A Laid Off Lawyer Says Goodbye-To Life

I've never understood what it is about lawyers that causes them to believe there is no life outside of the law.

I understand BigLaw teaches this philosophy, but it's far from the truth.

When I talk to lawyers facing disbarment due to ethics violations or criminal convictions, I always ask the same question: "Have you thought of doing something else?"

I'm not a big fan of disbarred lawyers "hanging on" in law offices. For the most part, it's a bad idea mentally and practically. For the most part, it's the first thing they think of doing post-practicing lawyer life.

A legal education is beneficial in many non-legal fields. Many successful business owners went to law school and never practiced law, or left practice to go into something else. Although I understand a practicing lawyer believing after a good number of years that there is nothing else they can do, it's more a factor of self-perception than reality.

Today I read that a lawyer who was laid off at a big firm committed suicide at the firm's office. The title of this post links to the story. This was not a young BigLaw with little knowledge of the real world of practicing law.

This was a 59-year-old Yale Law School graduate. He was in charge of the firm's Supreme Court and appellate practice group. Prior to his BigLaw job, he worked in the Department of Justice as a senior political appointee. Everything about his resume indicates he could have found something to do somewhere else. This was a lawyer who argued 16 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He spent five years in the solicitor general's office as a staff lawyer under Justice Samuel Alito Jr. during the Reagan administration.

Apparently he left a note at home, "saying he loved his family and instructing his wife on how to handle finances and other matters." His teenage son found the note.

This was a lawyer who saw no future. He probably had serious political connections, many friends, and most likely would have been picked up by someone, somewhere. Even in this economy, someone would love to have him, as a partner, office mate, professor, advisor.

What was it that made him believe that his forced departure from one BigLaw firm was the end of his career, and he couldn't live another day?

These are the things that scare me about lawyers - the notion that if we are not practicing law, we can't exist. The notion that if we are sent out into the wilderness at any point in our career, we can't function.

While I spend a great deal of time bashing the lack of real lawyer education that is BigLaw, I can't imagine working there and being fired. The associates have no real working knowledge of the business/client side of the practice of law (as BigLaw wants it), the junior partners are tied to golden handcuffs with salaries they cannot make in small or solo practice when they first go out, and long time partners become comfortable to the point that they can go nowhere but to another BigLaw.

But with that being said, there is life outside the law. I just don't know why lawyers of all people don't understand.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com

Free Advice For Florida Bar Applicants

I'm sometimes happy to give free advice.

I'm happy to answer an email, take a quick call, or grab coffee in the courthouse and talk about a Bar issue with a fellow lawyer.

But some of these calls and email exchanges are getting a bit long and repetitive, and although I'd love to be able to spend more time working for free, my mortgage company and other obligations (paying clients) wouldn't be too happy.

So I thought I'd post some frequently asked questions and my answers. This way, in certain circumstances, I can refer people to this post.

[1] Do I need a lawyer for a Bar Admission Hearing?

Answer: Read here.

[2] Am I going to get into the Bar?

Answer: I don't know, and my opinion is not the end all be all. Your question really isn't whether you are going to get in, it's whether you can get in without having to hire a lawyer. How would you feel if I told you "yes," and the Bar said "no?"

Take a look at Rule 3-11 of the Rules of the Florida Board of Bar Examiners for a better understanding of what the Board of Bar Examiners considers "disqualifying" conduct. The admission process is a combination of your issues, your attitude, your current status, and doesn't rest on some black and white formula. If the Board of Bar Examiners doesn't think you have the Character or Fitness to practice, you're not getting in.

[3] What's the Investigative Hearing like?

It's like a hearing.

There are 3-4 people, a court reporter, someone from the Board office, you, one person selected by you, and a lawyer (if you have one).

They will ask you questions under oath, and make a decision within 7 days. You can present evidence and make a closing statement.

[4] I have so many issues. Should I [drop out of school] [withdraw my application] [forget ever being a lawyer]?

In most cases, probably not. This question though, cannot be answered with a 5 minute phone call or reading case law. You've gone this far to make a decision just based on receipt of a Notice of Hearing and a few minutes of anger.

