Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook: do not mess with this man.
Aficionados of appellate law are familiar with the Seventh Circuit’s reputation for procedural punctiliousness. The court has a track record of benchslapping lawyers who fail to follow rules, lawyers who seek to deviate from rules without justification, lawyers who engage in substandard advocacy, and lawyers who are “menace[s]” to their clients.
Lately the Seventh Circuit has been laying down its pimp hand. Last Friday, for example, Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook declared one Bridget Boyle-Saxton, who allegedly blew deadlines and ignored multiple orders to show cause, “unfit to practice law in this court.” Ouch.
Now, snobs might think, “Sure, Boyle-Saxton might be a well-known Milwaukee lawyer — but she works at a small law firm, apparently with two relatives of hers. What can you expect from such an outfit? This is why people hire the large white-shoe law firms. You pay through the nose, but you expect (and receive) perfection.”
If that’s your attitude, think again. Biglaw just got a big benchslap — from none other than Chief Judge Easterbrook.
Which firm incurred His Honor’s wrath, and for what alleged infraction?
Continue reading “Benchslap of the Day: Judge Easterbrook Benchslaps Biglaw”
First, a shameless plug. Then, back to business.
I’ll be giving my “book talk” about The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law at The University of Michigan Law School on Monday, March 5, and again at Northwestern University Law School on Tuesday, March 27. If there’s a chance your organization might be interested in that talk, and you’ll be in Ann Arbor or Chicago at the right times, please let me know. We’ll sneak you into the room, and you can get a sense of the topics that I discuss.
Now, the business: You are not a potted plant! When you transmit something, either within a law firm or to (or within) a corporate law department, add value. You are not — or should not be — simply a conduit through which things flow. You don’t impress people with your timidity, and you may well annoy people.
What am I thinking of?
Continue reading “Inside Straight: You Are Not A Potted Plant!”
Last week, we looked at why lawyers need soft skills and noted that there’s a general lack of this kind of training for them. Today, we’ll consider some strategies for learning to play nice in the legal sandbox.
As mentioned last week, there are so many different types of soft skills — communication, leadership, management, presentation skills, etc. What does a socially-awkward lawyer work on first? Well, it depends. (Fyi, “it depends” is a great lawyerly response for virtually every situation where you don’t know the answer.)
As with hard skills, the soft skills you should focus on depends on your pre-existing responsibilities and the skills you already have. For the purposes of this post, let’s assume you have none.
Below is a very basic outline of some required soft skills for particular levels of attorney seniority. I’ve listed a few skills listed for each level and a further description of one skill per level, to prevent this post from becoming a mind-numbing two-hour read (as opposed to a mind-numbing five-minute read). It’s a bit of a laundry list, but the idea is to provide a big-picture overview….
Continue reading “Moonlighting: Soft Skill Strategies That Aren’t Too Hard”
Oh, you’re all running here now. You saw the title. Here you come. Click click click. It’s all you want to know. And by you, I mean those who claim to love Biglaw, but would jump to your own place or a smaller firm in a second if you “could make the same money.”
I know.
I know when you call me, when you come to my office to discuss the “possibility of leaving,” that it’s the only thing on your mind. Sure, you want your name on the door, more freedom, more client contact. But you just have one real question. One real fear. One real concern. One thing you need to convince your better half of before you make “the jump.”
Can I make the same money?
Here’s the answer….
Continue reading “The Practice: How Much Money Can You Make at a Small Law Firm?”
Everyone talks about how soft skills are important for success. Soft skills, also referred to as people skills, EQ, et cetera, are key to influence, persuasion, karaoke smack-talk, and many other aspects of being a savvy lawyer and advocate. They’re essential for both in-house and law firm attorneys. But what are soft skills exactly?
