes provocatively about law-firm life under the name Legal Tease on her blog, Sweet Hot Justice, described a big law firm as “an absolute torture shack.”

Some partners say that the next generation may have to expect less from a legal career. “What has come to pass is that a law degree is not a ticket to a six-figure salary and a six-figure bonus,” said Matthew A. Feldman, a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher in New York.

So it's over people, o-v-e-r. I'm not talking about those in BigLaw that are actually practicing lawyers, with clients, who do the type of large corporate cork that is only able to be done in Big Law. I'm talking to those of you who are in law school or went to law school because you want a nice office, nice clothes, a six-figure salary you never deserved in the first place, and a guarantee of a life of bonuses and eventual partnership. That's, over.

Do us all a favor, instead of whining about why your legal career is no longer being handed to you, consent to disbarment. Leave the practice of law. No one in this day of thrift and a desire for lawyers that are necessary to a specific legal matter, needs you. Being the 4th lawyer on a team and sitting at a conference table pretending like you are of any value is not going to be your "career" anymore.

If we are to be fair to the profession, we will realize that the vast majority of these whiners, never wanted to be "lawyers." They merely wanted money, and a lot of it. They don't belong in the profession, and there's a way to get rid of them.

Just ask each one: "Why did you go to law school?"

If the answer doesn't include "people," or "help," or "represent," or includes "Big Law Firm," disbar them. Put them out of their misery. You can't complain about not getting a job in law if you don't have the right to do so.

The world thought they needed you BigLaw paraders up until last year. Now it's time to move on and get out, for the benefit of those that actually want to be a part of what used to be a profession.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com

BigLaw Lawyer Says BigLaw Lawyers Are Dunces

I get dinged a little for my unabashed criticism of that complete waste of a career we all call BigLaw. The apologists for that method of legal services that only serves to pay for access to bigger lines of credit and more associates to convince clients they need 12 lawyers on a 2 lawyer deal is at its end. And no, I couldn't get a job there when I graduated, not even an interview. I had to toil at the public defender's office building a criminal defense career which now finds me taking a week off and writing this from a beach.

Now BigLaw is finding dissention among the ranks. My favorite person of the day, Elizabeth Wurtzel, says in this must read article, that BigLaw is nothing more than a "march of dunces."

She confesses: "Corporate attorneys like me, even those with the eyesight and insight of Mr. Magoo, all should have been able to see this financial collapse coming."

She puts it on the table: "And whatever lessons the powers that be might learn from this adjustment -- that salary structure should change, or that the billable hour is an anachronism -- it seems no one has stated the obvious: The whole system is warped."

She divulges the unbelievable: That New York Big Law "junior associates have been known to sneak out of the office and head home by six o'clock. Exposed to the sunshine that exists outside of corporate skyscrapers for the first time, these people now know what we've all been telling them for years: The sky is actually blue."

She rips out the heart of all that is BigLaw: "The emergency-room atmosphere that permeated the processing of derivatives deals, corporate takeovers, and whatever else has been going on at Goldman, Bear, Citi and Merrill for the past decade, could rival that of an operating room during open-heart surgery. Only, of course, it was a matter of money -- not life or death."

She puts it into perspective like I've never read: "I would love to call the system despicable or detestable or something evil-sounding, but that would be giving it too much credit. It's really just the march of dunces. A dozen years worth of sleepless nights down the drain like dirty bathwater. Pity these people"

Wow.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com

The Death Of Big Law, Guess I'm Late To The Obituary

I've been pondering a "Death of Big Law" post for the last few weeks, but it appears I'm late to the game. Hellerdrone did my work for me, and it's great. I post it in it's entirety here (my favorite parts in bold):

"[Note: I write this obituary for large global law firms with no sense of joy or schadenfreude. Since genealogy is my passion in life, and I know the power of information that can be contained in a well-written death notice, I thought I'd take my turn at trying to summarize what I've witnessed over the past few months]

Thursday, February 12, 2009 aka “Black Thursday” or “The Pre-Valentine’s Day Massacre” — The concept of Biglaw - large, global, multi-office, multi-practice law firms, passed away on Thursday, February 12, 2009 in many locations with close to 1,100 legal profession layoffs.

Born in 1879 when Coudert Brothers - founded in New York in 1853 - opened its Paris office, the concept of a group of attorneys operating efficiently for the benefit of clients (and employees) and not just for their owners while providing quality legal services lasted approximately 130 years.

In the mid- to late-20th century, the idea that “economies of scale” and “efficiencies” (and whatever buzzword you care to apply) could be gained by congregating large groups of attorneys - ranging in age from recent twentysomething law school graduates to those who actually may have written the Code of Hammurabi - across multiple worldwide offices had its heyday.

But while riding in that fast car of larger offices, more attorneys, more locations, the warning signs of trying to go too far, too fast went unheeded. As others shouted about the “death of the billable hour” or that “disbursements are simply your overhead costs,” Biglaw proponents continued in their ego and monument building undeterred. Like a sexy, carefree and drunken girl in her date’s convertible just before reality (aka “that telephone pole” or “that other car”) came out of nowhere.

Also along for the ride were too many chiefs and directors who while tasked with efficiently administering day-to-day operations, simply became “yes men” and “yes women” telling partners what they wanted to hear; large marketing departments who failed to see that before you could market a law firm like a corporation, the law firm had to be run like a corporation; self-congratulating partners who stymied sound decision-making in lieu of simply going with something they felt was best; IT departments which suffered through the disasters of choices made based on the latest toy or gadget or program a partner had seen at a trade show or at a colleague’s firm; and too many outsourced employees whose jobs in records, document production, information rsources and other support departments disappeared long, long ago.

Friends, supporters, and detractors recall those crazy days with huge lavish parties around the holidays, the partner and all-attorney retreats with their oh-so-funny skits and other team-building exercises. Those days when per partner profits kept increasing year after year. Those days when it seemed it would never end. But it did.

Biglaw leaves behind thousands of loyal former employees who will be lucky to find similar positions in today’s economy and can look forward to long stints of unemployment or underemployment; empty but elegantly decorated temples to those crazy days when the wiser decision might have been to scale back or to make do; and partners who’d rather hack off entire groups of employees than see their profits descend more than 3% when compared to the year prior.

Biglaw is survived by those who got out of the field long ago; those who managed to build networks and skill sets that could transcend the legal practice and survive in any economic time; those who never took the sweet but soon bitter pill.

In lieu of condolences, well-wishers are simply reminded: to take care of yourself and to examine the important things in life - today, not tomorrow; to try and help your former colleagues as best you can; to offer advice but also offer an ear; to remold yourself and pursue what you really want to do in life, not what you have to do to survive; and to not let this history be repeated, if possible."

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com