[5] Can I just go to my hearing and tell them I'm sorry?

Sure.

[6] If I hire you and don't get in do I get my money back?

No, but when you become a lawyer you can have that policy with your clients.

[7] Can I just tell you my situation?

Sure. Once.

[8] Can I just ask you a few questions?

Sure, but not a few every couple weeks for the next 3 months.

[9] Can I not disclose this and maybe they won't find out?

Not if I'm your lawyer.

[10] If I haven't disclosed something, when should I do it?

Now.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com

Florida Law Schools Stink Up The Bar Exam, Except Stetson (the best school in Florida by far, no question)

Well, law schools love to say that they are "not a 3 year Bar Exam prep," and this year, that is certainly true.

On the February 2009 Florida Bar Exam, the 3 highest ranked schools had at least a 20% drop in the number of students passing the exam.

Here's the results

While no Florida school did better than last time, the school with the lowest percentage decline was Stetson, wonderful school that it is, training the best and brightest minds to enter the legal profession. Ahem ahem.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com

Law School: Worthless

The Legal Satyricon has this (quite long) great post: The Worthlessness of American Legal Education.

Yes, he quotes some previous comments I made here, but he adds a great deal to the discussion about the gap between legal education and the practice of law.

Read it.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com

Blogging From The Florida Board Of Bar Examiners Hearings

DATELINE: TALLAHASSEE

Sitting here in the lobby of the Doubletree Hotel in Tallahassee the evening before a few hearings before the Florida Board of Bar Examiners.

As a side note, Doubletree hotels are in my hall of shame for charging $9.95 for internet access. Time to grow up guys, stop collecting gravy.

Anyway, these hearings are at various locations throughout the year, this month, the state capitol. Four applicants tomorrow starting at 8 a.m. and hopefully ending at 10 a.m. Each hearing set for a half hour - and if it runs over, it usually means an issue has caught the attention of the examiners. The issues tomorrow are varied. Failure to disclose arrests on a law school application, failure to timely amend the Bar application, a serious car accident, and others.

What matters most in these hearings? The applicant's attitude. An applicant can have a minor issue, and commit major blunders in the hearing. Some applicants think their issues are "no big deal," and act in that manner. Big mistake.

In the lobby here I see members of the Board, casually dressed but nervous applicants awaiting tomorrow's hearings, and hotel guests having no idea that a couple dozen future lawyers are sweating it out tonight, before they sweat it out tomorrow.

After tomorrow morning, it'll be 7 days until the word is out - the applicant is a lawyer, the applicant needs a formal hearing, the applicant, well, has other issues.

Until then.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com

Florida Bar Exam Results Party, Maybe

So...... results are coming out.

Did you pass?

Part of it?

None of it?

What are you going to do now? Got a job, taking it again, giving up?

Register your results in the poll over there----------------------------------->

Comment below with your thoughts, good, and bad.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com

Prosecutorial Misconduct Price Tag: $600,000

I don't think I've ever double-posted here and on my criminal defense blog, but this is just that important.

United States District Court Judge Alan Gold today issued an order that looks more like a scathing indictment. It should be read by everyone in and out of the legal profession, and added to law school professional responsibility courses immediately. Copies should be handed out to every new prosecutor in America.

It's here, all 50 pages.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com

BigLaw Lawyer Says BigLaw Lawyers Are Dunces

I get dinged a little for my unabashed criticism of that complete waste of a career we all call BigLaw. The apologists for that method of legal services that only serves to pay for access to bigger lines of credit and more associates to convince clients they need 12 lawyers on a 2 lawyer deal is at its end. And no, I couldn't get a job there when I graduated, not even an interview. I had to toil at the public defender's office building a criminal defense career which now finds me taking a week off and writing this from a beach.

Now BigLaw is finding dissention among the ranks. My favorite person of the day, Elizabeth Wurtzel, says in this must read article, that BigLaw is nothing more than a "march of dunces."

She confesses: "Corporate attorneys like me, even those with the eyesight and insight of Mr. Magoo, all should have been able to see this financial collapse coming."

