What does it look like?

The problems of the current system are myriad, and we have heard them enough in class and seen them in our readings to know what they are. Clients are demanding lower fees, and firms are continuing to expand. Globalization is providing companies with access to legal resources at lower rates and making the U.S. market less competitive. Technology is speeding up this process. But where do I fit into all of this? What kind of lawyer can I be?

I don’t know what kind of lawyer I’m becoming. I don’t know what kind I am becoming because I don’t know what my options are. I understand what people mean when they say that the current system is unsustainable. I understand why it is unsustainable. I just have trouble figuring out what that post-white-shoe world looks like. Will attorneys become free lancers? Will they be subcontractors hired for a single matter, bidding with a prime? Will lawyers break apart into smaller boutique firms, only to begin the process of merging and creating megafirms again in a couple of decades?

Or, maybe instead of thinking about what it is going to look like, maybe I should be thinking about what it could look like? Somewhere out there, someone has at least a vague vision of these alternatives, right? Here is one guy’s take on the future. He compiled a set of seven characteristics he believes will be common among successful legal careers in the future, including having multiple clients, greater specialization, an increased focus on preventing problems instead of litigating them, and “a high degree of connectedness.”

What can we do differently?

Mentorships

As far as first-years are concerned, I think there are steps we could take and questions we could ask that will make the future at least fathomable. Simple things, like mentorships, could do this for us.

Mentorship is a tremendously underrated resource. We should look to those with greater experience, who can teach us the skills (and help us to meet the people) we need to succeed in whatever arena we choose. Someone out there has knowledge that will be valuable to you. Why reinvent the wheel when someone else can hand you their experience and let you build upon it? This makes sense from an employer’s perspective, as well. Instead of having employers invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in training us during the first few years as associates, law schools should provide students with real life opportunities to engage in solving real world problems. Maybe if we entered the world as profit-centers, as opposed to costly drains on resources, firms wouldn’t have so much trouble getting clients to pay for our work.

Think about the Client

We are also learning more about the world as it was than the world as it will be. I found that just thinking a little more about what we have said in class about clients, and what they will look like in a few years, helped me get a clearer image of what the practice will look like, too.

Where will our clients come from? Chances are it will be someplace very distant. We will have meetings through computer screens, having coordinated our schedules based on far-off time zones. I think we must all begin to gain a better understanding of foreign legal systems and what it means to work transnationally. Rare will be the attorney who will never have a foreign client or have to argue about an asset in a foreign bank.

What does the client want? Along with the desire to achieve speedy, cheap results, clients will be less inclined to engage in protracted litigation. Future attorneys should learn about alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.

What can the client get? She will have the knowledge and the ability to select specialists from all over the world to deliver results at the lowest possible cost. That’s why we really must find our niches. It won’t help to just be a “commercial litigator”; the problems the world faces are too complex to rely on lawyers becoming six-month experts until the end of trial. Now, clients want the absolute best and can retain it with very little difficulty.

What is she willing to pay? Forget timekeeping. The process of billing it, and getting it paid, is inefficient. Clients are tired of arguing about whether those three hours really were “prep” or “travel.” As clients gain access to a trove of talent, most attorneys will need to streamline their work, provide clearer estimates of costs from the outset, and offer realistic predictions about the outcome (thank you, Justice Holmes).

Is she the only one? Probably not, unless you are in-house counsel. If we are truly specialists, then many clients will only engage our services on a matter-by-matter basis. This is also just a smarter way to practice. If you have a huge client, on whom your practice becomes totally dependent, you also run the risk of becoming one of those small manufacturers K-Mart manages to hook and then squeeze dry when K-Mart is the sole remaining source of revenue for them.

Will she support you pro bono work? Of course, I can't predict anything regarding this, but it would be ideal to have a practice which generates sufficient revenue to support both money making endeavors and the public good (on a large scale). Having clients that knowingly and actively support this work makes that possible.

How do you get her to hire you?

This, I confess, is the one question I can’t seem to answer – and it’s certainly the one I worry about most. Having a better understanding of who she is certainly helps, but if I don’t know how to find her or make her my client, then I am lost. I think, though, it will be possible. The question now becomes: which comes first, the client or the niche?