At a recent attorney networking meeting (I still hate the term), the question posed to the group was a variation of the following: in what ways has your law practice changed over the past decade or so? Seeing that the vast majority of attendees were of dinosaur vintage, complete with gray hair, if any, and business suits (with ties), their responses were not surprising, but I think some looked still a little shell-shocked at all the changes wrought since the turning of the millennium.
I heard the usual suspects listed: technology in all its various iterations, including, but not limited to the Internet, lawyer ratings on Avvo and Yelp and other sites, non-lawyer competition, virtual offices or no offices, business development, the ability (or curse) to practice law essentially anytime, anywhere, 24-7. One lawyer commented that on a Saturday morning when he’s attending his kid’s sports event, and he receives a text from a client, he goes through this drill: do I respond now in the middle of my child’s event or send a quick text back saying he’ll respond no later than X time that day? The boundaries of what was work and what was personal time have disappeared. For dinosaurs, that’s a huge change from how practice used to be. It’s not necessarily better or worse, it’s just different.
Most of these changes have made lawyers more efficient, more cost effective, and yet, the lament I heard, if you can call it that and I think I will, is that something has been lost in all these technological and other changes. What has been lost? The feeling, at least among these lawyers, that the personal touch, the relationships, not only between lawyer and client, but between lawyers, is now not what it once was, and it probably never will be again.
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In a sense, the lament was a requiem for the ways that lawyers used to interact with each other. (Did I hear the words civility, professionalism, and lack thereof surface more than once during the discussion?) As one lawyer put it, oftentimes nowadays, you never meet opposing counsel until trial. Depositions can be done via video conference and other technique. Many hearings that used to require in person appearances can now be done by Court Call and other vendors. Even CLE seminars that required in person attendance and opportunities to see other lawyers can now be easily accessed by online webinars. So, developing any kind of collegial relationship with opposing counsel is like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the mountain.
The meet and confer requirement of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 26 (f) is almost always handled by telephone, unless the court orders attendance in person. Clearly there’s a difference between a telephonic meeting and an in person one, but does that matter? California Code of Civil Procedure requires “meet and confer,” but again that’s done either by phone or through an exchange of increasingly pissy letters between counsel. Whatever happened to the old days when opposing lawyers would have a collegial relationship or was that really just a myth? Are we dinosaurs dreaming and/or nostalgic for something that we thought was there, but maybe really wasn’t and never was?
So, is the art of interaction between counsel, between lawyer and client a lost art? One lawyer commented that he has handled a number of transactions for a client that he’s never met. Is that a good or a bad thing? I don’t think he’s sure, one way or the other. Can you be a “trusted advisor,” “counsellor,” or whatever other word or phrase you choose if you don’t have at least a face to attach to the name when you talk? Yes, I get Skype and FaceTime and the like, but for some lawyers of my vintage, aka dinosaurs, the idea of talking to a disembodied face is disconcerting. How do you develop an ongoing relationship that way? Maybe you don’t, and maybe what the future holds for lawyers is more of “one-off” relationships, transactionally based and that’s it. Maybe that’s the “new normal.”
I think among dinosaur lawyers, there’s resistance to thinking of ourselves as commodities. No one likes to think that he or she is fungible. We grew up in the law when personal relationships meant almost everything and to us dinosaurs, they still do. My family’s lawyer, a solo practitioner in downtown Chicago, was an integral part of our family, not just for his advice, but his friendship.
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A friend of mine still in Biglaw laments that loss and the loss of loyalty that accompanied those relationships. No more is he representing companies that he had represented for years; his Biglaw fees priced him out of the marketplace for the more routine litigation that his clients could source elsewhere and point to the resulting cost savings. It’s connections between people that make for lasting, loyal relationships. Client loyalty has become an oxymoron these days. Clients might say the same about lawyers.
What are we losing? Millennials would most likely say nothing, zip, zero, nada, zilch. Dinosaur lawyers, even if technologically adept, seem to say that something has been lost, and that’s communication between two people. Texting, a favorite millennial tool, often doesn’t convey what needs to be conveyed and/or what should be conveyed, and the addition of an emoji (a term that didn’t even exist back in dinosaur days) doesn’t necessarily explain what needs to be explained. Sometimes the text recipient takes offense because the sender’s meaning is garbled, trying to be cute and/or funny (failing miserably) or is actually meant to insult. Hopefully, it’s not the last.
Millennials, do you think that personal contact, personal relationships are still important in law practice, that they still matter? If so, how do you establish them, cultivate them, grow them? Your thoughts? Dinosaurs, what are you doing to adapt to these new ways of practicing? How hard is it? Nostalgic for the “good old days” of law practice? What do you think?
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for 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 [email protected].