"Cute" Judicial Orders Are Our Problem, Not Theirs

I don't know when they started, the orders from judges requiring warring lawyers to play rock paper scissors, or as of late, attend a weekend class on civility called a "kindergarten party."

Yesterday, lawyers got their revenge and celebrated the leaking of an email to Judge Sam Sparks taking him to task for his recent behavior.

So now lawyers everywhere are saying "see, those orders are bad, wrong, unfair, and bad.

It's always nice when someone like Chief Judge Jones comes in and saves us from ourselves, changing the focus back to the judiciary and away from us.

So I guess now we're vindicated. Now we don't have to worry that when we act like childred that we're going to get called out on it.

I think these orders are an important part of the practice, because it puts on the table (with humor and not sanctions) the level to which some lawyers will sink to represent a client.

I've read many comments from lawyers saying that judges should just sanction these lawyers and stop being funny about it. Two comments on that - much of this childish behavior is just that - childish - but not unethical. The other thing is that I think they are funny and if we can't laugh at ourselves, then looks like judges will just laugh at us.

The Florida Supreme Court is so fed up with our ability to be civil, that they've amended the oath of attorney. This amendment has caused Florida lawyers to ask "am I grandfathered in?"

Some of them are kidding.

Non-anonymous comments welcome. Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

Can We Talk About Our Profession, Just For A Minute, Please?

If you spend any time on the internet these days, you are led to believe that if lawyers don't start buying better iPad-type devices and finding a better, cheaper, faster way to sell documents, they will go broke.

Yes, "the legal profession is changing," but hasn't it been changing since day one?

Lawyers used to be created by people "reading" the law. Then they invented law schools. Law schools had full time professors. Then they started having practicing lawyers teach a class or two. Law used to be read in books housed in libraries, now it's read on computer screens and accessed from websites. BigLaw hasn't been around forever - most (many deceased) partners in old big law firms began their careers with storefront offices. Now most lawyers start solo, and stay solo.

But one thing has not changed - people still need lawyers.

Most of the posts on the net today are whine-fests, collections of thoughts from crying babies telling the "dinosaurs" to get with the program or die.

Then there is Jordan Furlong. Although he's wrong, he does know how to write without sounding like a basement-dwelling unemployed child.

I'd read his recent trilogy if I were you. Not because I agree with it, but because it's (wrong and) well written.

Jordan starts his trilogy with noting the "drawing cards" for Google Ventures in their acquisition of Rocket Lawyer, an online platform for getting legal documents to clients:

...ease, accessibility, affordability, user-driven, user experience. They have nothing to do with the intelligence of the lawyer or the quality of the legal offering and everything to do with the manner in which clients find and access legal services. As I’ve said before, convenience is the new battleground, a fight for which law firms still haven’t even shown up.

So we begin with the notion that there are clients out there looking for 7-11. It's not about the quality, it's about the ability to run in and out quickly and get a "sandwich." May not be a great sandwich, but it's a sandwich, and it's easy and affordable.

Jordan says that companies like Rocket Lawyer have created a client-facing document assembly system that provides channels to licensed lawyers who can review the completed documents and answer more complex questions. He says that Law firms have had the capacity to create these services for years, but they’ve been unwilling or unable to risk changing the nature of their business.

Jordan concludes the beginning of his trilogy with the goal of companies like Rocket and Legal Zoom:

So they have converted the legal advice process and legal document assembly system into marketing and business development opportunities for lawyers. And they have one simple goal in mind: to replace the law firm as the primary platform by which clients find and engage with lawyers.

OK, so the goal is to replace lawyers with sites that sell legal documents.

Got it.

A point that Jordan makes is that if lawyers don't find a way to compete, they will lose, and lose big:

The real story is that firms are buying these new products and services, not selling them. They’re taking marching orders about their use, not issuing them. They’re accepting the new realities of the marketplace, not inventing them. Law firms are now drifting to the periphery of the marketplace, trading places with technology-driven outsiders whose own importance increases daily. Law firms, whether they realize it or not, are settling into a new role: sources of valued specialists called upon to perform certain tasks within a larger legal system that they did not create and that they do not control.

Law is partly a business. The rule of business is that there is always someone out there trying to do it faster and cheaper than you. Those claiming to do it "better, faster, and cheaper," usually find clients who don't care that much about "better" until they realize "faster" and "cheaper" wasn't what they really wanted.

