Beyond Biglaw: Freedom From Financial Obsession
Beware of this soul-killing danger: the danger of becoming obsessed with the financial aspects of legal practice, and defining one’s self-worth by how lucrative (or not) your practice is at any given moment.
Every culture I am aware of looks at the springtime as a time of renewal. Nature itself experiences a revival of spirit this time of year. Many people experience a similar effect. The improved weather, signs of greenery, and longer days all contribute to a more expansive feeling about what is possible. The ancient holiday (over 3000 years old) of Passover, now being celebrated by Jews worldwide, invokes the theme of renewal. To that end, Passover is biblically ordained as a spring festival, and the entire presence of leap years in the Jewish lunar calendar is designed to ensure that Passover falls out in the Mediterranean spring season, when the first barley crop would ripen.
Apart from its celebration of the agrarian, Passover is also a holiday that poses questions about what freedom actually means. Is true freedom what we would consider a life of leisure, such as that enjoyed by the retired denizens of Scottsdale or Palm Beach? Or is it more important for people to have true freedom of choice in their lives, as in freedom from addiction or difficulties of all kinds that can hamper one’s full exercise of self-control? The answers to these timeless questions are at once apparent and elusive, and with the experience of each spring season we are forced to square our current lives with the lives we envisioned for ourselves. At a minimum, each spring presents an opportunity to harmonize our reality with our hopes, and start again down the road to accomplishing our goals.
As lawyers, we are taught to appreciate the value of hard work. At every step of our careers, the message is a clear one: if you want to achieve your maximum in this profession, you will need to work hard. Because some other lawyer who you are competing with, whether they be an adversary or colleague, is working hard to defeat you in some way. It starts in law school, with competition for grades and journal experience as a first year. Then OCI introduces the competition for summer associate slots at well-paying firms, or prestigious internships in the public interest area. Once a lawyer is gainfully employed, the pressure to perform by billing or at least working long hours begins. The treadmill never stops, no matter how senior the attorney. The promise is that all the hard work will result in a secure, if not bountiful, financial existence for the lawyer.
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Of course, one of the joys of legal practice is the competition, so financial reward is not the only benefit of a career in legal practice. Another joy is the ability to always learn, and the never-ending challenge to improve as a lawyer. There is also the primary joy available to an attorney — the ability to serve and improve the lot of others. Every service profession demands long hours and hard work. Law is not an exception.
At the same time, lawyers practicing today encounter significant challenges caused by the increased pace of legal practice, and increased competition caused by lower client demand and a glut of practitioners. A legitimate response to these challenges is for lawyers — especially those fortunate to have thriving practices — to work harder. Many do, whether they are associates at large law firms asked to handle more work because of smaller associate classes, or government lawyers operating with fewer resources and smaller budgets. Even lawyers at smaller firms, who may enjoy more control over their schedules, nevertheless need to work as hard as their large-firm counterparts to remain competitive. Just preserving one’s financial position has become a greater challenge.
In this environment, for all the benefits of dedication to legal practice, and the thrill of competition, there is a soul-killing danger: the danger of becoming obsessed with the financial aspects of legal practice, and defining one’s self-worth by how lucrative (or not) your practice is at any given moment. Yes, making a living is an important part of why lawyers work as hard as they do. But when the desire to do well financially turns into an obsession, the potential for damage is significant. Lawyers who are desperate to succeed financially are more likely to cross the line of ethical behavior, or take unnecessary risks to “grow their practice” by taking on debt to finance marketing efforts or in pursuit of building leverage.
In short, giving up a sense of perspective about the financial side of legal practice is actually an abdication of one’s freedom. An addiction to greed, or profit at all costs, can be just as damaging to lawyers and the people around them as a substance abuse problem. Unlike substance abuse, which is rarely tolerated in the legal profession and never heralded, there is continuous pressure on firms and lawyers to demonstrate financial performance. In fact, the legal profession is extraordinarily open about financial performance, whether it be profits per partner or associate compensation at large law firms. Financial measuring sticks are readily available, and unsurprisingly many lawyers look at the performance of others and find their own lacking. Accordingly, it can be hard for lawyers who fall into the trap of focusing too much on money issues to extricate themselves — either through their own efforts or with the assistance of others — before lasting damage is done. The same is true at the law firm level as well.
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All too often, we read in these pages of otherwise successful lawyers cutting corners in the pursuit of more money. As important as those stories are as cautionary tales, the better result for everyone would have seen those lawyers getting the help they need before their lives were destroyed. Perhaps by recognizing the danger, and tempering our natural instinct to glorify lawyers “making bank,” more lawyers will avoid giving up their freedom of choice when it comes to finances. Part of the message of Passover is that freedom comes at a cost, but nothing is as costly as enslaving oneself.
Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique. The firm’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.
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