The Attorney At Larges Guide to Practicing Law, Part I

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Like clockwork, he switches firms about every 12 to 18 months. He has worked for at least 15 firms. He is currently working for a law firm that is an AmLaw firm. He has well-known substance abuse problems and a penchant for spending lots of free time with prostitutes. When he leaves firms, he generally pisses them off. He has enemies all around the city he works in and a horrible reputation for being a job hopper. He can move firms whenever he wants to. His reputation, drinking during the day, doing coke binges at night, being seen with prostitutes — none of it matters!

Law firms need business. A law firm cannot survive without business. It is what keeps the lights on, and it is what gives associates jobs and keeps the higher-ups employed. Let me tell you another story about how important business is: If a partner from a major, major law firm — Skadden , Gibson Dunn and so forth — wants to move firms, the first question they will be asked is: If the answer is "zero", then in all but the rarest cases, the conversation stops there; no matter your work experience, law firms need business production.

Whether someone who formerly gave them work left the firm, the firm lost a major client, or the firm restructured, the firm makes a decision to part ways with the partner. Once that happens, the partner tries like mad to get into another law firm.

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I have placed tons of people like this more on that later , but for most partners without business, there is a cold, cold reception and the odds of getting into a significant new law firm are almost zero for many of them; legal work experience alone garners little attention. No one is interested in partners without business for the most part — and partners know it. I have even seen federal judges retire and try to return to law firms. Even they do not receive the warmest of receptions from law firms!

If you do not have a lot of business inside of a law firm, it is a very dangerous situation indeed. When an attorney with a few million in business wants to move firms, the discussion with a new law firm is generally based on how much they will keep of what they bring in and work on. Firms screw with these percentages and numbers all the time. This point is so fundamental to the practice of law and what happens to senior associates inside of law firms that I will illustrate it: Also, they need to present bills to clients that make the clients happy.

It looks much better to have a bunch of work done by junior associates to clients because they are cheaper, and this theoretically keeps the bills down. As an associate gets more senior, their billing rates become closer to what partners charge per hour. This does not look as good to the client AND the partner with the business would much rather do work billed out at a higher level themselves because they have the relationship with the client and they make more money doing the work themselves.

The Five Prestige Levels of Attorneys and Law Firms for more information about how to determine which law firms are the best. The problem that senior associates, of-counsel attorneys and partners face is quite simple: Their billing rates are competitive with partners in the firm. Just like young associates are judged by the number of hours they can bill i.

Partners generally stay employed and are compensated based on the amount of business that they have and, most importantly, the amount of their own work that they do. How much importance does your firm place on the amount of business you have? If you are a partner with no business or a senior associate with no business and your job is in danger, you generally have the following choices: Generally, attorneys go in-house because they have to.

The best attorneys are generally not in-house. In-house attorneys are people who, for whatever reason, are having a difficult time playing the law firm game any longer. I am not trying to be harsh or offensive by saying this, but it is true. Often the people going in-house are women who want more time with children or to start families , people sick of the hours, attorneys without business and no future and people without the overall commitment needed to stay practicing law at a high level. These are all valid reasons to go in-house, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with not having what is required by large law firms.

You can often have a much better life going in-house than working in a law firm, but you are no longer playing the game. Is this always the case? I've seen attorneys go to work at hedge funds and make millions. I've worked with people who became the general counsels of major corporations.

So, of course, going in-house is not always "giving up", but it is most of the time. I talk to extremely talented attorneys all the time interested in going in-house. He wanted to go in-house to some easy job. He's barely 30 years old and already has a decent book of business in a major US law firm. I told him what I am going to tell you: You have no pressure to generate business.

You are not doing the most sophisticated legal work law firms hired by the company are. You are not surrounded by people pushing to do the best possible legal work. You are not around the best attorneys. There is much less pressure and the work is never as sophisticated or demanding. But do not take my word for it.

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I do not care if the person comes out of the legal department at Apple , Google , General Motors — or whatever. They could be the 2 or even the 1 person in these departments. When they lose their jobs or quit , it is almost impossible to get large law firms interested in them. You would think the relationships and potential to bring in business mattered they do, but not much. None of it matters. If someone goes in-house, the perception is that they have "given up" on what it takes to be a performer in a law firm, and that is it. The law firm world is enormously competitive.

The firm called me and asked "What's his billing rate? They told me that was too low and hung up the phone… This is a serious game. If you step off the track, it will be very difficult to ever get back on. It does happen in intellectual property and real estate — if the market is really good but it is rare.

But if you do not have any business, going in-house is a good option. For another perspective, see the following articles: Do you think it is a good idea? Why or why not? Get Business If you do not have any business, the most logical path of action is to get some. That is all you need to do.

Once you have business, you are suddenly in control of your career. Law firms will be interested in you, you can move when you want and where you want and you are operating your own little business servicing your clients and doling out your work to the partners and other associates. What does it say about the person if they do not have any business? It says a lot of things. Partners inside of large law firms with no business will tell you things like: That may be true, but it is not persuasive. The assumption is that if you are good, you will have business regardless of the firm.