Jordan's take on the role of document selling in the legal profession is a good read, but it misses an important point: Law is also a profession. Down the street from your local 7-11 is a regular everyday grocery store, with the produce manager that knows what type of tomatoes you like to buy, and down the street from there is the gourmet market that special orders the smoked meat you like to eat on Sundays.

There is room for every type of lawyer, and there always will be. Jordan marginalizes the profession when he says: We need to understand what technology is doing to legal services and either adopt that technology, adapt to the client expectations it’s creating, or leave.

I am not "we," and I didn't become a lawyer to sell documents online. Yes, I know, my practice area will never adapt to that type of service. But yours doesn't have to either. My clients want to come to an office and have a private conversation. They want to be greeted by Evelyn, and they want to feel that there is a place where their legal needs are being serviced other than a computer or coffee shop.

There is still a place for lawyers to decide what type of lawyers they want to be, not which type of convenience store they want to operate.

Non-anonymous comments welcome. Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

Seller's Remorse: A Lesson In Abandoning Policy

Sorry to interrupt the circus of marketing advice out there purporting to show you how to get all the clients you want who have a a few bucks and a problem, but the one thing no one ever mentions, is that most of this advice comes from those without clients. Former failed lawyers-turned-marketers can help you be the best neon sign on the Vegas Strip (they say), but have no concept about the real decisions that are required by lawyers who wish to run their practices, instead of having their practices run them.

You know what I'm talking about. Most lawyers have a philosophy about client intake - if you have money and a problem, I'm your lawyer. Lawyers hear that the best case is "the case you turn down," but does anyone really do that?

Most lawyers don't create policies that weed out the headaches that cause burnout and a general distaste for the profession.

Policies like, for example, talking to clients over the phone and quoting fees prior to bringing them in to the office where an hour later you realize the potential client has no money. We are car salesmen after all, aren't we? Come on in, kick the tires, and we'll sell your the car.

Or, as another example, not answering the cell phone at all hours of the day so the client doesn't think they can abuse the ability to reach you at all hours. Make clients think they need to respect your after-hours and weekend time, and you'll have no practice, right?

Or like the policy I want to talk about here, never being the second lawyer.

Yep, that's mine.

I don't want to be the second lawyer, for several reasons.

One, and most important, is that the majority of people who have a falling out with the first lawyer, will never be happy with any lawyer.

Many calls I receive from clients with Bar complaints begin with "I was the (second, third, fourth) lawyer on the case."

While there are exceptions to this policy, they are rare. Sure there are lawyers who take a case and do no work, never return calls, and are truly the culprit in the breakdown of the attorney-client relationship. Mostly though, the problem is that the client is unhappy with news, or believes that the lawyer is not paying them enough attention, or wouldn't file a motion that no lawyer should file. I also rarely hear a call for the second or thurd lawyer where there isn't a trail of unpaid legal fees.

What interests me is the controversy this policy causes. Lawyers express shock that I would have such a policy. These are the same lawyers who are all too willing to meet with a represented client and make the client believe they can do better. They would never think to recommend that the unhappy client try to reconcile with the offending lawyer. There's no money in that...

Some lawyers also believe, assuming it's not just a case of a client with ridiculous expectations, that I owe an obligation to a client who chose a bad lawyer.

Why?

There's more information about lawyers out there today then there ever has been. If the client is making a bad decision on bad information, perpetrated by scumbag marketers and not taking the time to verify the lawyer's credentials, why does that become my "obligation?"

Disagree all you want. I'm not the savior for those that hire lawyers based on flash and buzzwords

So yeah, I did it. I violated my policy.

It gets worse.

All the evidence was there not to do this.

But this was going to happen. Sometimes human elements trump hard and fast policy.

Now the search for the third lawyer commences.

Will I do this again? Probably. Soon? not a chance.

But I will tell you this: the practice philosophy of 24/7, any case, any client, any fee, any personality, is a recipe for burnout.

