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Law Practice Management

Law Firm Apprenticeships Could Cause Recruiting Problems, Critics Say

Posted Jun 30, 2009 7:11 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Clients may like the new apprenticeship programs being tried by a few law firms, but associates taking a pay cut to participate may not be as enthusiastic.

Carter Phillips, managing partner of Sidley Austin's Washington, D.C., office, tells the National Law Journal that law students interviewing for jobs may be unwilling to give up the money. "If you're a top-flight law student and you talk to one firm offering $80,000 or $100,000 to take extra classes and then you talk to another firm offering $160,000 to do work you can bill to a client, I don't see that as much of a choice," he said.

Howrey managing partner Robert Ruyak disagrees. His firm announced last week that associates participating in its new apprenticeship program will earn $100,000 the first year and $125,000 the next year, along with a $25,000 bonuses to start and another $25,000 to complete the training. The firm is hiring 20 associates to participate, down from 27 the previous year. During the two-year training period, they will attend classes, shadow partners and get additional experience from pro bono work or secondments to clients.

Ruyak says the program will keep new associates away from the grunt work of document review, which will be handled by staff attorneys. Associates will do less client work during their training, and when they do handle client matters, it may not be billed to the clients. "The old model is broken," he told the NLJ.

Other law firms that have or are adopting apprentice programs include Drinker Biddle & Reath of Philadelphia; labor law firm Ford & Harrison; Frost Brown Todd, with offices in Ohio and Kentucky; and Strasburger & Price in Dallas.

Howrey expects the apprentice program to cost between $3 million and $4 million, including lost billable hours and training costs, the NLJ says. But the firm’s first-year salary costs will drop from $4.16 million to $2.5 million.

Comments

1.

B. McLeod
Jun 30, 2009 7:28 AM CST

Wow, has Carter Phillips been on Mars since last September, or what?

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2.

Anon
Jun 30, 2009 7:55 AM CST

Consigning experienced attorneys to document review while paying unskilled kids an equal amount to be 4Ls is likewise a broken model.

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3.

fed up
Jun 30, 2009 10:20 AM CST

Apprenticeship, intern, resident, call it what you like, newly graduated lawyers are dangerous to clients for a number of reasons, especially those who go solo.  They make mistakes that cost clients money and worse.  Lawyers should be required to do a residency for the same reasons required of doctors.  This is especially true of solos.

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4.

D. McKeever
Jul 1, 2009 5:23 AM CST

This is by no means a novel idea. This model has operated in the UK for many years and is, in fact, compulsory in order for ‘trainee solicitors’ to qualify as lawyers. The top London firms place enormous emphasis and invest considerable sums of money in providing a two-year training contract that equips their most junior lawyers with the skills (and confidence) required to kick-start a successful career in law. Each trainee will normally be required to spend 6 months in 4 separate departments within the firm (one of which must usually be corporate or finance based and another which must offer a minimum amount of contentious experience). The larger firms offer trainees the opportunity to spend at least one of these 6-month ‘seats’ on secondment to a client or international office. Trainee salaries are, of course, slightly lower than newly qualified lawyer rates, however, candidates would do well to focus more on the benefits of a well engineered training programme and the opportunity to work in various departments (and indeed jurisdictions) rather than simply being first to earn top dollar.

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5.

thinker
Jul 1, 2009 5:32 AM CST

If you ran a big law firm, and you could put a kid to read 10000 documents, who doesnt know a fax for roofing supplies from the smoking gun document, and then bill for every hour the poor fool spent pouring over every single word at $300 per, wouldn’t you rather do that than have a pro sit for 3 hours with a kid and show him how to get rid of 8000 of those docs right away and winnow the pile down to 100 where you read and re-read.  Sure those three hours might cost the client $1000 each but the final bill would be 1/10 of what it would be the other way.

There is no class in document review in law school.  You need to be shown what to look for.  New graduates sometimes don’t even know how files work. 
In truth, a new lawyer needs compete supervision unless he is very experienced in business already.

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6.

Rising 3L
Jul 1, 2009 6:43 AM CST

I think this is a brilliant idea.  Law students do not come out of law school prepared to practice law.  There’s a steep learning curve.

Also, biglaw salaries had gotten over-inflated.  When entry-level biglaw salaries started making the jump from $130k to $160k, I got worried.  The increase made little sense (were freshly-minted lawyers suddenly worth $30k more a year?) and in order for it to be sustained, there would have to be a magnificent (and sustained) increase in biglaw firms’ revenue. 

Given the number of firms which have gone under in the past several months, there’s something really appealing about a lawfirm which considers long-term sustainability and not just short-term competition.

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7.