When I was a second-year associate, I had plenty of business. I take whatever I do very seriously and people know it. I'm writing this article, for example, and take recruiting seriously. When I was a practicing attorney, I took that unbelievably seriously. I do the absolute best I can. I never give up. What sort of attorney would you want representing you? If an attorney is like this and gets out socially and shows other people this side of him, then he will get business.

People will always give work to people who take what they do incredibly seriously.

You need to get out there and write about it, talk about it and be enthusiastic about it. You need to do this to get business. I started out my career at Quinn Emanuel , a firm that had so much work it was unbelievable. They had some very gifted business generators there, and they actually were not interested in having their associates generate business. They had too much work as it was. There are very few firms like this. I left to go to a firm where I thought my ability to generate business would be valued. It was a strategic and correct choice for me. I knew that the prospects of long-term survival in the legal market were not good for me if I was not in position to stand out by generating a lot of business.

Business is the most important thing any attorney can do. You need business everywhere. The only thing that a lack of business will get you is an insecure future where you are at the mercy of others. Most of the partners I knew when I was at Quinn are no longer there.

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They are in smaller firms trying to make a living with no business. The firm like all firms eventually do started chopping away at the compensation and security of the partners without business, and many left or were asked to leave. There is nothing wrong with this, and Quinn is a great firm. This is just how the legal industry works. Firms will allow you to kill yourself doing lots of work for them as long as it suits them — but it never lasts forever. As long as you do not have business, law firms can basically pay you whatever they want within reason.

The firms pay them less than junior associates — because they can. We can pay him whatever we want. If you do not have any business, you do not have any power. You cannot move firms. You cannot reliably forecast your future compensation. You can be pushed around. He was living in a square foot studio apartment with his wife across the street from the office. He would eat packaged noodles for lunch to save money.

How do you get business? There are a lot of ways to get business. Teaching you how to get business is really beyond the scope of this article; however, if you really want business, the surefire way to get business is to really, really want to get business. In order to really want business, you need to really want to be an attorney. If you really want to be an attorney, you are going to try your hardest to be the best at being an attorney. You will work harder and do everything possible to do what is expected of you and more.

This is overly simplistic, yet true. The people who want the most of something are the ones who get it. I've run classes before to teach attorneys how to get business. The attorneys who paid the few thousand dollars I charged for these classes generally ended up getting business pretty quickly after they joined. I taught something in these classes: They were willing to pay for a course and take the course. It is as simple as that. Why do so many people from super prestigious schools become successful more often than not?

It's not because something special is being taught in these schools.

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It is because they worked really hard and got into these super prestigious schools to begin with. They were already going to be successful long before they got in. In fact, some of the most successful people — Harvard drop outs like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates — were on such a fast upward trajectory that they exited the schools rather than be constrained by the time it takes to complete them.

Once you really want to get business, you will figure out ways to get business. You need to want business, and once you do, it will somehow miraculously start appearing. What are some ways you have been able to get business as an attorney? See the following articles for more information: I am very good at finding healthy law firms for associates and partners without business. It is believe it or not quite possible. I do this all the time. When I started my career, one of my first placements was a securities partner with no business who had not worked in five years.

I found him a job with a law firm in a smaller area that needed someone to be a personal securities attorney for a multi-billionaire client of theirs. This law firm had a longstanding relationship with this billionaire, and the situation worked out very well for everyone involved. I've recently had some luck in markets where they are doing a lot of oil fracking.

Law firms in the middle of nowhere are exploding with work being generated by the wealth from this. A few months ago, I was talking with a solo practitioner in Detroit. He was a real estate attorney that had been running his own solo practice for about 20 years. He had a good education and had at one time worked in a large law firm. He needed a job and was hoping I might be able to find him something in Palm Beach. I understand the market, and there are so many openings there that it is clear to me they need people to do the work.



Plus, I see people from these firms around town. I would be embarrassed if they knew I did not have any business. I just would not want to put myself out there like that. I was speaking with one of the more prestigious firms in Detroit a few weeks later, and they said: We just need someone with a lot of experience. A good recruiter knows where the work is. At any point in time, some firms have a lot of work and others have very little work. Work moves within firms in various cities and within various markets in response to all sorts of economic currents that only the best recruiters can see.

There are economic currents moving through individual markets at various points in time that determine where the work is. For example, patent prosecution for electrical engineers and computer scientists is generally always active in the Bay Area. If you are a patent prosecutor and lose a job in another area of the country, the odds of finding employment in this market are very good. Over the past several months, all sorts of openings for patent attorneys with life sciences backgrounds have opened up in New York City.

There are new cancer drugs under development that large law firms there are also involved with, and there are a ton of openings in New York. Historically, openings for life science patent attorneys have been strong in San Diego and Orange County outside of Los Angeles. But now that market is strong in New York. Discussions and insights on trending legal topics. No legalese; just expertise. Kelly Griffith talks about the relevance of e-discovery and how it has changed since she entered the industry.

In this episode of Down the Hall, Janelle Filson Wrigley covered numerous considerations for attorneys who have responsibilities relating to antitrust. Home Products Practical Law. Thomson Reuters Practical Law. Access practical legal know-how for lawyers. Go beyond primary law and traditional legal research. Already using Practical Law? Select your market segment to learn more. Solo and small law firms attorneys. Midsize and large law firms.