Chuck Newton

Of Candy And Law Firms

I do not quote other experts as much as I use to, and I need to do it more. Let me start by directing you to Marrilyn Astin Tarlton's article posted on Attorney At Work entitled Laffy Taffy or Hershey Kiss?

It is a hoot of a title, but it makes a point. You as a lawyer or part of a law firm have to distinguish yourself in ways that really matter to the people, groups, companies, entities, organizations or associations you might wish to hire you.

I like her point: "I can hear you developing your argument now ... 'Our lawyers went to better schools. We office in an historic low-rise building, not a skyscraper. We use purple for our website, for goodness sake!' Alas, as it turns out, those are all features that mean little, if anything, to your client".

The point is that the lawyer and the law firm distinguish themselves in ways that are important to them, and not the potential client. They market to their taste and interest and not to that of their clients. At least that is my take on the comment.

As Ms. Tarlton says, "Become a firm that is uniquely … something. Be extraordinary to a group of clients who want exactly what you’ve got. Patterning your practice after every other firm won’t get you to the next step. Think differently. Create something unique. It’s what they want".

I personally think that lawyers and law firms subtly distinguish themselves. The problem is they distinguish themselves from their perceived competition (Oops, I meant colleagues). To most consumers, these iterations have all of the distinguishing factors of the differences between Dr. Seuss' Thing One and Thing Two.

Here is what I like to say. Clients do not hire lawyers or law firms. They generally do not want anything to do with lawyers or law firms. They do have problems or need solutions and they will hire someone to deal with those. Most ways that law firms try to distinguish themselves is in subtle ways that say, "My lawyers can beat your lawyers". That might please a few psychopaths, but few others. And really, who wants to work with or for a psychopath? Talk about being dissatisfied with the practice of law.

I have stated this in the past again and again. I will do it here as well. Clients do not care if you are in a high rise building or working from your home. They do not care if you drink coffee or tea. They do not care if you buy suits at Men's Warehouse or Needless Markups. They do not really care if you graduated from Harvard Law or Bob's Really Big Law School (formally Fred's). What they care about is that they have a problem to solve and that you can identify that problem and have the expertise and empathy to help them solve it. And, nothing in the description about how good your are, where you work, how you work, what you wear, on what side you comb your hair, or whether you wear boxers or briefs matters in the least.

If what you do as a lawyer does not speak upfront to the specific problem with which your clients need help, you might be making yourself feel superior, but from a client centric standpoint you are spinning your wheels.

It is all about your practice niche. It is all about speaking to your practice niche. It is all about speaking effectively to those in need of your practice niche.

I, as the consumer, do not care if you are a life long resident of Montgomery County, Texas. I do not care if you graduated from The University of Texas. I do not care if you have WestLaw instead of the old law library. Order of the Coif? What in the hell is that, and do they or do they not believe in God? The one I love is the statement that goes something like, "been involved as first chair in over 100 jury trials". Really? Who knows the meaning of first chair, and the one thing I am trying to avoid is going in front of a jury with anybody. That sounds painful. That sounds prohibitively expensive. Don't you know how to settle a case? Your cases must be all about you and not about me. And, I do not care if you received the Bladda Bladda Bladda Award in law school. Leave it with the selection group of the law firm that hires you.

Each of these things tells me nothing about my problem and how you are able to deal with it effectively. It is all about you as a lawyer. All it tells me is that everything is about you. Who wants to be represented by some amorphous attorney or law firm that is into itself?

What is it about you that will help me? And, let me give you a hint. It is not where you placed in your graduating class in law school. It is not that you are a member of the Texas Bar College or are licensed to practice all four federal districts in Texas. I do care a little bit about your beautiful family, but do not take it too far.

Well, I am getting cranky, I guess, so I will end here. But, Ms. Tarlton is right, if not as crude as I might be. What is that distinguishes you in a way that can actually be of some help to me?

Cooley Law School Opening New Campus In Tampa Bay, Florida

We have posted great, good and bad things about Thomas M. Cooley Law School.

Click here to see our general discussion of the law school.

We've talked about Cooley in terms of the meaningless of the U.S. News rankings.

We have been kind enough to disagree with Cooley raising its tuition to buy the naming rights to a minor-league stadium in Michigan.

And, we have got to admit that we have been a little perplexed over the years as to why would Cooley opened 4 separate campuses in the same state of Michigan. Michigan? Like that is the state everyone around the country secretly desires to spend the next three to four years of their lives?

Cooley has to be one of most innovative law schools around, if your objective is to get a law degree, pass the bar, and practice law without a bunch of high fives and butt slaps about the prestige of the place. Cooley is also a not-for-profit law school chain of law, unlike for-profit law schools of the The InfiLaw System.

Cooley, like every other law school in the country, is letting tuition get out of hand. Currently, it is at $34,340.00 per year, but the school does give away a lot of money in the way of scholarships.

Cooley has to have one of the best websites of any law school. It is upfront about its tuition, costs and financing, as is not true for a good many law schools in which you have to dig for the information. You can instantly get a feel as to whether admission is possible, and what your likely scholarship might be, if any. Let us just say the website is content rich and most law school websites are content poor, or at best mediocre.

Generally, Cooley is about options. You can, for example attend any campus you wish, attend classes when it is best for you, and you can start your law school career anytime throughout the year. Very few, if any law schools, offer you this degree of flexibility.

Now, Cooley is offering even more alternatives.  The ABA Council on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has acquiesced to Cooley's application to open a new Tampa Bay-area campus in Riverview, Florida.

