Are we harming the legal profession, and more importantly the clients, by incentivizing young lawyers to narrow their practices into increasingly esoteric categories?
An in-house lawyer’s work environment turns in part on the structure of a corporation’s law department, and outside counsel can better serve clients if counsel know how a law department is organized….
Here’s What The Best Ones Are Doing Differently.
When you're at a law firm, it's likely that you sell in part substantive expertise. When you move in-house, you're no longer selling anything. Will you lose your expertise?
Tom Wallerstein's firm, like most firms in California, has a series of Rutter guides on its shelves. And even though he runs a virtually paperless office, he still loves his printed Rutter guides. Wallerstein even has a joke about Rutter. Whenever a colleague questions his ability to solve a particular issue, he jokes, “I’m sure there’s a Rutter Guide for that.” The joke has a serious point, namely, that the basics of most practice areas can always be learned. And if it’s easy enough to learn a practice area, why shouldn’t a lawyer forming a small firm become a true generalist; handling everything from family law, wills and trusts, civil, criminal, and essentially whatever walks in the door?