Reinventing The Law Business: You’re A Lawyer But You Want To Be A Businessperson – 8 Tips On How To Get There

A lot of us lawyers aren’t happy as lawyers. Some lawyers say: we work ourselves to death – we fancy ourselves as really smart – our clients don’t seem to be in our league in intelligence – we have to wade through the intricacies of thousands of pages of documents while clients jet-set around the world looking at deals and entertaining investors and attending parties – and we make a decent living while our clients get rich! This stinks! I want to be a client!!!

Here are some thoughts, which are really directed mostly at junior lawyers. If you are more senior, then you probably have already done most of what I am suggesting here, either by design or by luck, or you have decided that you are happy with a career as a lawyer……

First, consider whether this is what you really want. I had the above view myself about 25 years ago as a junior-ish associate. I left a top real estate law practice in New York City (at Shea & Gould) in 1987 to go in-house to be a client. It was the dumbest move of my career. I hated it and came back to law pretty quickly. Also, when you are thinking about how you don’t like your job as a lawyer and want to be a client, consider:

• We lawyers (mostly) don’t have to travel – and the “fun” of traveling gets old pretty quickly when you consider what you have to go through at airports, plus missing your (new?) family, etc.
• We lawyers (mostly) get to only do the interesting parts of the deals. Do we really want to sit there and comb through spreadsheets to underwrite a deal?
• We lawyers don’t make as much money as our clients in good times, but it is not so bad to have a job and earn an income when the market crashes and many clients are wiped out.

And so on. There is a “grass is always greener” syndrome, and overall I think a lot of us lawyers have it pretty good. Interesting and varied work, booms and busts (for excitement and relaxation), and generally a decent paycheck, at least for many in the profession. By the way, I want to be sensitive to the fact that there are a ton of lawyers out there struggling greatly, making little more than minimum wage, doing rote work in what probably seems like a salt mine, and probably dramatically regretting going to law school. Since I hope my columns will be helpful to people, I refer these lawyers to my three-article set You Lost Your Job In A Law Firm – What Do You Do Now? as a way to maybe dig out of the salt mines (even if you did not lose your job, this will likely be of use).

In any case, if a job in the business world is what you want, here is how I would go about getting it:

First – pick an industry to work in. Ideally, this should be the industry in which you are practicing law. Indeed, if not, your first step should be to seek legal employment as a lawyer representing clients in that industry.

Second – make sure you work at a law firm with a varied client base in that industry and where you will get a great deal of client contact. If you don’t have such a job, then it is logical to transition to a place which has such characteristics. I note that if this is your end goal, then it is a lot more important to make industry contacts than to make money. If you are currently at a place where you are not making good and solid industry contacts, then your chances of a good transition are much weaker.

Third – get out and about and make contacts. This will be very doable if you are working on deals or other work with clients in the industry in which you want to work. You will be talking to them every day and getting to know them. Also, you will find that it is a lot easier to meet people if you are not like many lawyers “pitching for business.” All you are doing at this stage is trying to meet people and get to know them. At this stage you are not looking for a job yet.

Fourth – give this some time. Don’t rush off to throw away your legal career. You paid for a legal education and, even more importantly, you are MUCH more valuable as a client in the industry if you are a full-fledged lawyer who has made the transition and has something useful to offer, rather than a junior lawyer with a law degree who really doesn’t know how to be a lawyer. It is a shame to throw away the law degree and basically just start over. So I advocate working as a lawyer until you know your way around the legal work in the industry. This is probably a roughly five-year process, which is somewhere equivalent to the 10,000-hour rule to obtain true expertise described by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers (affiliate link). Of course you can shorten this a bit if you are working very hard, but at least my view is not to shorten it too much. Also, in five years maybe you can make a solid dent in the law school debts you have to pay off.

Fifth – as you practice law, try to really be a business lawyer. Let me tell you what I mean here. Every lawyer – even the most annoying, dweeby, self-righteous, boring nerd – claims to be a “business lawyer.” What I mean is different. I mean try to be someone who essentially sits on the business side with the client and really understands the client’s business and how she/he is thinking and what is important. It is different from what you think is important as a lawyer.

Sixth – live below your means. To be clear…..LIVE BELOW YOUR MEANS!!! The last thing you need is a millstone around your neck because you can’t take a pay cut to go to the business side. There is just no need to put yourself in this position. Expect a deep pay cut and when to your surprise it doesn’t maybe happen, that is just gravy. This, by the way, is good life advice in general.

Seventh – over time, two things will develop: your legal expertise in the industry plus your contacts in the industry. And when you are ready, like magic, you snap your fingers and the job of your dreams will appear! Of course, that is a joke and you will have to network to obtain such a job.

Eighth – feel free to change your mind along the way. You might find, as you practice law as a true business lawyer – as you have friends at all levels around your industry – as you are adding real value to a varied client base – as you start to become a rainmaker – as you gain some real respect for the value you are adding to your clients – that maybe being a lawyer isn’t so bad after all.

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Bruce Stachenfeld is the managing partner of Duval & Stachenfeld LLP, which is an approximately 70-lawyer law firm based in midtown Manhattan. The firm is known as “The Pure Play in Real Estate Law” because all of its practice areas are focused around real estate. With more than 50 full-time real estate lawyers, the firm is one of the largest real estate law practices in New York City. You can contact Bruce by email at [email protected].