Netochka Nezvanova
Jul 1, 2009 8:01 AM CST

Did my “apprenticeship” while I was still in school - summer internship between 2L and 3L, then paid Law Clerk during 3L year.  Summer off for the Bar.  Back as a Law Clerk until Bar results came out.  Sworn-in in December, as of January a new Associate who already knows the firm’s policies and procedures, has client relationships already, and knows how to work with office staff. 

Internship was for school credit, so free for the firm; Law Clerks paid hourly much less than 1st year Associate.  Hit the ground running.  Then don’t waste 2 years post-Bar learning all this stuff. 

Everyone is happy - firm, new Associate, and most importantly, clients.  Why don’t more firms do this?

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8.

Donald
Jul 1, 2009 8:30 AM CST

Maybe law schools need to cut law school to two years and after first-year required courses (contracts, torts, etc.), focus on the actual practice of law during the second year.  Firms would likely still need to conduct their own training of new associates, but the process would go more quickly.  Of course, law schools would never willingly give up that third year of tuition.  And, in theory, law students can load up on trial ad and other real-world type courses during their second and third years of law school.

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9.

tim
Jul 1, 2009 8:44 AM CST

Be honest

We all go to law school to make the $$$$.  I am going to work wherever they pay me the most money.  If they offer 100 and the guy down the street offers 160k….the 100 won’t even get my resume.

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10.

B. McLeod
Jul 1, 2009 9:23 AM CST

I like to make adequate money, but have generally not made professional decisions purely on the basis of where I could get the most money.  I don’t think most of my colleagues have done that either.  People who actually do things that way are likely to land first at BigLaw, only to leave after a few years of being completely miserable.  There comes a point where “more” has only marginal utility, and, as many have found, when your only rule is “more,” “more” is never enough.

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11.

Anon
Jul 1, 2009 12:12 PM CST

Fine. But cut law school from 3 to 1.5 or 2 years. This is like the traineeship model in the UK, only there you become a trainee after 5 years of university, instead of this proposed 7 years of schooling before an apprenticeship.
Practical learning is well and good, but why go to law school and rack up our debts only to come out and get an “internship”?

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12.

John
Jul 1, 2009 12:17 PM CST

To #3…

I think then perhaps new solos should do an internship with mr “Fed up” because it’s obvious from his posting that he’s the poo who’s never made a mistake in his life. 

How about you genius… did you “do a residency” with another lawyer every time you entered or handled a case in a new practice area?

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13.

B. McLeod
Jul 1, 2009 12:38 PM CST

I think “Fed up” has noted in the past that he is not a lawyer, but often, his posts accurately reflect valid criticisms of legal services delivery, from the perspective of a non-lawyer.  Such criticisms and viewpoints can be valuable because most clients served by the average lawyer will be non-lawyers in various lines of business.

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14.

fed up
Jul 2, 2009 8:02 AM CST

to #12, to the contrary, sometimes mistakes seem to be my only source of learning.  I’m a non-lawyer thinking about how to create a business system that is an improvement to the current state of dysfunction.  About 20 years ago when my business law professor was jailed and disbarred over a $50K trust fund shortage, I thought it was a rare aberration.  But it has been downhill since, sorry to say.

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15.

thinker
Jul 2, 2009 8:24 AM CST

Hey Tim,

Suppose they offered you 200 grand to drop trou at Chippendales?

You ahould be a bit more selective, it is the rest of your life afterall.

Maybe lawyers make TOO much money altogether and thats why we have so many stinkers.
And there are sure a lot of stinkers out there.

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16.

myrtle
Jul 2, 2009 1:16 PM CST

I did document review as a staff attorney, supervised by a smug, overpaid, inexperienced, but well-dressed associate.  I am happy to report that she recently lost her job and very large salary.  I have moved on to a small firm and am an associate.

Big law is a sick, sick structure.  The only winners are the equity partners, at least financially.  As people, they are lacking quite a bit….........

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17.

B. McLeod
Jul 4, 2009 8:05 PM CST

I know what you mean by the “happy to report.”  It’s like a slender ray of reason returning to a weary world.  If the grossly moronic salaries weren’t so far in excess of any possible real value, these “associates” would not be so completely vulnerable to layoffs.  As it is, reality has come calling, and posers are falling as wheat before the scythe.

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18.

Rath
Jul 6, 2009 12:25 PM CST

Tim’s statement reflects so much of what is wrong with the legal industry today.  There was a time when most, if not all people pursuing a career in law did it primarily because the practice of law was something they wanted to pursue in and of itself and salary was a secondary consideration.

Today it seems far too many of those pursuing a career in law are doing it for all the wrong reasons which in turn explains why so many of them are unhappy as lawyers and ultimately cease practicing law within 10-15 years.

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