We often know when soft skills are at play, such as when an employee is confronted by a group of hostile workers and is able to calm them down before they go too far and, God forbid, blog their grievances. Figuring out a definition, though, is kind of difficult. I decided to try asking my social media circles: “What’s your definition of soft skills?” I received many informative responses such as: “the ones I don’t have,” “skills our parents never taught us,” “hmm, that’s a hard one,” and “are we keeping this discussion R-rated and under?” Thanks people, very helpful.
Soft skills are difficult to define, in part because it’s easier to talk about them in relation to what they aren’t — hard skills. Hard skills are the technical information and expertise we need to do our job. Soft skills are basically everything else. Hard skills are quantifiable and more readily measurable. State bars test hard skills. Soft skills are behavioral and more difficult to quantify. Dive bars test soft skills. They involve a spectrum of behaviors, including verbal and written communication, effective management, overall leadership, and how to get the IT guy to fix your computer first. In sum, they’re the behaviors we engage in that impact our overall effectiveness on the job….
Continue reading “Moonlighting: Why You Should Be a Big Softie at Work”
I’m writing this wearing my new bifocals. They take some getting used to after years of regular glasses and contacts. But, after watching me examine small print like I was Mr. Magoo, my wife convinced me that it was time to take a symbolic plunge toward middle age. I admit to no small amount of trepidation at the prospect of wearing “old folks” glasses. But the risk of not seeing properly finally outweighed my vanity, and a change had to be made.
And so it goes with some legal decisions in-house. When faced with a dilemma, you weigh the risks versus rewards, and pull the trigger on what you hope is the right decision.
In a company the size of mine, people have performed risk/reward analyses on legal issues for years, down to the proper placement of semicolons in contract clauses. To borrow from the iPhone ads, yep, there’s a committee for that. We have Lean Six Sigma belts of all colors who are subject matter experts in every facet of our business. There are folks with many years of experience, who own any number of policies from which I am to draw when making decisions. It sounds on paper like filling in the blanks will get you where you need to go, but that is far from reality.
In a perfect world, for my job anyway, a Customer would receive a proposed agreement, see the inherent fairness in the document (and the work that went into carefully crafting all those clauses and semicolons), and sign on the dotted line. But sadly, life isn’t perfect, and I have yet to receive a contract back without so much as a redline….
Continue reading “House Rules: Risk / Reward”
Yeah, I’m back.
And I want to know when lawyers will stop using opportunities to give referrals as a panicked strategy of covering their asses.
You know what I’m talking about — the “three names” idiocy?
Whether you’re on a list-serv and the 27th “I’m looking for an excellent, aggressive, and inexpensive lawyer” request of the day has donned your computer screen, or someone actually thinks you are worthy of a phone call or email requesting a lawyer to save their life or fortune, let’s just agree to stop being wimps and meaninglessly passing along names, and start giving real referrals.
I know, you were taught this. You never give one name. Why? Because what if it doesn’t work out? Then you’re going to have some sort of imagined problem that someone told you could be very, very bad.
And yes, I know, people like choices. You feel like you’re doing them a service by giving them lawyers from which to choose. But you’re not. You’re just uselessly giving out names.
One of the deep, deep dark secrets (shh) of being successful in small-firm world is your ability to be more than just a paper-pushing, time-keeping drone. The ability to be a “connector” is just as — or more — important than your ability to practice your trade. If you are in a niche practice, there are more people who won’t need your services than will, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a reason to call you — like the reason that you are the one person who always gives them the best referrals.
Have you received those emails? “I know you don’t do this work, but you always seem to put me in touch with the best people, so I’m now looking for _______.”
No?
Let me, as usual, help you….
Continue reading “The Practice: Who’s the Idiot That Invented Three Name Referrals?”
If you’re a lawyer, and some of you that read this are, you know it’s time to start trying to convince yourself that you’re going to do wonderful things “next year.”
Advice is readily available on the internet about the proper way to set goals, but as usual, I am here to help you ignore all of that. No reason to go to websites like mindtools.com that begin with a clear shot at Biglaw by stating: Many people feel as if they’re adrift in the world. They work hard, but they don’t seem to get anywhere worthwhile.
