Biglaw

Law Firms, Don’t Throw It All Away

Law firm leaders seem hell-bent on undoing all the progress we’ve made as a profession.

By  
on
sad lawyer litigator in front of building

(via Getty Images)

Earlier this year, Bloomberg Law surveyed over 1,500 lawyers to ask them about working habits and job satisfaction. Roughly 59% of attorneys reported being “satisfied” with their work conditions — a number Bloomberg’s researchers considered pleasantly, surprisingly high. To which I had to say, “Seriously?” More than four out of 10 members of our profession aren’t satisfied with their jobs, and we’re calling that a win?

Look, I understand statistics mean different things depending on their contexts. A baseball player who gets a hit on 59% of at-bats is a Hall of Famer, while a player who only catches 59% of the balls thrown their way won’t be playing much longer. But it doesn’t seem like a stretch to say that 59% job satisfaction qualifies our industry for a big, fat F. It’s only our abysmally low expectations for ourselves that can make those kinds of numbers seem good.

Job dissatisfaction can be poisonous, both to individuals and teams. Dissatisfied lawyers leave their jobs or quit the profession altogether. Their unhappiness can leech joy from otherwise satisfied people, or outright turn a team dynamic sour. As law firm leaders, we want our people feeling happy and fulfilled. Our firms need to be places our people can aspire to be more than they are; not places people aspire to get the heck out of at 5 p.m. It’s our obligation to figure out ways to engage our attorneys and give them the satisfaction that they need to flourish.

A Way Out

Bloomberg did offer a tantalizing idea of how to address this satisfaction gap. One of the correlations it noted was that the attorneys who reported they were overall satisfied with their situation tended to have more years in the practice under their belts than their less-satisfied colleagues.

I don’t think this is just a case of professional Stockholm Syndrome, where spending more time in an unpleasant situation makes you come around to actually liking it. Rather, it makes sense to me that the practice itself tends to change the longer we’re in it, and those changes are what bring that sense of satisfaction.

Sponsored

Consider how most of our careers in private practice began as junior associates. Most of us started out not working on grand strategies or courtroom dramatics but with basic research and writing. That kind of work is essential to an associate’s growth as an attorney, and it helps that associate to develop the trust of their senior associates and early clients. But it also is work that an associate rarely has much sense of control or agency over. The work is defined by the senior attorney, the deadlines are set, and it just needs to get done.

As junior attorneys gain experience, their agency over their work experience increases. The work they’re handed covers a broader spectrum, and they often have more ways they can choose to accomplish their goals. Eventually, young attorneys start calling the shots on their own cases, and perhaps passing work down. As an attorney becomes more experienced, and especially as they grow their book of business, their ability to shape their day-to-day working experience increases exponentially.

How can this be done in practice? Providing lawyers with more control over their work environment is a big step toward the goal, but certainly not the only part. Agency increases with access to information. Businesses and leaders who trust their employees enough to share more information will find they get a more engaged workforce that cares about the investment. Leaders can increase this sense of agency by listening to employees to get feedback and then integrate what they hear into decisions. Workers in turn feel more invested in the firm or business and that they’re more than just hamsters running in wheels.

I think it’s that increased sense of self-determination that is at the heart of much of the job satisfaction we feel — or don’t — in this industry. The more say people have over how their day-to-day experience is shaped, the more they’re going to tend to enjoy that experience. As law firm leaders, we should be doing what we can to increase our teams’ sense of personal agency and flexibility.

If increasing employees’ sense of control can be accomplished with relatively small steps, why are so many firms falling all over themselves to run in the other direction?

Sponsored

 Don’t Break What We’re Already Fixing

As I’ve discussed in this space before, COVID-19 has shaken our profession to its core and caused our industry to move as fast as I’ve ever seen it toward embracing new technologies and more innovative ways of doing business. Associates in particular have responded overwhelmingly positively to these changes. Many see the practice of law as finally catching up to promises that it’s been making for decades.

Yet law firm leaders continue to insist on snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. Flexibility programs are being rolled back. Law firm leaders that held Zoom meetings with staff members and associates for a few months last year are reverting back to the silent, close-to-the-vest formula that’s defined the legal industry for so long. Firms aren’t inviting feedback as much — perhaps because they won’t like what they hear. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to redefine what it means to be a lawyer, and many leadership teams are opting for “exactly what we used to do — but we can also Zoom with our clients now.”

Why are we throwing away our chance to dramatically improve the experience of some of the 41 percent of attorneys who aren’t satisfied with their professional circumstances? This is a complicated question, but the answer may start with looking at what current law firm partners had to sacrifice to earn their positions. They likely spent 50-plus hours per week in the office for years on end. They likely had work dumped on them late on a Friday as associates. They likely missed kids’ birthdays and vacations. Their sense of agency was beaten back by the law firm hierarchical culture. Although they’ve become more senior and have earned more agency, at some level deep down, there may be a conscious or subconscious feeling that it’s unfair that the next generation can get similar types of control and freedom without going through the same hardships.

These same partners are also likely reaping significant financial rewards in their position, so there’s a bias toward keeping the structure that has contributed to their success the same — fearing that a fundamental change might jeopardize it. If it ain’t broken for me, why fix it?

Happiness Is A Choice

Yet for all of the understandable reasons why law firm leaders and partners may want to revert to old ways, the fact is that the misery that permeates the law firm experience for many isn’t a necessary feature. For many firms, it’s a choice. Unhappiness doesn’t have to be the default in the practice of law. We’ve always had the power to make the experience of our profession better than it is.

For all of the horrible tragedy that COVID-19 has brought to the world, it’s also created an opportunity for firms to embrace a business model that is more consistent with a happy, satisfied lifestyle. Smart firms will use the COVID-19 era as not just a catalyst new ways of working but also as an opportunity to embrace new policies that improve employees’ sense that they matter, are a valued part of the organization, and have some control over their lives. They will embrace flexible working where possible. They will share more information. They will consistently communicate more. They will seek feedback from employees at all levels — and act on it.

Firms that embrace these changes, capitalize on the progress they’ve already made, and move further into the future will be the ones that attract top talent and outpace the competition. The others will scratch their heads about their diminishing stature and continue to pat themselves on the back for achieving 59% job satisfaction.

 James Goodnow is the CEO and managing partner of NLJ 250 firm Fennemore Craig. At age 36, he became the youngest known chief executive of a large law firm in the U.S. He holds his JD from Harvard Law School and dual business management certificates from MIT. He’s currently attending the Cambridge University Judge Business School (U.K.), where he’s working toward a master’s degree in entrepreneurship. James is the co-author of Motivating Millennials, which hit number one on Amazon in the business management new release category. You can connect with James on Twitter (@JamesGoodnow) or by emailing him at James@JamesGoodnow.com.

Topics

, , ,