Lawyer Satisfaction Blog

Ron: Would you counsel women law students toward or away from BigLaw?

Debra: In my opinion, as I said in Post 1, training, opportunity, career development and networking are far better in BigLaw, even with all its shortcomings. Women, like men, need it; it needs us.  Like every other business institution, law firms need and benefit from women among their leaders.

Ron:  I am sure that they do but the issue is the distribution of scarce resources (women lawyers) where society most needs them (and here would be the key place in which we would have a difference of opinion - more later).

Debra:  Women lawyers are not scarce resources.  My understanding is that in excess of 50% of law school grads are in fact women.  Society needs us in plenty of places, to be sure, but there are enough of us to go around and to represent more than a tiny percentage of the leadership in big firms.

Ron:  Boy do I disagree.  They are a "scarce resource."  As I have mentioned often, 95% of the women (and the men) who have graduated from "selective" law schools (not the best, just the ones difficult to get into) start out overrepresenting the 1% wealthiest of society while most of society has no access to lawyers.

Debra:  Your comment doesn't seem responsive to the scarce resources point.  Women - and, for that matter, men - may be scarce resources in the public interest sector, but that is an allocation issue, not a resource constraint.  There are plenty of lawyers in the US and plenty of law students in US law schools.

Ron: The fundamental question is what women (and men) law students envisioned and wanted to do with their legal training. I spoke to the entering class at Notre Dame Law School. I asked about their career plans. The plurality wanted to represent women and children. To coin a phrase "What Do Women Want?

What if the answer is that a majority want to represent women, children and men in human and civil rights areas such as housing, education, family, healthcare, environmental, employment discrimination, plaintiff injury and gay rights?

Debra:  I think it's sexist and incorrect to presume women have different goals than men in pursuing careers in the law.  Like men, women come in all shapes and sizes, and our goals run the gamut.  Many men no doubt want to practice in human and civil rights areas such as housing, education, family, healthcare, environmental, employment discrimination, plaintiff injury and gay rights, just as many women want instead to be business lawyers, judges, venture capitalists and what have you.  We have to take great care not to make sweeping generalizations about anyone's goals or talents based on gender, color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.  I'm sorry to sound like a political tract here, but I see too much jumping from the specific to the generic where women and minorities are concerned.  It's not fair or sensible to make assumptions for these reasons - a fact of which I remind myself every time I'm tempted to disdain stay-at-home moms!  :)

Ron:  I referred to women because our original subject had been about women so I continued to use them as the subject.  You are correct that men certainly want to practice in human and civil rights. But for years I have used a form which allows clients to select a variety of areas of practice that appeal to them. I would πhave to say that more women chose family and divorce and more men chose owning a professional sports team ( - :

Debra: Might you have some adverse selection going on here? If your base group features a plurality of people who don't want to be BigLaw or business lawyers in the first place, these practice area choices may be a foregone conclusion.  Or maybe you're seeing the unsurprising results of all the pressure to choose "humane/girly" areas that many women feel from firms, law schools, parents, the whole white male power structure that permeates our society.  Or maybe I'm just a feminist baby-boomer with a real fire in her belly who doesn't want to admit that her younger sisters feel differently in larger numbers than they once did.  :)

Ron: You are probably quite correct here. Much of my efforts have had the label of "public interest" attached to them and many of those seeking my advice would likely be predisposed to such areas. Again, what I would like to see is a massive restructuring of legal education so that law students (women and men) make informed choices about what they want to do after graduation.

 For information on the genesis of these posts and on who "Debra" is, click here and read the intro to "Debra and Ron Post 1."

Ron: When I began to work as the public interest adviser at Harvard Law School in 1983, I knew that there were thousands of capable lawyers who represented those truly needing legal services, what we referred to as the underrepresented in society. Students had no way of knowing that this was the case. What I did was to create a new public interest category "private public interest law firms", contacted hundreds of such lawyers across the country, and list them in the Public Interest Directory I edited in 1986.Quite soon, Harvard law School students were choosing summer positions with them and eventually taking permanent positions.

The reason so many law students at selective law schools take positions with BigLaw is not that it is a more satisfying option for them. It is simply that BigLaw has convinced the law schools to take your position that it is just too difficult to find better placements for their students (of course it helps that the recruiters for BigLaw wine and dine and provide great resorts for lovely social events for law school career planning staff at the annual NALP conferences).

Debra: All true, but I continue to dispute the "shunted" theory, and I continue to be certain that law students without the gumption to resist wining, dining and social events as they seek to make career decisions are highly unlikely ever to make good lawyers - particularly in the public interest arena.  I also wonder how many better or more satisfying options there are - truly - for rookie lawyers.  There are plenty of rookie MBAs, college grads and other entrants to the work force also on the hunt for careers and, as we've discussed above, very few companies and even fewer nonprofits are actually hiring untrained beginners.