So mean.
Anyway, here is my surefire way to have a great 2012 as a lawyer….
Continue reading “The Practice: Goal Setting – Non-Billable Hour Edition”
Admittedly, I take on some large issues in this column. But this is neither a treatise on contract law, nor the forum to attempt one. I am simply attempting to give some pointers for negotiating commercial contracts. I do very much appreciate the emails that I receive that suggest where I missed some salient information, or that offer critiques to some of my strategies. I’ve even used some of them and credited the authors, to the extent they’d allow. Funny thing about this site, most people don’t want to be identified. It’s almost end of year, so here goes:
Let’s say you’re in the heat of a commercial lease negotiation and the customer says to you: “What are these payments in the event of default? Why should I be penalized if your product doesn’t work as it should? Are you telling me that I have no remedies? Don’t you stand behind your products?”
Continue reading “House Rules: Termination Clauses, Remedies, and Other Things to Argue About Before Christmas”
An in-house lawyer (let’s call her Athena) was recently offended by a statement made by a law firm attorney (let’s call him Hercules). Athena shared a conversation in which Hercules had told her that his firm would never stoop so low as to represent any companies in her industry (let’s say it’s the tobacco industry).
When Athena informed Hercules that, well, his firm actually did represent her company, he told her that she must be mistaken. She responded by bringing up a picture on her mobile phone of an attorney at his firm who was working on one of her tobacco cases, and Hercules replied, “I’ve never seen her before. She can’t be very important.” With a high and (al)mighty look, Hercules then went off to clear his head by having a few smokes.
As Athena complained about this incident, she was so upset that she had trouble blowing her usually perfectly-circular cigarette rings into the air. My initial reaction (knowing how Hercules can be a jovial kind of deity character) was that Hercules had been kidding (and probably had a bit too much ambrosia, as well), and that Athena should lighten up a bit and get a sense of humor, for gods’ sakes.
A couple of years ago, my thoughts about the matter would have ended there, and I would have forgotten the incident completely after returning to my humble, mortal abode. This time, I had some other takeaways….
Continue reading “Moonlighting: Just Another Day on Mount Olympus at the Office”
I wrote about these contractual issues the week before Thanksgiving. I received so many emails that I thought it best to flesh these topics out a bit more. Also, some of these headings are from the anonymous “comments” section on this site, so I can’t attribute them (and I’ve also edited them for language).
1) “Real life example: Company A hired to refurbish shipping vessel owned by Company B. Contract obligated Company B to indemnify Company A fully, worded broadly enough and specifically enough to require indemnification for Company A’s own fault. Company A sets the boat on fire through clearly negligent actions and then tries to put it out with a garden hose. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals tells Company B that yes, Company A was at fault; yes, you are out quite a bit for the value of the boat and the lost income, but you must eat it as you have to indemnify Company A for your own claim.”
Why on Earth someone would agree to indemnify a Customer for their own negligence is beyond me. I have been through this scenario many times, and I always inquire as to how I am expected to indemnify my Customer for its own negligence. In the B2B arena, indemnity should be limited (if possible) to third party claims against the potential indemnitee, at which point the indemnitor would take on the payment.
This raises another point: even if I indemnify you, who is going to defend you?
Continue reading “House Rules: Insurance, LoL, and Indemnity, Redux”
Suppose your firm has one incompetent partner, and our joint has the misfortune to be working with that person.
This guy consistently misses important issues. He sends us briefs that read (as did one draft I recently received): “In response to ALR’s motion to dismiss the OC, [plaintiff] added an allegation in the FAC that . . . .” We comment, over and over again (as we did recently), that briefs on our behalf must be written in English, not gibberish. Even if you’ve set up short forms, no reader sees “OC” and “FAC” and thinks “Original Complaint” and “First Amended Complaint.” Use words, not alphabet soup.
