“I think the mystique of being a lawyer is a little bit gone now,” said John Snyder of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal. Still, he believes that both clients and attorneys have benefited from the evolution of law from profession to business. “People were extremely intimidated by lawyers back in the day,” said Snyder. “Now, we’re very approachable. That’s good, I think.”
“I believe that the better that you are at the business of it, the more professional you are and can be,” said Smith. “People are doing a better job now than they were 30 years ago.”
Kristie Orme of McDowell Rice said she had seen, especially in the past 18 months, clients becoming more litigious. “I think cash flow is a big part of it. I think before, the convenience factor, getting it resolved, was an attractive business feature for them, and I think that now money is a little tighter, it’s easier for them to decide to roll the dice and take a close-call case to trial.”
Although there are many aspects of professionalism worth preserving, Ben Mann argued, there are some seeming features of old-style professionalism that are less productive. “We were more genteel. We were more clubby. We were more insular. We were more exclusive. If you talked to women and minorities and say, ‘Wouldn’t you like to see the good old days of 1960, when everybody in the law firm was a white male?’ I think not.”
Mark Foster of Stinson Morrison sees a threat to professional standards in the client-driven demand for speed. “When I first started practicing,” said Foster, “we had the luxury, or seeming luxury, of doing draft after draft. Now clients call you at 9 o’clock in the morning and expect an answer by 1 in the afternoon.” Foster contended that attorneys have become more businesslike in order to service clients in the time frames they are demanding.
Partners and Associates
A question that Herb Kohn raised was whether a “new paradigm” had emerged in the relationship between partners and associates in law firms. He wondered what associates were being told when they came in the firm, when they might expect partnership, what happens if there is less work than in the past.
“If clients are paying for the partner, they want the partner there at the bargaining table,” said Greg Goheen of McAnany, Van Cleave and Phillips. The downturn of the past few years has meant less training for associates and fewer opportunities to learn how to do things the right way, to grow in the practice, to learn how to interact with clients, he said. “I think that loss is unfortunate,” added Goheen. “Clients are not seeing the benefit that [associate involvement] would give them in the long run, in terms of education.”
Mark Foster agreed that the problem had been exacerbated in recent years, but that it had been developing for years before that. To compensate, Stinson Morrison Hecker started a training program that includes a three-year series of courses “to get everybody the opportunity to do the things they used to get to do automatically when they came on as lawyers.”
John Snyder described the integration of associates into a practice “a constant struggle” with clients. One thing his firm was doing to compensate was hiring associates with experience. “It makes a whole lot more sense to hire someone who’s a couple of years out of law school from one of these other fine law firms,” Snyder said only half-joking, “and I’m sure you’re doing the same with us.”