Surf serendipity sent me from Legal Reader‘s blurb yesterday on lawsuits
in China, to other exotic ports of call, and then back to my neighborhood
Underground cafe, where Evan Schaeffer wonders about the optimal size
of lawyer brains. Here’s a quick journal of my trip results:
Civil suits in China increased 7-fold in just two years, while
the number of lawyers in Shanghai grew almost 50%. Maybe we should
outsource Walter Olson and Jim Copland to China, where it’s probably
there were 1,084,504 active lawyers in the USA at the close of 2003. The
biggest percentage growth was in Virgin Islands, Utah, and Indiana, while
Vermont, South Carolina, Rhode Island, and Maryland had fewer lawyers in
2003 than in 2002. You can find a lot more lawyer and law school stats
using the ABA Statistical Resources page.
According to Texas U. Professor Stephen Magee, each additional
lawyer reduces GDP by $250,000 dollars — but, who’s counting?
& Careers poll, say they wish they had never taken the Bar exam; and,
don’t tell Carolyn, but almost twice as many wish they had gone to a
BigLaw firm than say they would have chosen a smaller firm.
was presented by the Pre-Law and Law School Admissions office. If anyone
has a clue what this piece is saying, please let me know. Meanwhile, I was
edified by this nugget of information (emphasis added).
When asked what skills they expected law school graduates to
tbring o a firm, hiring coordinators listed in order:
- oral communication skills
- written communication skills
- legal analytic ability
- library and computer skills
- sensitivity for ethical skills.
Is it any wonder that law firms now need to hire in-house legal counsel, and
that “Lawyers representing lawyers find unique challenges” (see BostonBizJ,
via Legal Reader)
law school deprivation syndrome — having, according to some sources, too few lawyers and
too few law schools.
the Father’s Manifesto website, which has cranial capacity charts galore, along with lots of
standardized test results. At the site we learn, among many similar tidbits, that
“The first thing Americans must understand is that, by design, lawyers are STUPID people.
They score lower on the Graduate Record Exam than most of all other majors, scoring
slightly higher than average score for blacks and slightly lower than the average score
or women, but more than 200 points lower than Asian engineering majors.
“Many lawyers are divorced, are paying “child support” and alimony to ex-wives (or
two or three ex-wives) which makes their ability to understand the Holy Bible or draft
a simple agreement, much less understand human nature, highly suspect.”
ethicalEsq and Prof. Yabut no longer feel bad about anything we’ve ever said about lawyers. As
we never took the GRE nor filed for divorce, we are happy not to have made the statistics any
worse than they are.
boom! boom! ka-boom!
so many duds…
fireworks
heading for where
hunting birds are few…
the fox
haiku of Kobayashi ISSA, translated by D.G. Lanouej.d.
David,
I haven’t read the study closely, but actually, I don’t take issue with the results you quoted at all (which are pretty close anyway). For attorneys just starting out, it makes the most sense to go to the largest firm they can. The work may be dull and hours long, but they’ll get great training and make contacts that will serve them throughout their career. And, it’s easier to move from biglaw to small than vice versa (in fact, the only time I’ve heard of a move from small to big is where (a) the firms merged or (b) the attorney left the small firm, when to government and cashed out later at the large firm. At a small firm, attorneys may not receive this same level of guidance, may (depending on the firm), be relegated to doing law by forms before they have substantive knowledge and that’s just a careless way to practice.
I’m speaking here in generalizations of course. Sure, there are small firms that give the same training – I believe UCL worked for one such place. I’m just saying that the odds of getting good training at a large firm – where you’ll be able to take writing courses, do mock trials, etc…is better than at small. Of course, you reach a point in your career – maybe as soon as 2 years out, where you’ve had enough training and should be able to take a depo, lead a trial, etc…That’s when it’s time to leave biglaw and start your own shop.
Comment by Carolyn Elefant — December 3, 2004 @ 6:05 pm
David,
I haven’t read the study closely, but actually, I don’t take issue with the results you quoted at all (which are pretty close anyway). For attorneys just starting out, it makes the most sense to go to the largest firm they can. The work may be dull and hours long, but they’ll get great training and make contacts that will serve them throughout their career. And, it’s easier to move from biglaw to small than vice versa (in fact, the only time I’ve heard of a move from small to big is where (a) the firms merged or (b) the attorney left the small firm, when to government and cashed out later at the large firm. At a small firm, attorneys may not receive this same level of guidance, may (depending on the firm), be relegated to doing law by forms before they have substantive knowledge and that’s just a careless way to practice.
I’m speaking here in generalizations of course. Sure, there are small firms that give the same training – I believe UCL worked for one such place. I’m just saying that the odds of getting good training at a large firm – where you’ll be able to take writing courses, do mock trials, etc…is better than at small. Of course, you reach a point in your career – maybe as soon as 2 years out, where you’ve had enough training and should be able to take a depo, lead a trial, etc…That’s when it’s time to leave biglaw and start your own shop.
Comment by Carolyn Elefant — December 3, 2004 @ 6:05 pm
I just wanted to clarify. I was referring primarily to students who are just starting out who don’t want to start firms. I wonder whether the results would reflect differently if the respondents were asked if they would have rather done something else than start a firm. I think that few attorneys regret starting their own practice and are more likely to regret NOT having done son.
Comment by Carolyn Elefant — December 3, 2004 @ 7:09 pm
I just wanted to clarify. I was referring primarily to students who are just starting out who don’t want to start firms. I wonder whether the results would reflect differently if the respondents were asked if they would have rather done something else than start a firm. I think that few attorneys regret starting their own practice and are more likely to regret NOT having done son.
Comment by Carolyn Elefant — December 3, 2004 @ 7:09 pm
Good blog
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