Small Law Firms

Bar Association Meetings: Worth It Or Why Bother?

Are bar association events worth it when no one is reimbursing you and you’re forgoing billable hours?

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I’ve always enjoyed bar association events. You get to meet interesting people, and I’ve made some of my best friends there, even among folks who are squarely in my practice area and should theoretically be competitors. And back when I was in Biglaw, if I had a gripe (though who would have a gripe in Biglaw?), it felt more comfortable to commiserate with people outside of the firm, rather than at a firm happy hour or other event where a brown-noser might overhear and tattle on me.

Last week I went to the ABA Business Law Section Spring Meeting in San Francisco. It was relatively time-consuming: it was Thursday through Saturday, and I had to fly out Wednesday, so it took up half the week. And considering how packed the schedule was — if you went to everything, it was 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day — it was hard to get any work done. (Plus one day the wi-fi was down, which gave me heart palpitations.)  Of course, now that I’m on my own, I had to pay for everything myself. So the question is, was it worth it?

Are bar association events in general worth it? I know how Biglaw answers that question: yes for partners, no for associates. I probably met over 50 people at the conference, and looked at the name tags of over 100 more — everyone does the side-eye down to the tag when walking past, and I’m no different — and while there were a bunch of Biglaw partners in attendance, I didn’t see a single Biglaw associate there.

Why would I? Biglaw likes to keep associates in the building, and preferably in their office. I hate sitting through online courses (though I don’t mind giving them), so I try to get live CLE when I can. Once I went to a firm CLE that started at 8 a.m. Early enough not to get caught, right? Nope. A partner in my group saw me, and presto! I’m on the elevator headed back to my office.

But what about for the SmallLaw folks? Are bar association events worth it when no one is reimbursing you and you’re forgoing billable hours? I think if you like being a lawyer and you want to stay up to date on recent trends and developments, they’re worth it. If you just try to get through each day until quittin’ time, then why bother?

Though you’re generally not going to meet clients at bar association meetings, I did pick up several nuggets that I emailed clients about first thing Monday morning. Sitting through a CLE can be painful when you couldn’t care less about a topic and/or you’re trying to do work while clicking on a box every six minutes. But going to a panel presentation of seasoned attorneys and other experts in your practice area is guaranteed to provide you with knowledge you didn’t have before. When everyone in the room knows the basics backwards and forwards, the time can be spent on discussing new developments and fleshing out what those developments mean for clients. Deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.

I accidentally stumbled into a rather intimate committee meeting that turned out to consist of 15 or so of the top partners at top firms, all of whom with billing rates several multiples of mine, and one SmallLaw person. (And that’s counting me.) The issues of great concern to them were extremely technical, and it occurred to me that for the most part, penetrating analysis is not going to be made by associates getting force-fed 12-18 hours of work a day and barely managing to stay afloat. It’s going to come a few levels up, among the folks with ultimate responsibility to the client — the $800+ an hour partners who have been practicing 30 years.

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Had I been an associate — or even a non-equity partner — I wouldn’t have been there. But in SmallLaw, no one is keeping you out. And after all, when you have a bunch of attorneys who are tops in your field gathered together, don’t you at least want to be in the room?

And to the guy leading the charge to the hospitality “suite crawl” Friday night: I saw you snoozing in Saturday’s 10 a.m. CLE. Busted!

Gary J. Ross opened his own practice, Jackson Ross PLLC, in 2013 after several years in Biglaw and the federal government. Gary handles corporate and compliance matters for investment funds, small businesses, and non-profits, occasionally dabbling in litigation. You can reach Gary by email at Gary.Ross@JacksonRossLaw.com.

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