I don't think the fundamental educational question is what law students envision and want.  That's a personal question each individual has the right to answer for himself, but I think the fundamental educational question is what do we need, as a society, from our lawyers.

Ron: I agree.  I agree. I agree.

Debra: In my view, Karl Llewellyn had the right answer to this question.  In a 1942 speech given in the context of there being little call for lawyers and "no pervading appreciation that law skills can be mobilized to serve" in the war effort, Llewellyn spoke of the special skills of lawyers and the risks of viewing lawyering as "mere monopoly of the knowledge of law" rather than as "vision and sense of the whole, and skills in finding ways, smoothing friction, handling men in any situation, with speed, with sureness. . . .a craft of doing and getting things done with the law."  That's what I think society should demand of lawyers and what law schools should prepare lawyers to offer.

Ron: That may take only one year of law school. Take a look at the mission statement of Stanford Law School and perhaps a number of other law schools. What is a fundamental provision and one of the fundamental values of the legal profession - serve the legal needs of the public. We have had twenty years of "selective" law schools funneling 95% of their graduates to BigLaw to represent the 1% of the wealthiest of our society. I believe that is contrary to the public interest. In fact, I wonder if the government should guarantee or provide any benefit for loans that go to those attending a law school that permits that distribution of its graduates. The fact that 80% or more of those attending these law schools do not envision working for BigLaw is just an added bonus ( - :

You and I differ here on a fundamental point. You suggest that each individual is free to make his or her own choice and is solely responsible for that decision. That ignores so many of the factors that pressure law students. We all know (I think) that law schools have never tried to control their costs which have far outstripped the rise in the cost of living. We also know (I think) that the cost could immediately be reduced by one-third by eliminating the useless third year. We know that it is only BigLaw that is given access to law students as the only game that can make (or was able to make) commitments 18 months in advance. We also know that the debt burden on law students when combined with the offers of BigPay from BigLaw leads many of them to believe that BigLaw is the only "reasonable" choice. In so many ways the law school "educated" law students that BigLaw was the place to go (in part because of the indifference of faculty.

Debra:  I must argue with the notion of "funneling."  Again, anyone who allows himself to be funneled into a career option he considers unacceptable is not someone I'd bet on to be a capable, zealous advocate - in any setting.  Starting one's legal career in BigLaw is a proven method for gaining experience and developing and honing practical skills and work habits.  For some, it's a career; for others, it's a useful first step; for still others, it's no doubt a bad fit.

I remain staunch in believing that it is up to each individual to choose for himself.  I was not funneled into BigLaw by the University of Chicago Law School or by anything or anyone else.  I made a conscious, informed choice, based on my interests and skills, to be a business lawyer.  Call me coldhearted if you like, but I have no sympathy for anyone who lets himself be funneled into doing something he does not want to do.  We are in charge of our careers, our happiness and our choices; it's short-sighted and adolescent to attempt to blame someone or something else when we choose poorly.

If 80% don't want to join BigLaw, then they shouldn't.  Not only would they presumably be happier elsewhere, BigLaw would have to make some needed structural changes if the well dried up and firms actually had to work to attract new grads.

Furthermore, neither I nor my firms represented only the top 1% of the wealthiest in our society.  Our clients ran the gamut from big to small to individual, and the businesses I helped clients take public, buy, sell, expand & finance created jobs and opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people.  This is clearly in the public interest.  The law firms I worked for as a lawyer, and with as a client, also funneled (to use that term more acceptably) millions of dollars, in time & money, to a huge variety of charities and pro bono causes.  I think it is just as misguided to suggest business and the lawyers who support it are contrary to the public interest as it would be to assert that all solo practitioners are saints dedicated to furthering the public interest.

Ron:  I realize that I have made some negative generalizations about BigLaw and that there are cases where they are incorrect but I think it is fair to say that BigLaw represents BigBusiness and many small firms represent LittleIndividuals. My worldview, of course, is that it is more important to take on the cases of those with claims for violations of their human and civil rights than to work to help form successful businesses but we need both and I am simply trying to level the playing field. I appreciate that BigLaw and BigBusiness contribute to charitable causes but prefer that lawyers who wish to have the opportunity to devote 100%of their time to such efforts. (I don't need to get into the stories of BigLaw associates who described being told they could not appear at a critical hearing for a pro bono clients because of what seemed to them a meaningless chore demanded of them by a partner.)

