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| | | -- By JonathanBrice - 16 Feb 2012 | |
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> | The Firm as a Vehicle for Self-Fulfillment | | | | |
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< | Introduction
This paper is based on a recent conversation I had with Eben while walking to school last Tuesday night. | >
> | To me, success can easily be defined by the phrase: “I want to do good, and I want to do well.” | | | | |
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< | Why is that the
introduction? It may be relevant context for you, but it doesn't
help to communicate your idea to a reader who wants to know what you
think, not who you were walking with when you thought
it.
Problem: There’s no substitute for time
At some point in my conversation with Eben, we turned to the fact that I was perfectly content with working at a firm and “putting in my time”. I was (still am?) under the belief that in order to learn what I needed to learn, so I could do what I wanted to do, I needed to put in my time at a big firm. In the midst of hearing the many reasons why working at a firm was bad for me, Eben made one comment that stuck, “you can never get back time”. Right then, it struck me that THIS is the key problem with the law school to firm system, we never get back the time we put in doing things we don’t necessarily “want” to do; moreover, this time we put in doesn’t necessarily make us better lawyers, or even better prepare us for what we "want" to do. In the end of the day, we could end up spending our 20s and 30s working hundreds of hours a week, and learning very little beyond what the firm wants us to learn. Under the firm system, we merely learn how to be a lawyer at firm X doing specific thing Y.
Not merely. Mostly. As
a consequence of the predictable incentives created by pawning your
license to an organization in return for a fixed
annuity.
Solution: Find your inner child
Eben’s solution to this problem was to start one’s own practice.
No. My "solution"
(actually merely an observation) is that from the moment you get your
license you have a practice, which you can decide to foster and
encourage, or destroy. Deciding how to develop the value of your
license involves choices. Choosing to eliminate your autonomy in the
development of the practice in return for a fixed payment from
someone else who will entirely control it raises questions about the
compatibility of your incentives which, in the case of large-firm
employment, will rarely stand scrutiny.
As far as I understood it, the positives of this course of action would be that we would be able to dictate the terms of our learning. By taking this path, we wouldn’t be firm X lawyers who know how to do thing Y, we would be “true” lawyers who could do whatever our clients needed us to do, or at least whatever we wanted to do.
That's hardly a full
summary of the advantages. (Why call them "positives," which is an
ugly back-formation, when good words already exist?) Surely you can
see some other advantages in controlling your workflow, so that the
proportion of your life taken up by your job is under your
management, rather than that of someone who has an overriding
incentive to use up as much of your energy and brain-power as
possible, because he buys it all at a fixed price, prohibits you from
using it professionally in any other context, and sells it retail, by
the hour if possible? Surely there is an advantage in deciding how
to balance current employment of past learning with investments in
new learning? Surely there is an advantage in not being subject to
instant firing?
Despite the many positives of this course of action, there are also several major negatives (at least for me). The key negative is the uncertainty that comes with getting off the path so "perfectly" laid out for us. While hearing stories of people who found success by making their own paths always fills us with a sense of pleasure and admiration, actually mustering up the strength and accepting the uncertainty and going against the grain is extremely difficult. At least for me, the key point of uncertainty is “success”--Will I succeed? But instead of attempting to answer that question, we should also recognize the fact that following the path doesn’t guarantee us success, it merely provides us a path.
And, depending on what
constitutes "success," may lead towards or away from it, depending on
circumstances not under your control? Hadn't you better consider
what constitutes success for yourself? Deciding on paths without
deciding on destinations means putting tactics before strategy, which
is not a good idea in any social situation.
So in the end, how do we muster up the strength to go against the grain? Find your inner child. At some point (around 6 years old), we stopped thinking about “me” and we started "sharing" and thinking about others. This transition is what essentially makes us do thing like come to/stay in law school when we really don't want to, or follow a path that is clearly bad for us. If we can somehow rekindle our youthful selfishness, and just do what we feel/know is probably best for us, we would be able to easily disregard the path.
Do you really think that
the way to make more adult choices is to regress to less adult
thinking? Even supposing this particular version of "the inner
child" story were correct, why would regressive development be the
answer to the accumulation of adult experience in a more mature mind?
Conclusion: We don’t know what we don’t know
In the end, that fact that we truly don’t know what we don’t know will probably keep us at bay. If 80% of the students in this class dont end up working at a firm, I would be shocked. At least for me, if I knew the true ramifications of not following the path, I probably wouldn’t mind at least entertaining the thought.
But the thing about not following a path is that you never truly know. As it stands, while the path does seem likely to lead to disaster, we (I) at least know what that disaster is. As with stories, knowing the ending (or at least the possibility of endings) seems far better than not.
