In-House Counsel

How Do You Judge -- Credentials Or Experience?

If you're playing percentages, and have to pick between two candidates who are otherwise indistinguishable, who do you hire?

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There were two partners I’d like to discuss at the firm where I started practicing in 1984.

The first had graduated with no apparent distinction from Yale Law School. He knew exactly how to judge applicants to the firm: “What matters is where you go to law school. How you perform is irrelevant. What matters is that you were accepted at a great school and that you could swim in those waters.”

The second partner had graduated near the top of his class at a law school of no distinction. He knew exactly how to judge applicants to the firm: “What matters is how you do in law school. Where you go to school is irrelevant. The top few students in the class at any law school are basically fungible. People have to prove that they succeeded in their law school environment.”

Everyone, of course, wants to hire people who look exactly like they do.

I recently wrote a column about how we have had some highly perfumed lawyers — former U.S. Supreme Court clerks and the like — in my in-house law department and that I didn’t think anybody gave us a discount in litigation because plaintiffs were facing that formidable foe. The identity of outside counsel may be relevant to valuing a case; the identity of in-house counsel is largely irrelevant.

What reaction did I get to that column? One email said: “Credentials don’t matter. I went to a middle-of-the-road law school, was in the middle of my class, and have had a fine career. Credentials matter when you apply for your first job; after that, experience is what counts.”

I bet about 95% of my readers agree with that assessment — because 95% of my readers don’t have impeccable credentials. And about 5% of my readers disagree with that assessment because about 5% of my readers graduated at the very top of a T14 law school class.

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Everyone wants to hire people who look exactly like they do.

Funny how that works, isn’t it?

Both sides have a point, of course.

I’ve known some very fine lawyers who were mediocre students at mediocre schools.

I’ve known some very fine lawyers who were on the law review at top-tier schools.

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But consider this: Good credentials are self-replicating. You get good grades during your first year in law school. This automatically leads to law review. This automatically leads to a great clerkship. This automatically leads to a job at a great firm.

This is, of course, double-counting (or maybe it’s quadruple-counting): It all comes down to first-year grades. But the over-counting is repeated on your résumé until you die.

I’m sorry to turn up the heat on first-year law students, but that’s the truth.

The first job you land out of your clerkship also redounds to your benefit forever. You probably went to work at an internationally renowned firm. At that firm, you may have handled tedious projects, but you were probably exposed to big cases in a way that other folks, whose firms rarely handle big cases, were not. Of course, whether or not you were actually exposed to anything important, your résumé implies that you were — and that implication stays with you forever.

When an in-house lawyer is thinking about retaining outside counsel, the in-house lawyer prefers to have previously worked personally with the outside lawyer under consideration. This guarantees, from personal experience, that the lawyer is good. If the in-house lawyer hasn’t worked with the outside lawyer before, the in-house lawyer wants a recommendation from a trustworthy source attesting that the outside lawyer under consideration is good.  If the in-house lawyer can’t find an outside lawyer he worked with, or who comes highly recommended, for a particular case, then the in-house lawyer is hiring blind.  

At that point, you’re playing percentages. You don’t actually know if you’re hiring a lawyer who’s any good, but the question is which of two candidates is more likely to be good. If you’re playing percentages, and have to pick between two candidates who are otherwise indistinguishable, who do you hire: The person who graduated with no distinction from a law school you never heard of — but who tells you during an interview that he’s great? Or the person who graduated at the top of his or her class from a great law school, served on the law review, had a great clerkship or two, and started out at an internationally renowned firm (and, of course, tells you during an interview that he’s great)?

Credentials don’t distinguish good lawyers from bad, but they can certainly influence people for a long time.

That may not be fair, but it’s the truth.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

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