According to Peter Sloane, Project Team Leader on the Law Firm Committee, many of the Annual Meeting sessions tend to focus on in-house counsel. However, the Law Firm Committee believes that private practice lawyers would benefit from sessions that address the unique challenges that they face.
One of this morning sessions, An Insider’s View of the Challenges of Law Firm Management, will be an advanced level program discussing the challenges that face private practice lawyers. The session will discuss a range of issues, from integrating new technologies to dealing with reciprocity for foreign associates. As Sloane notes, lawyers are trained to practice law, but as they progress in their career they must acquire a management skillset.
“This is an advanced level program so we’re going to avoid superficial discussions; if you’re in a law firm, you owe it to yourself to come to learn more about these important issues,” he says. “Even if you’re an associate, you’ll be facing these issues very soon.”
A concurrent session will address one specific area of law firm management: mentoring associates. In Paving the Way for the Next Generation of Trademark Lawyers in the 21st Century, the panelists will discuss how the evolution of legal practice has made training the next generation of lawyers more difficult and what they can do to help nurture young talent.
Sloane explains that he spent much of his time as a young lawyer cloistered in the library, reading cases and drafting memos. However, junior associates today are rarely given this opportunity. “Besides, a lot of law firms don’t even have libraries anymore,” he jokes.
At the same time, clients do not enjoy the prospect of paying a firm to train those young lawyers, which further disincentivizes partners from dedicating more energy to mentoring. However, Sloane argues that there are simple long-term benefits to dedicating more effort to training, namely developing the talent that every firm needs to sustain itself.
An afternoon session, Reaching Equilibrium: How In-house and Outside Counsel Can Achieve Consensus on Reasonable Legal Fees, will tackle one of the most persistent challenges in the profession. As Law Firm Committee Vice-Chair Abigail Rubinstein explains, the session will present views from both sides of the equation.
“We’re going to have two pairs of outside and inside counsel, with lawyers from 7-11 and Intel, and they’re going to talk about how they make their relationships work,” she says.
Though some have cited the financial crisis as providing additional pressure on companies to lower costs, Rubinstein says that inside counsel have always had budget restrictions. As such, the challenge of meeting clients’ costs and service expectations is not a new phenomenon.
Though these sessions may be aimed at outside counsel, Sloane explains that the purpose is to benefit in-house counsel as well. Helping law firms improve their management and training programs and providing insight into the needs of clients will also benefit clients in the long run.