Why is this metaphor
appropriate here? This should be the conclusion of an idea's
explication, not the opportunity to quote a piece of back-of-the-book
fluff from an obsolete weekly newsmagazine. | >
> | Of the two key terms above, “well” is more easily defined. Though subjective, there remains a discrete congruence of definitions that can be assigned to the word “well”; for the purposes of this paper, doing “well” will be defined as being in the top 1% of earners in the U.S., approximately $350K/year. | | | | |
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< | See JessicaWirthFirstPaper, and my comments thereon, which may be
helpful in improving this draft. | >
> | As compared to “well”, “good” is a more elusive term. Not only is “good” variable from person to person, it also tends to change over time, even in the psyche of an individual. Nevertheless, to me, good has a very static and specific meaning, grounded in my youth. To me, doing “good” involves bringing about positive (dramatic) change in Haiti…that, and only that. Although a very narrow interpretation of the word, it is the only one that I choose to acknowledge. | | | | |
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< | | >
> | Given my goal of doing “good” and doing “well”, is the firm path right for me? I think so. | | | | |
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< | Given your comments, and what you wrote on Jess' paper, it seems that the proper approach to this paper (and one that I'm willing to take) is to start from defining "success", and then working my way back to my current location. If the goal of this class is to help us be the type of lawyer we want to be, it makes sense that I first define what type of lawyer that is. Does that seem appropriate? | >
> | Tackling the goal of doing “well” is easier, mainly because the concept has been monetized for the purposes of this paper. In all, the firm path would greatly contribute to my goal of doing “well”. The starting associate N.Y. salary of $160K places me comfortably in the ever-shrinking top 5% of U.S. earners. Nevertheless, the ability to contribute to my goal of doing “well” is not something unique to firms. Private practice easily achieves the same ends, while allowing for a far better lifestyle…I’d just have to figure out my nut. Therefore, while the firm path would contribute to my goal of doing “well”, the financial rewards of the path is not a dispositive factor in my decision of which path to follow.
As opposed to doing “well”, charting a path to doing “good” proves a bit more difficult and uncertain. Starting from the destination, in my opinion, the best path to bringing about positive (dramatic) change in Haiti is through economic development. This belief is based principally on my economics studies as an undergrad, and my academic and personal experiences in Singapore (A country that went from third world to first world over the course of a lifetime). While there are a plethora of differences between Haiti and Singapore, the two countries are similar in one key respect…they both lack (lacked in the case of Singapore) a globally desirable natural resources (Singapore was able to build a natural resource in the form of a educated work force). Given this dearth of resources, Foreign Direct Investment must drive economic development.
At first blush, it’s hard to see how a firm would directly contribute to my goal of doing “good”; no firm is going to invest in Haiti. In the end, a firm’s truly invaluable contribution to my doing “good” is its name. Being able to put a prestigious NY firm on my resume would serve as a great indicator of my work ethic, and would easily build trust and confidence in my abilities; after all, “if I could survive a major NY law firm, what can’t I survive?” (Death). (Step 1: Screen out for a prestigious NY firm; do what I need to do to get there)
As a name is the only unique thing a firm could offer me (and it would have to be a truly prestigious firm at that), such an environment seems somewhat antithetical to my goal of doing “good”. Agreeably, spending my entire career at a firm would contribute very little, if any, to my goal of doing “good”; for that reason, I plan on jumping ship.
As opposed to some of my other options upon graduation, whether that be consulting or a solo practice, a firm would offer great exit opportunities to the client side. Despite the fact that I have enjoyed law school thus far, I am not "in love" with the law (this might have turned out to be a good thing, as it turns out that the law might be the weakest form of social control). Unlike most(?) of my peers, I don’t have an incessant desire to have an impact through the law. In a sense, I’m sort of like the bad man, I had a goal, and as it stood during my senior year, law school was the best way to get there.
Given the exit opportunities presented by some firm, my goal is to transition (as quickly as possible) to a company where I can thrive financially, building a network of friends and colleagues that I trust, and most importantly that trust me (preferably a Bank, PE firm or other financial institution). (Step 2: Make sure the firm has the type of clients I want to work for; Step 3: Make sure I get on any business matter that the firm works on for that client, learning their business in and out; Step 4: Keep my eyes open for the exit)
Upon building a successful network, I would then transition to Haiti, starting my own PE firm. Using my expertise and connections (both political and financial), I would invest in the country, hopefully doing “good” and “well”. (Step 5: Take the exit when it comes, and make the best of it; Step 6: Get off the highway and start building).
I will be the first to recognize that this is a somewhat oversimplified representation of what will no doubt be a very arduous process. Nevertheless, I sincerely believe that the general framework can and will work. | | | \ No newline at end of file |
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