To no avail.
We suggest that the partner include on the litigation team a gifted writer (because we’re too nice to suggest that the partner include on the litigation team “a lawyer who’s worth a damn”). But nothing ever changes; the partner never hears us. Confronted with an avalanche of criticism and suggestions, no law firm partner has ever said to us, “Why, thank you. Now that you mention it, I realize that I am in fact inept. To better serve your legal needs, I’ll replace myself with a real lawyer.”
No, no, no. Instead, the partner continues to send us bad briefs, making the same mistakes over and over, but seemingly thinking that we may not care the next time around. It’s Einstein’s definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Up to that point, the fault is the partner’s. But then I personally make two mistakes….
Continue reading “Inside Straight: The Mutual Menace Of One Bad Partner”
Caveat: I did not write the following dialogue. It is from the “comments” section of one of my columns where I mentioned I’d be writing about HIPAA and GLBA. Unfortunately, I cannot attribute the comments to the persons who wrote them, as they are anonymous; however they are quite apropos of today’s subject:
1) “I wish vendors would get it into their heads that indemnity for being sued on a confidentiality basis doesn’t cut it for financial institutions and other customers/clients that have affirmative obligations without being sued in the event of a breach of confidentiality.”
2) “I wish financial institution customers would get it into their heads that the ‘customer information’ they’re obligated to protect is not the sort of thing they would ever disclose to the vast majority of their vendors, and stop using their ‘affirmative obligations’ as a tool to cram unnecessarily restrictive confidentiality terms down the throats of vendors.”
Perfect. Those two comments capture the schism between vendors and customers when dealing with private financial or personal confidential information….
Continue reading “House Rules: HIPAA and GLBA and Indemnity, Oh My!”
Are your in-house working hours recently rivaling the billable hours you thought you had permanently discarded? Is your workload getting way too heavy — i.e., it’s really getting difficult to watch Glee on a timely basis? Do you find yourself working on pretty much the same form of contract over and over and over and over and over and over and over, ad infinitum?
It may be time to take a break and evaluate the problem of Low-Value Work.
What’s Low-Value Work? It’s work that has three main characteristics….
Continue reading “Moonlighting: Low-Value Work (or, How to Catch Up on Glee)”
So, the Customer wants you to take on unlimited liability for breach of confidentiality, indemnify (and hold harmless) for any and all bad acts of your employees, and to carry a multi-million dollar insurance policy. What do you do?
First, begin by triaging these from simplest to more complicated. During a negotiation it can be helpful to appear to “give” as much as possible up front when you’re down to a few points. This way, when the final hot button items arise, you appear reasonable.
Insurance requirements are usually no-brainers, and as long as the amounts demanded are not grotesquely high, your Risk folks will approve the proposed language with very light editing, if any. Today, it is also not unusual for the Customer to demand to be named as a payee in the event of a loss; this is often fine, and usually not an issue. More practice pointers, after the jump….
Continue reading “House Rules: Insurance, LoL, Indemnity, and Other Dirty Words”
Brian Tannebaum
I’ve learned a lot in my one week here, reading comments from the anonymous miserable Biglaw associates who take a break from their “.1 review” of correspondence (e-mail) and “.3 draft correspondence” (one-sentence letter) to comment on ATL.
I learned the term “s**t law.”
I am a s**t law lawyer. I represent clients, real people with real problems. They need legal services. They need arguments made on their behalf. They need advice. They need something other than an edited “pre-bill” in the mail once a month. I love s**t law, and I love talking to Biglaw lawyers about their desire to join s**t law. And while I always thought lawyers that were smart enough to leave the confines of “.2 receive and review correspondence” law to strike out on their own practiced real law, I realize now that the Biglaw lawyers that tell me they hate their jobs, hate that they can’t bring in clients because they can only pony up $10,000 for a retainer, and want to have their own practice, are apparently all lying.