She puts it on the table: "And whatever lessons the powers that be might learn from this adjustment -- that salary structure should change, or that the billable hour is an anachronism -- it seems no one has stated the obvious: The whole system is warped."

She divulges the unbelievable: That New York Big Law "junior associates have been known to sneak out of the office and head home by six o'clock. Exposed to the sunshine that exists outside of corporate skyscrapers for the first time, these people now know what we've all been telling them for years: The sky is actually blue."

She rips out the heart of all that is BigLaw: "The emergency-room atmosphere that permeated the processing of derivatives deals, corporate takeovers, and whatever else has been going on at Goldman, Bear, Citi and Merrill for the past decade, could rival that of an operating room during open-heart surgery. Only, of course, it was a matter of money -- not life or death."

She puts it into perspective like I've never read: "I would love to call the system despicable or detestable or something evil-sounding, but that would be giving it too much credit. It's really just the march of dunces. A dozen years worth of sleepless nights down the drain like dirty bathwater. Pity these people"

Wow.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com

The Passion Of A Law Student

I recently had the opportunity to have lunch with a third year and first year law student enrolled at my alma mater.

While I know these students were interested to hear from an alumni who graduated 15 years ago, I was refreshed and encouraged to hear from them even more.

When I graduated in the "L.A. Law" generation, most wanted to get a BigLaw job. They didn't know what it entailed, just that it paid well, would help offset the monthly loan payments, and maybe in 7 years they'd become partner. Most in my class that started in BigLaw as a loan repayment program have moved on to non-law careers or become lawyers, representing real people with real issues.
Now, BigLaw is shedding, hiring a few, and deferring the start date for many of those new hires. BigLaw has not yet absorbed what the future will hold for them, and the layoffs are just beginning.

The third year student is already working on environmental issues in a small consulting company he's started, and he's trying to see where technology can help him practice law. BigLaw is of no interest to him, or many of his classmates. The lack of interest is due to the lack of jobs, and the knowledge of what the jobs really are, a penthouse form of salaried unhappiness.

The first year student has an interest in photography and music. Specifically, he has some experience taking pictures of live bands. He finds IP law interesting and wants to know how he can combine his interest with a law practice. I explained to him that developing relationships now with bands and venues that have live bands, may find him a good base of clients when he graduates and is trying to find work at an IP firm.

What I found from both of these students was not that BigLaw was of no interest, but that they had other interests, mainly doing something they find interesting, and for which they have a passion.

They want to pay back their loans, but that's not what they are looking for in a law career.

They want to be lawyers.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com

What Is So Wrong With Realizing You Never Wanted To Be A Lawyer?

The Miami Herald has some late-arriving advice for the laid-off lawyer crowd.

Ready? Got a pen?

Network, Volunteer, and Persist.

In other words, go meet some people, work for free, rinse, and repeat.

The reason this advice won't work is that the crowd of laid-off "lawyers" is advised to do this: "No matter which path you choose to pursue, pursue each day in your search with purpose, direction and passion."

Purpose, direction and passion?

C'mon, we're talking about laid off BigLaws and businessmen. Purpose, direction and passion? Oh jeez.

I've said before that there are no laid-off lawyers. Lawyers have clients. Lawyers can't be laid off. Those that are laid off are cogs in the biglaw wheel who work on files or businessmen who ran to "hot" areas of law.

But let's talk about the laid off cogs and businessmen.

Most of these people have never networked. They have been locked in libraries and offices, away from clients, or anyone resembling a client. They also can't imagine working for free. The phrase "they bill me out at free," doesn't sound so good.

In sum, these laid off cogs are not going to do well trying things they've never done.

Here's my advice:

Do something else. Get out of law.

I mean, lets be real here. Most of you never wanted to be lawyers. You wanted the trappings of what L.A. Law made you believe the practice was all about.

So get out.

Don't go into foreclosure defense, that'll be dead in two years. If you have no established practice in an essential area of law, get out. It's not going to get better in the next 5-10 years. If your goal is money, go make money. Buy a franchise, open a business. You went into law to make money, the money is not there, get out.

What is so wrong with realizing that you never really wanted to be a "lawyer?"