Debra:  There are certainly partners who make pro bono involvement difficult (just as there are multitudinous associates with no interest whatsoever in pro bono work), but all of the firms I've worked for as a lawyer or with as a client have healthy pro bono programs and are, in fact, casting about for associates willing to devote time to NPO boards, fund-raising efforts, case administration, etc.  We are totally in agreement, however, that lawyers who wish to have the opportunity to devote 100% of their time to such efforts do not belong in BigLaw.

For information on the genesis of these posts and on who "Debra" is, click here and read the intro to "Debra and Ron Post 1."

Ron: As I have mentioned often, 95% of the women (and the men) who have graduated from "selective" law schools (not the best, just the ones difficult to get into) start out overrepresenting the 1% wealthiest of society while most of society has no access to lawyers.

Debra:  I'd like to see the data supporting that statement, which seems unlikely to me.  Even if you're correct about that, however, there are plenty of lawyers in the US and plenty of law students in US law schools.  Different societal incentives - like decent paychecks, prestige, availability of training, etc. - would benefit public interest law positions just as they would benefit teachers, social workers, day care workers, nurses and every other underappreciated career in our overly money-focused society.  But the choice of where to devote one's career efforts remains, thankfully, a personal one.  Requiring anyone to pursue a career path he does not want to pursue is as wrong and short-sighted as barring him from going after one he does want to pursue.

Ron: I think that the law students/lawyers that I know most intimately are those that graduated from law school since 1986. From 1984 to 1994 I spoke to individual students, made presentations to classes of students, spoke at student conferences, worked with NALP career planners and spoke to faculty at law schools. There is no doubt in my mind that upwards of 80% of law students at the selective law schools had no interest in working in BigLaw.  Much of what you criticize associates for can be attributed to the reality that so many of them never wanted to be there in the first place.

Debra:  Then what on earth were they doing there?  Who held a gun to their heads?  If they didn't want to be there, it was incumbent on them to be elsewhere or to make the best of the situation in which they put themselves, not to whine about having made a poor choice.  (I feel compelled to note as well that they were happy enough to collect their outsized paychecks.)

Why would BigLaw have any responsibility whatsoever to tailor itself to the whims of a bunch of highly paid whiners without either the long-term commitment to the practice or the brains, courage and initiative to choose what they actually wanted in the first place?

Ron: That is the subject of my book and many others. The fault begins with the deficient education system (public primarily) which has failed miserable in teaching critical thinking but has done a magnificent job in training kids to be lemmings. Just do what you are told to do to get to the best college, do the best to get to the best law school, do the best to get to the best law firm. Hold on, I hate it here, what happened?

Debra: All I can say here - and I say it with all due respect - is baloney.  I remain certain that anyone without the strength of character, initiative, critical thinking skills and balls to make his or her own decisions will never make a good lawyer - regardless of where he or she starts out after law school.  My law school classmates seemed to have no trouble thinking for themselves 30 years ago, and I have reason to believe (based on my own two 20-something children and the majority of their friends) that young people are no less capable of doing so today.

Ron:  My book, Lawful Pursuit, Careers in Public Interest Law, is a guide on how to avoid those aspects of law school that will pressure you into a job in BigLaw and divert you from what you hoped to do when you entered law school. Those aspects include no mission of the law school, no teaching of skills, no teaching of values, no teaching of career planning, a massive on-campus interview program, no feedback about the dissatisfaction of alumni/ae in BigLaw and high debt.

Debra: This is great.  I'm sure your book is very helpful.  To suggest, however, that the current system is some sort of evil cabal seeking to swallow innocents who have no opportunity to escape its clutches is disrespectful to the intelligence and free will of law students.

Obviously, the BigLaw approach is not for everyone, but it's specious, I think, for anyone to slam BigLaw for its failure to babysit with people unwilling to do what it takes to succeed there.  And, honestly?  It wasn't that hard.  With a true interest in the work and a zeal to learn, improve and excel, it was quite doable, as well as highly rewarding and satisfying, even for a woman like me who was (and is) also a wife and the mother of two kids.

Ron: While there were some for which this was a good choice, over the years there were surveys and articles about the extraordinary high degree of dissatisfaction of associates in BigLaw.

Debra:  You know the media - it loves a negative story more than a positive story every time.  In addition, survey results can easily be skewed by the nature of the questions asked.  There is always room for improvement in any institutional setting.

It is also a characteristic of post-baby-boomer generations that they are not willing to work as hard as baby boomers.  This is a healthy thing in many ways, but the generational differences in BigLaw between management and new hires remain large and largely unresolved.  I've worked with hundreds of people who, all things considered, were - and are - content with their BigLaw choice.  The overall discontent may well be overstated, however virulent in any individual person.  Even if it's not overstated, it would hardly be surprising, would it, if you're correct about 80% of post-86 LS grads not wanting to be in big firms in the first place (and, I guess, there just for the money).