The campus will begin offering evening classes in May 2012, morning classes in September 2012, and afternoon classes in 2013.

Tampa Bay is great because, although law school can be time consuming, it does not mean you are dead to the world, or that you need to be cloistered for three or four years. There is a lot to do in the Tampa Bay metro area.

The Greater Tampa Bay area has just over 4 million residents.  It is home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (football), Tampa Bay Lightning (hockey), Tampa Bay Storm (arena football), Tampa Bay Rays (minor league baseball), and the FC Tampa Bay Rowdies (North American Soccer League).

Tampa Bay has been ranked by Forbes as the 5th best outdoor city in the nation.  The Washington Square News ranked Tampa as a top city for "twenty-somethings".

Regardless of your politics, Tampa has been tapped to host the 2012 Republican National Convention.

Cooley is traditionally good about given people an opportunity to attend law school who might not otherwise have that opportunity. The school tends to rank college GPA higher than most other schools in selecting students. Their class size is large enough for the school to take some chances. And, it is the champion of providing non-traditional education options, such as weekend law school and evening classes for those who have to work in order to afford law school.

It will be fun to see Cooley's Tampa Bay-area campus progress. It might be an alternative for you as well, if you are considering law school.

I Beg Your Pardon, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

Or, maybe the problem is that law schools did promise their applicants a rose garden.

Maybe not in so many words, but there is a lot of commotion these days about what many believe is fudging by law schools on their employment numbers upon their students graduating.

For example, New York Law School and Thomas Cooley Law School were recently included in a class action lawsuit for this reason.

Not long ago, Thomas Jefferson School of Law was sued for the same reason.

I, myself, have complained for some time on a more anecdotal basis on what I see as blatant law school lying so as to improve their rankings.  

For example, I can tell you when my daughter graduated from law school, the famed placement office at the University of Houston Law Center did nothing more than refer her to Martindale.Com to look for a job. They tauted the promise of their placement office going in, and then did nothing either during or at the end of law school to really help, other than their counselors drawing their paychecks (paid for by substantial tuition increases).

Not to long ago I complained in this blog of the president of Saint Mary's University School of Law telling the San Antonio newspapers one thing about its graduates ability to find jobs when opposing the creation of a new public law school, than what the law school was obvious reporting to the LACS.

(On a side note, if law schools are willing to find creative ways to fib about potential employment numbers, they are even more likely to find ways to fib about LSAT scores making the entire ranking process itself a sham).

The ranking process has created, in my mind, a terrible situation in which schools, wishing to compete, spend millions of dollars to fudge up their rankings (thereby causing an unnecessary increase in tuition, as well as student and graduate poverty), and create a kind of culture of lying, which is a remedy passed along to too many of its graduates.

Law schools need to be cheaper in tuition, and they need to be impeccably honest. They need to dedicate themselves to a value education (which includes very much the cheapest cost of obtaining a law degree), and they need to tell U.S. News were to stick their rankings.

1st Tier?  2nd Tier?  4th Tier? No tier? Who cares?

The only thing that matters and should matter is the costs to students to become lawyers and the bar passage rate. In short, are you more likely than not to stay solvent as a result of your education, and you will be able to practice law when you graduate?

So, I recognize and have agonized about the state of our law schools more than most. But, to those that use this as an excuse to say that a legal education is not worthwhile, you are simply wrong. I am equally as tired of seeing posts that suggest that a legal education or the legal profession, as a result, is a sham.

Law school is a valuable and beneficial education, even if you never end up practicing law. My sister, for example, has a law degree and works for the VA.

There are problems, not the least of which are law schools that refuse to accept good students just because they have not mastered the meaningless LSAT. Speaking of NYLS, Cooley and Thomas Jefferson, they provide access to motivated students who want to be lawyers. Did they over promise? Did they promise people a rose garden? Maybe. I do not know. Do they charge too much? That is a problem for most every law school these days. But, Cooley and New York Law School have good bar passage rates, which is a figure that cannot be easily fudged, and Thomas Jefferson competes in the state with the most difficult bar exam to pass.

These schools fill needs.

In law we learn that disclosure is everything, and that is obviously where the problem lies. Law is very much an entrepreneurial profession. Schools have become too much like late night infomercials in regard to selling their benefits. The actual benefits are great. You get a profession and possibly live a rewarding life. You get an opportunity to succeed -- not a guarantee.

Law schools do not necessarily paint too rosy of picture as they emphasize the wrong things. They sell everyone like they will be the upper 10% of the graduates in law school without giving them any of the tools or information to understand the likelihood of the possibility. Let's just say that 90% of all students cannot be in the top 10%. Law schools give too little training to the lower 90% on what it will take for each to start and build their own law practices or other entrepreneurial endeavor. Despite touting clinics, there is very little practical training in law schools.

In the meantime, although it dates me considerably, maybe everyone should listen to Lynn Anderson, below.

 

You Should Not Have To Retrench

I understand we can all cut back in hard times.  But, what I am saying is that if you feel the need to retrench, you were not running your law practice as you should have been operating it in the first place.

Retrench constitutes a race to sustaintially reduce costs and spending in response to economic difficulty.

The bigger question you should be asking yourself is why did it take a jolt to the economy or your firm's business to decide that maybe you could do without that receptionist, or replace WestLaw with a cheaper service, or reduce the amount of space you have under lease, or move your practice home?

The tragedy is no that you find that you can curtail expesnes, but that you were not doing so all along.

If you can do without these things now, you could have done without them before. The question becomes, why is it that when you are making more money you believe you can simply waste it?