So this advice is for those of you who haven’t been brainwashed into thinking that the practice of law is on the 46th floor in a small office trying to meet the important goal of having the divorced-three-times 53-year-old partner walk by at 8 p.m. and see you there in the thick of it, preparing irrelevant motions to compel discovery for cases that will never go to trial. This is for those that can’t wait to leave, those that realize that no one can name the best Biglaw commercial litigator in their town, but can name the best of various types of s**t law lawyers. This advice is for those that want to practice law, and not feed the billable hour factory that is Biglaw….
Continue reading “The Practice: Leaving Biglaw to Become a Relevant Real-World Lawyer”
In Feeling the Kumbaya (Part I), we looked at how different the perspectives of business clients and in-house lawyers can be. Below are a few techniques that have helped me and my clients to feel the Kumbaya for each other (or at least have helped them to not think I’m only a total loser who has nothing better to do than change all of the commas in a list after a colon to semicolons).
Prioritize. I used to suspect that there was something about going in-house that made perfectly good law firm attorneys develop permanent amnesia when it came to good drafting. It was the strangest thing. Even my husband, a supposedly respectable corporate law firm attorney, after going in-house, suddenly started to let minor errors appear in his emails. My judgment of him was quick and deliberate. He would sometimes mistakenly use “there” instead of “their,” for God’s sakes! What lawyer does that?
Continue reading “Moonlighting: Feeling the Kumbaya (Part II)”
So you’ve moved in-house or are planning to go in-house sometime. Be ready to think less like a lawyer.
Business clients think differently. I know, crazy, right? But, seriously, one of the biggest transitions from working as a transactional lawyer at a law firm and moving over to a company is learning to understand the business client’s perspective.
At a law firm, your client is typically another lawyer, whether it’s a senior associate, a partner, or an in-house lawyer. Lawyers hold court at the top of the hierarchy and are assumed valuable until proven otherwise. Legal work reigns supreme.
At a company, your boss will probably be an attorney but, as a transactional in-house attorney, you will most likely consider non-lawyers — people in other areas of the company — to be your clients. Plus, you’ve probably shifted from your law firm throne to mingling as one of the middle-management masses. At a company, mention “legal work” and “supreme” in the same sentence and you’ll get laughed off your middle-management office chair. On the contrary, you may sometimes need to remind business people that you exist (this can be kind of awkward, really) and that you can, you know, maybe provide value once in a while….
Continue reading “Moonlighting: Feeling the Kumbaya (Part 1)”
Be careful about what you say in the airport, or on a crowded train, or on the subway. Above the Law’s spies are everywhere.
And be careful about what you place in the trash. Law firms have paper shredders for a reason; use them. Consider this your practice pointer for the day.
Earlier this month, an ATL reader sent us a collection of documents relating to Sullivan & Cromwell’s on-campus interviewing program at the University of Michigan Law School. For the record, our tipster didn’t have to go dumpster diving for this find. The documents were contained in a black binder that was conveniently placed on top of an outdoor recycling bin, where it caught our reader’s eye. (As we all know from California v. Greenwood, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in stuff you leave in the trash.)
So, what was in these documents? The contents will be of interest to partners and associates at other firms, as well as law students going through the OCI process right now….
Continue reading “An Inside Look at Sullivan & Cromwell’s Recruiting Process”
Every couple of years, people need to be reminded not to have private conversations in public spaces. Who could forget Acela Bob, the Pillsbury partner who talked about firing people on a crowded train?
University of Virginia law students, that’s who. Yes, we have another installment of: when popping your collar goes real wrong. On the way back to Charlottesville from New York City, a group of UVA Law students were waiting for their flight out of LaGuardia. They started talking about how their callback interviews went. They started talking loudly.
And others were listening….
Continue reading “Students Making Fun of Biglaw Interviewer Overheard By MOST OF THE AIRPORT”
