The Hunger Games And The Law Firm Life
Law firm life is like the Hunger Games -- and that's not entirely bad, according to partner Jayne Backett.
“The odds are never in our favor.”
I’ve not traditionally been a fan of science fiction, but something about the Hunger Games films really captivated me. It’s that eerie undertone that the films portray about social control and how, at the heart of all things, the strongest motivating force for individuals is to remove their loved ones from poverty.
The Hunger Games chose a fitting protagonist in Jennifer Lawrence, who has emerged as a trailblazing female voice in Hollywood. Not only has she spoken out about the unfair body image expectations on women in the media, but she has written passionately about gender pay gap issues. In a Lenny Letter she wrote about how, when the wages of some of her co-stars were leaked on the internet, she was angry with herself for not negotiating harder, but then she felt held back by wanting to be liked and not wanting to seem “difficult” or “spoiled”. Lawrence articulated in the letter how at work she expressed an opinion in a matter-of-fact way, only for a male colleague to recoil as though she was angry.
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People are simply not conditioned to straight-talking women. Indeed, there was quite a scandal at the start of this year when Jennifer Lawrence mocked a disengaged reporter who was questioning her whilst on his mobile phone. People accused her of being arrogant and conceited and rude. Not many people acknowledged that the reporter who was taking up her valuable time couldn’t focus enough on what he was asking her to remember that they were at the Golden Globes and not the Oscars. As women, we are expected to sugarcoat everything, and we do so for fear of being seen as too aggressive. I have lost count of the number of times people have told me I am aggressive (because I happen to be extremely straight-talking).
Working in a law firm can be a lot like being in the Hunger Games. It’s most potently apparent when you start out as a trainee or first-year associate and then again when you become a partner. You are intensely monitored, your behaviour is analysed and questioned at every turn, and you are largely pitted against peers to measure your performance and determine your suitability for productivity and survival. No one takes a single thing you say or do at face value; you constantly have to prove your worth.
The whole practice of the law, in fact, relies on a constant underlying hunger. You have to be hungry to learn, hungry to take on enormous workloads, hungry to succeed in creating phenomenal work product, and hungry to win new work. When I see junior lawyers practicing the law without an attitude that resembles that of a salivating wolf, I don’t trust them.
I recall an incident with a junior lawyer who I was once briefing on some work and they had the audacity to yawn lazily and rock back on their chair in the midst of the briefing. To be fair, the information I was delivering was undoubtedly mind-numbingly dull, but that was irrelevant since that person should have been biting my arm off to take the work from me. Like Jennifer Lawrence with the disengaged reporter, my respect for that person and their capability to do their job dropped off a cliff. Part of me did naturally wonder if that person would have treated a senior man in the same way that they were treating me. In any case, once I didn’t believe they were committed and hungry, it was unlikely that they ever would be. This is called the “Pygmalion Effect”, where your beliefs about people become self-fulfilling.
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Law firms depend on a combination of hothousing and the Pygmalion Effect to create a super-league of lawyers within their organisation. Hothousing involves a level of close mentoring, confidence building, and boundary breaking. By boundary breaking, I mean pushing people (sometimes unwillingly) outside of their comfort zones, but in a way that provides them with the support they need to fall back on if it proves too difficult. This might be asking someone to prepare for and lead a client call when they are very junior or draft documents that would traditionally be prepared by people many years above their qualification banding. Giving a junior the chance to tackle a task and stepping in to guide them when things go off track is the way law firms can realise a return on their investment most quickly, since the business model depends on doing high-quality work at the most cost-effective level to remain competitive. Additionally, by using the Pygmalion Effect and treating members of the team as though they are part of the Top Gun Academy, reinforcing their status as “the elite”, “the top one percent” and “the best of the best”, you generate a self-belief and unison within the team that drives a commitment to achieve ever loftier goals.
However, one of the biggest differences between the Hunger Games and the legal profession is that the Hunger Games encouraged the disadvantaged, poor and starving people to compete in the games because it was sporting entertainment for the wealthy Capitol dwellers. The legal profession has been a closed-door environment, with very few opportunities for people from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds to enter.
This is why the wonderful work of organisations like Aspiring Solicitors and the Diversity Access Scheme in the UK legal market is so crucial, but, as with much change, political weight is also required to make positive and impactful waves on the way businesses operate. It will be with that in mind that we await the full effect of the implementation of the apprenticeship levy in the UK from April next year. The levy will require businesses with a wage bill exceeding £3m per annum to contribute 0.5% of their overall wage bill to fund apprentice schemes, but, critically, part of the levy can be banked by way of e-vouchers for a business to reclaim on apprenticeship training within its own organisation.
Conversely, those who may be particularly apt for law firm life, those with a voracious hunger to make change in their social and financial stratas, have been largely shut out of the profession. The irony of this, in a profession based on justice and equality, should not be lost. Not having a chance to compete is, after all, worse than having the chance and the odds not being in your favor.
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Jayne Backett is a partner at Fieldfisher LLP in London specializing in banking transactions, with a particular focus on real estate financing. Fieldfisher is a 600-lawyer European law firm, with a first-class reputation in a vast number of sectors, specifically, financial institutions, funds, technology and fintech, retail, hotels and leisure, and health care. Jayne has a depth of experience in mentoring and training junior lawyers and has a passion for bringing discussions on diversity in law to the forefront. She can be reached by email at [email protected], and you can follow her on Twitter: @JayneBackett.