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com

Are You A Great Lawyer, Or A Great Marketer?

Over at Simple Justice, Scott Greenfield continues to wonder whether we are trying to create a new generation of great lawyers, or great marketers.

He's a bit frustrated. He, like me, knows that on twitter and other social networking sites, there are those that parade as lawyers, who have no clients. There are those who parade as the answer to all those wanting a "profitable" career, who have specious backgrounds not worthy of any lawyer's time.

When I started practicing 15 years ago, a senior criminal defense lawyer told me what he learned at the outset of his career - "do a good job for your client and the calls will come."

We no longer teach that philosophy. We teach that there are too many lawyers and getting clients is more about "slick" then it is about substance.

We have lost the notion that in order to market yourself, you must first be good at what you do. By encouraging solo out of law school, we are saying that being a good lawyer is irrelevant to just about anything. No, I don't agree with solo out of law school, even if it means you have to volunteer for a while with a lawyer in order to learn how to "practice law." Law school doesn't teach you how to be a practicing lawyer, and it never will.

The public, mostly hiring lawyers for that first and only time, know no better. They like what they see and hear, and hire. Those that seek referrals from other lawyers pale in comparison to those that read a colorful ad with a pretty picture, or listen while watching Matlock to the lawyer saying he will "fight" for me.

Social media is an opportunity for two things: It allows good lawyers to converse with others and develop new relationships with debates, blog posts, and other discussions. It also allows those that are barely "lawyers" or those that are parading as the answer to all that is "marketing, to create an online presence that is, well, a complete lie.

Lawyers are important to society. So are marketers.

According to wikipedia, "marketing" is defined by the American Marketing Association as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

"That have value."

Value.

Lawyers that have "value."

Value to clients, or value to a marketer?

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com

Loan Modification And The Lawyers Who Don't "Get It."

Rule 4-5.4(a), Rules Regulating The Florida Bar, prohibits attorneys from sharing legal fees with nonlawyers.

I trust all 50 states have the same rule.

I could end this post right there, and assume that my brothers and sisters of the Bar understand that this means they cannot contract with a loan modification company to receive fees that are split with the company, but it appears that this is not the case.

Let me say it again, Rule 4-5.4(a), Rules Regulating The Florida Bar, prohibits attorneys from sharing legal fees with nonlawyers.

So why are all these lawyers calling me about arrangements with loan modification companies? Are you that broke and in need of work that you are willing to engage in set-ups that are illegal?

I know, you're not intending to do anything illegal.

So let me refer you to ethics opinion 92-3. "92" means, 1992, 17 years ago:

It is unethical for an attorney to enter into a working arrangement with a public adjuster. Ethical problems exist regarding solicitation, fee-splitting, and assisting the unlicensed practice of law.

Still don't get it?

Let's read on:

The inquiring attorney has been contacted by a public adjusting firm (the "Company") regarding participation in a proposed arrangement involving personal injury claims. The Company would employ a nonlawyer to pick up accident reports each week from local law enforcement agencies. Those persons with significant claims who have been injured by insured vehicles would then be solicited by the Company. The injured persons (the "claimants") would be given the opportunity to contract with the Company, which, for a fee of 20% of the claimant's recovery, would attempt to negotiate settlement of the claimant's personal injury claim within the tortfeasor's policy limits.

The Company has asked if the inquiring attorney would be interested in representing claimants who need the services of an attorney in the event that the Company is unable to effectuate a settlement. The Company would recommend the attorney to the claimant. The attorney would have contact with the client, would contract directly with the claimant, and would have total control over the handling of the case. In exchange for referring the claimant to the attorney, the attorney would agree to recognize the Company's "contract" with the claimant and agree to protect the Company's "lien."

Sound familiar?

Florida Bar is not cryptic in their opinion:

It would be unethical for the attorney to participate in the proposed arrangement.

Oops:

Additionally, the proposed arrangement would result in violation of the rules governing advertising and solicitation.

And:

See also 4-8.4(a), which provides:

A lawyer shall not:
(a) Violate or attempt to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct, knowingly assist or induce another to do so, or do so through the acts of another[.]

Should I continue?

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com