Students Aim for BigLaw Change

Associates

Group’s protest letter results in only one meeting—but one that mattered

December 2007 Issue
By G.M. Filisko

Andrew Canter. Photo by Patrik Argast

Last April, two Stanford Law School students sent a letter to 100 of the country’s largest law firms urging better working conditions for associates.

Six responded.

The failure of BigLaw to acknowledge the letter might seem to signify indifference to emerging issues of work-life balance. But there’s much more to the story.

The letter was written by Andrew Canter and Craig Segall on behalf of a group they founded called Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession. It urged firms to move toward transactional billing, to reduce billable-hour requirements and to implement balanced hours policies.

Of the handful of responses, “a few hiring partners reached out to see the gist of our concerns apart from the letter; they were curious how they could position their firm to best attract law students,” recalls Canter, now a 3L. (Segall has since graduated and says he can’t comment on the letter because he’s working for the judiciary.)

Another firm’s hiring partner called to argue, Canter says, stressing that it’s possible to gauge how a firm will treat its associates by working there during the summer. (Canter doesn’t agree.)

Then there was Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, the only firm Canter would identify by name, which invited him to discuss work-life issues with Ralph Baxter, its chairman, and Tom Coleman, partner in charge of attorney development. So in May he met with them at their San Francisco offices, and by all accounts, the encounter was a success.

SEEING REAL RESULTS

During the meeting, canter suggested that Coleman contact the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

Coleman did, and Orrick has since become a founding member of the center’s Project for Attorney Retention, which works to stem attrition by promoting work-life balance and the advancement of women.

This hook-up represents the letter’s “tremendous effect,” says Joan C. Williams, who heads the center and is co-director of PAR. “The fact that top students at a top law school, at a very vulnerable time in their careers, sent the letter is the talk of the legal town,” she says.

Despite low law firm response to the letter, Williams says that hiring partners report they’ve noticed a rise in questions about work-life balance among students applying for jobs. The letter, she says, is “making students feel safer to be up front that they have concerns about work-life balance.”

And a change in strategy by the fledgling group may help even more. Using data that firms provided to the National Association for Law Placement regarding diversity, work-life programs and billable-hour requirements, Canter’s group has created a new system of rankings that may help students better evaluate which firms walk the walk on these emerging issues.

In October, the group released its rankings of firms in New York City and Washington, D.C. Ratings for firms in Boston, Chicago and San Francisco are under development.

“Diversity, work-life programs and billable hours are reported by firms, but nobody has aggregated or ranked them to see the high or low performers,” he says. “We’re doing that.”

In addition, the group plans to use the rankings to pressure elite schools and large companies to limit recruiting and business opportunities for firms that fall at the low end of the scale.

“Law students have a choice of where they go, and they can choose a firm that’ll pay them a lot of money. But they can also encourage best practices by going to firms at the top of the list,” says Canter. “In five years, we’d like to see law firms on the bottom of our rankings understand that they’re going to lose talent by remaining on the bottom, and take steps to improve billable hours and attrition rates.”

And maybe then they’ll respond.

Sidebar

Web Extras:

Search Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession's rankings of firms

Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession blog

"Cleary Gottlieb Tops Diversity Rankings," ABAJournal.com, Oct. 10, 2007

"Coalition Seeks to Change Big Law Firms," ABAJournal.com, Sept. 7, 2007

Comments

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Posted by Get Real - Dec 14, 2007 02:08 pm CDT

Would Mr. Canter and the rest of his followers agree to reduced pay for their balanced lifestyles? $160,000 base salary is a lot of money to pay an apprentice and one who likely had no prior work experience. If billable hours were 1600 per year, would these same associates from top law schools accept $120,000 to start? I doubt it, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.
Posted by H.V. Baxendale - Dec 14, 2007 06:08 pm CDT

I’d bet yes. This is a philosophy similar to reduced pay and hours popular with women, especially young mothers. An even better approach is your 1600/$120K with bonuses up to $160 based on additional hours. But those who elect the lower option will be seen as on the “slack track” and left behind by the overachievers--not fair, but reality. To management at Biglaw, associates are fungible billing units. Why would a factory buy a machine that runs on 75% capacity when for 25% more cost it can get 100% output? Biglaw can sell all the hours the associates “produce.” Some profession, this.
So--would they take it? yes. Would it solve the problem? no, not at biglaw.
Posted by TC - Dec 14, 2007 07:22 pm CDT

Responding to Get Real (#1): I know for a fact many associates would accept less pay for fewer hours. But there are certainly a sizable group that would not be interested in that trade-off.

My understanding is that some firms (not mine) have started on various forms of a two-tier system. Tier 1 works more and gets paid more. But, from what I hear, the problem with many of those two-tier plans is that those that opt for the fewer-hour track are viewed as second-class citizens. The partnership thinks, “Well, if they are serious about this profession and working for the firm, why do they want to work less.” It’s viewed as a lack of commitment.
Posted by ML - Dec 17, 2007 11:21 am CDT

Many new associates would definitely work for less pay. I just graduated (top 25%) from a highly ranked law school. I am now working in a small town with one other attorney. My reason is not because I didn’t like the big city I lived in, nor because I wouldn’t like woking in a larger firm. My reason is that I was not willing to “sell my soul to the devil.” I work to pay for my life, so I must have some life left over after work. BTW, I’m making about 1/6 what I would have at Biglaw, but I love it!