Ron: I am confident restating that the percentage of those deeply unhappy at BigLaw has been extraordinarily high over the last two decades (and probably higher today during the current economic downturn.) I also agree with you that there are probably many who are content at BigLaw but, as you have said, it's not about them. It's about the needs of society. Fortunately, there is a coincidence and overlap of those who are dissatisfied and those who want to help deliver legal services to the public.

I spoke to the entering class at Notre Dame Law School. I asked about their career plans. The plurality wanted to represent women and children. Does any law school ask them (or the men)? Does any law school care? What if the answer is that a majority want to represent women, children and men in human and civil rights areas such as housing, education, family, healthcare, environmental, employment discrimination, plaintiff injury and gay rights?

Debra: I question the notion that a plurality of law students have the career goals you've described.  They may say they want to represent women and children (although that surprises me too), but I doubt they mean in the direct representation way you've outlined.  If they do, they're not likely to find satisfaction because that's a very romantic - and quixotic - notion of how to improve the lot of women and children in the world.

Ron: And yet that's the career path that thousands of lawyers around the country have followed. In fact, I was a divorce lawyer from 1970 to 1990 but thought that the adversary system was a totally inappropriate way of handling a divorce so in the mid-70's we started something called divorce mediation. Others in legal services and in organizations have taken on major reform in areas such as gay marriage.

Debra:  It's a fine career path for people who have developed the necessary judgment, perspective and experience to do it capably.  My question is where you think new lawyers will develop those qualities and gain that experience.  On the job without supervision?  Yikes!

The creation of jobs, the formulation and implementation of sensible and beneficial education, healthcare, housing, daycare, environmental and other policies, and the zealous representation of victims of civil rights abuses cannot be effectively undertaken by green law school grads with no experience of business, economics, the means of production or the mechanics of capital.

Moreover, while many of the lawyers who have followed this career path have undoubtedly helped individuals, which is great, I am certain that to effect lasting reform, it's necessary to have lawyers working systemically in addition to one plaintiff/client at a time.

Ron: That is correct so much of what I have written is focused on the deficiencies of legal education.  I urge is the restructuring of legal education so that students are taught by qualified instructors and perform the skills they need during law school. With that training, they will have the confidence (that few graduates have) to enable them to begin to look for mentors and support to represent individuals on graduation.

Debra:  No disagreement here.  Law schools could do a much better job.  But whether it's apprenticeship of the kind you describe or of the BigLaw variety, new grads must still be exposed to a variety of clients, colleagues, cases, opinions & practical experiences in order to develop the judgment that characterizes all capable practitioners.

BigLaw is an obvious and proven place to gain this exposure, as we've discussed.  With initiative and patience, new grads could, I'm sure, also develop it elsewhere.  I have my doubts, however, that new grads without enough initiative to make good choices for themselves or to take advantage of what BigLaw has to offer them in this regard will somehow manage to do what it takes to research, identify, seek and find it in the big outside world.

Law schools could do a much better job of grounding students with this sort of knowledge, but they can't provide the perspective and judgment that come from practical experience with a variety of business clients and legal and financial colleagues.  Neither can practicing solo.  Small firms that do sophisticated legal work and large firms are the only places I know of where this kind of experience is readily available to anyone who wants - and is willing to do what it takes - to grab it.

Ron:  With the media laser focus on what happens in BigLaw, what do we really know about the abilities of the hundreds of thousands who practice in firms of 5 or less lawyers?

Debra:  Speaking from the standpoint of a business client, we have neither the time nor the money nor the inclination to interview, discern the relative skills of, or try out any of these thousands.  If they can find a way to demonstrate their fitness and suitability to handle our matters - as the "BigLaw refugee" firms can and do - we'll hire them, but otherwise we don't need them.  Even if they're superior to BigLaw, which has not been my experience, the cost-benefit ratio of determining that is out of whack for a business client.  Going with BigLaw's proven track record for delivering results and negotiating mutually beneficial cost & service arrangements with them is the efficient, cost-effective choice, as well as the path of least resistance.

From the standpoint of a new LS grad, how is he going to determine outside the ranks of BigLaw where the mentoring and training will be first-rate and where it will falter?  Say what you will about BigLaw, virtually no one who succeeds and remains in that environment is a poor lawyer with only one area of experience.  The same cannot be said of every lawyer practicing on his own.  It would be a craps shoot to pick a mentor from among those ranks.

Let's not forget, too, that slick ambulance chasers do as much to harm the reputation of the profession as smug BigLaw fatcats - and there are more of the former.  A knee-jerk bias against BigLaw is as flawed as a knee-jerk bias for it.