Biglaw

On Unsocial Media, Working From Home, And A New Way To Prime The Pipeline

Many firms are rolling in dough. Wouldn’t it be nice if they would pay it forward, literally?

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As even occasional readers know (and thank you for reading, even occasionally), I am not a fan of social media. There are far too many incidents of lawyers and judges behaving badly on various platforms and paying the prices in reputation, discipline, and public pointing of fingers, aka shaming. For whatever the reason or reasons, they lose all sense of proportion, propriety, and purpose when their fingers do the walking and talking and plain lose their minds. I won’t link to various articles because they are just too numerous to mention. If you haven’t read Dave Eggers’s book, “The Circle,” which came out a few years ago, do so. Any relation to Facebook? I will let you decide.

So, as I looked at various daily feeds I receive, I came across this; yes, it’s on Twitter, but it was a link on one of my feeds that I couldn’t resist sharing. (That’s my excuse, and I am sticking to it.) John Della Volpe is the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy Institute of Politics and he shared (on Twitter) the unsurprising results (at least to me) about social media.

According to Volpe, two-thirds of those who use social media think that life was better without them. It’s just the dinosaur lawyer in me, but I think that social discourse (and I am not sure that the word “social” can be used in this context, any more than the term “social media” can be used) has taken a direct hit over the past decade and certainly within the past five years. Not a shocker to me or to anyone else who thinks that social media platforms weaponize hate and division and preclude rational discussion on topics where people can disagree and not be crucified for different opinions.

I don’t know how scientific the polls truly are, but I have found one on a favorite topic: gender discrimination. As if women needed confirmation of the effects of mansplaining and male interruptus, a Gallup poll confirms that women in this country are dissatisfied with the way they are treated. No kidding. Men are oblivious. An understatement? Moreover, Black and Hispanic women are more dissatisfied than white women. No surprise there.

Given the havoc that the pandemic has wrought for women, it’s no surprise that the female workforce has lost more than 300,000 jobs, due to child and family care issues, layoffs, and other reasons for leaving the workforce. Women lawyers may be willing to stay in their jobs if they can work remotely, but that’s not the reality for frontline workers, who we owe our everlasting thanks.

The more women (and men) can work remotely, while managing the myriad of life’s other responsibilities, the better.   Being able to work remotely should not be a situation of “Mother, may I?” (Or is that too old a game for the newbies to know about?)

Working remotely is and will continue to be a benefit for lawyers with disabilities, a topic that no one seems to talk about much, including me. My apologies. What remote work may do, among other things, is reduce the challenges that disabled attorneys encounter in practice. The stigma of working remotely is so 2019, and even those firms that want attorneys to be “front and center” may find it difficult to have attorneys agree to daily office presence. The issue will be how to balance the collegiality that an in-office experience can provide (though not always) with the benefits of working remotely. However, some remote workers feel isolated while others cherish the isolation. If diversity and inclusion are goals of the profession, then working from home is a way to meet those goals. Any movement forward in the hiring and retention of any underrepresented cohort is progress.

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And about diversity and inclusion, an Ohio law school has devised a new way to prime the pipeline for a more diverse profession. The University of Dayton law school is working with two firms who are promising jobs for graduates even before law school entry. A creative way to make the profession look more like the clients it serves.

The law school and the two firms, Thompson Hine and Taft Stettinius & Hollister, will select two students from a pool of underserved college graduates. The firms will provide full-ride scholarships to a J.D. degree, plus an annual stipend, plus summer jobs at the firms and a full-time job offer after graduation. This could be the start of something big. The Dayton dean describes the program as the “ ‘Moneyball’ for legal education,” figuring out where talent may be, even before an undergraduate has thought about lawyering as a career. (And if you haven’t either read the book “Moneyball” by Michael Lewis or seen the movie, do so.)

The program is not without risks: what if the student hates law school, can’t keep up, or drops out? Those are risks worth taking. It’s an idea that could spread across the country and make legal education not only more affordable but substantially less expensive. What a concept. As ATL and other publications make it clear, many firms are rolling in dough and wouldn’t it be nice if they would pay it forward, literally?

Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

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