June 08, 2009
The legal profession ain't what it used to be
Tough times at venerable law firms, with blueblood names like White & Case laying off hundreds of associates -- and partners, too.
The New York Times covers the bloodbath, noting that firms in existence since before the Civil War have shuttered their doors.
But I found this passage most interesting -- and a bit dismaying, too.
The gentleman's profession of the law is becoming a vestige of the past, removed enough from reality to be remembered, like phone booths or fedoras.
Philip K. Howard, a senior partner at Covington & Burling, another multinational firm, may be the closest thing to a gentleman lawyer that one is likely to find these days. He is courtly, white-haired, civic-minded and blessed with an aristocratic pair of arching eyebrows. While he declined to speak directly about White & Case ("I'm not really interested in the business of the law"), he touched on the firm's current troubles by suggesting that as the bottom line increases in importance, the traditional role of the lawyer as a trusted counselor slips away.
"To the extent that lawyers are simply churning out the same problems one after the other and are treated as factors of production to be laid off or not because of market forces or marginal declines in profitability," he said, "the emotional and professional commitment that goes along with being an adviser and a solver of problems begins to diminish."
The reality of being a lawyer often enjoys only the most tenuous relationship to how the profession is portrayed in the arts and popular culture.
But attorneys like Mr. Howard are living reminders of a time when becoming a lawyer held the promise -- or at least the possibility -- of a more rewarding career, based more upon sound advice and counsel than the soul-crushing grind of billable hours.
The big law firm never really held any appeal for me; they've always struck me as the last example of the plantation economy, associates laboring in the fields while the senior partners sit on the veranda sipping mint juleps.
I can't help but think that law school enrollments would drop dramatically if would-be Atticus Finches learned how mechanical and impersonal the profession truly is.
Posted by Mike Lief at June 8, 2009 09:49 AM
| TrackBack