Not every client or case is right for every lawyer, regardless of the fact that the money looks the same.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

Dry Cleaners, Rental Cars, And The Practice Of Law

Ten years ago I began using a dry cleaning company that comes to my house, picks up the week's wears, and drops them off at next week's pick up. It's not a little, but a lot more expensive then standing in line at the one next to my local breakfast joint on a Saturday where moms in jogging suits and dads in t-shirts evidencing the last good trip sigh as they hold the pile of whites and blues of the week.

As I walk past them Saturdays on my way in to have Tanya pour me some coffee and bring me a perfectly scooped bagel, I shake my head at how people can wait in line to have their clothes dry cleaned.

But they do. They do there, and at the dozens that I pass every day as I travel through town. While pick up and delivery is more convenient, I don't see dry cleaners closing up store fronts and buying vans in their place.

Why?

Because there are still and will always be people who don't trust leaving their clothes on the front porch. Maybe they like saying hello to that angry Greek guy who runs the place. Maybe they like to explain exactly how they want their clothes cleaned. Maybe they can't afford the pick up and delivery service. Maybe they just like doing it the way they've done it for years and have no reason to change.

Then there's rental cars. I think Hertz was the first company to have a service where you got off the plane and went right to the car. No stopping at the counter.

Plane - car - done.

But I still see counters. I still see lines of people there.

There's guys like me who can't understand any of this. Why wouldn't you pay a little more for the convenience? Why would you do it the way you've been doing it for all these years?

The problem is that I'm not one of these new fangled "evangelists" who spends their days trying to convince people that the way I do things is the way they are going to be done and therefore you must do them this way or you will die.

Listen to the evangelists of the internet today as it pertains to law practice, and you will think that in 5 years there will be no offices, no paper, no pens, no clients meeting lawyers face to face, nothing will be like it is today.

But don't ever forget that those who are making these claims, are doing so because they are doing things differently, and can't imagine doing it any other way.

See, I think there's many ways to practice law. I know very good lawyers with nice offices and computers that sit on a credenza behind their desk collecting dust. I also know very good lawyers who are hired by fax and credit card and have well organized trunks.

Don't tell me I have to get on board. Don't tell young lawyers looking to rent an office and hire a secretary that this spells disaster.

Just put your pajamas back on, sit at the dining room table, and shut up.

The people in line at the dry cleaners and rental car counters don't give a crap what you think.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

What No One Can Teach Or Sell A Lawyer

It's hard for any lawyer who spends any time on the internet to think that to be successful they need anything else but a few toys with power switches and apps, and some tips from a non-practicing lawyer on how to run their office.

Sure, there's all kinds of "lawyering," just there's all kinds of clients. If every client needed to have a conversation with a person in order to have a Will written, LegalZoom wouldn't exist. Some people who get traffic tickets want to tell a real-live- human being what happened, others just want to fax in the ticket and a credit card number to a faceless lawyer who probably won't be the one in court handling the case.

But for the most part, clients go to lawyers because they have problems. That, or they are trying to avoid problems. The lawyers they hire will be required to do something that cannot be done by a machine, or anything on that machine.

The lawyer will need to understand the problem.

This is often not too difficult for the average lawyer.

But what separates the average lawyer from the great ones, is not how much technology they own, how advanced their filing system is, or how well their marketing plan is put together.

What great lawyers do, is establish a connection with their clients.

Connections are established in ways that the snake oil salesmen can't understand or explain.

A connection is established when a client feels that you as the lawyer understand not only the problem at hand, but the relevance it has to the client.

Don't ever think it's less important to understand not only what the problem is, but who the client is.

When a client knows that you understand the total package, that's when you become not only a lawyer, but their lawyer.

Now back to your toys, apps, and race to the front page of Google.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

What Will Always Matter In The Legal Profession

The internet flows with messages to lawyers about what they need to have to be successful. No more is it about cross-examination skills, negotiation skills, people skills - it's all about toys, apps, and placement on the world wide web. It's sad, and we lawyers have done nothing to attack the commoditization of our profession.

Mark Britton of AVVO frequently says that "if you are not on the internet, you don't exist." He tells the story of his search for a toy for a child. It didn't matter how many toy stores sold this toy, all that mattered was which merchant came up (on the first page of Google) and was a click away from shipping the toy.

Mark makes a good point, but his point is not inclusive. If you are not on the internet, you don't exist to those looking for products and services on the internet.

The internet is a wonderful source of information and merchandise, including information about services - like lawyers. At it's lowest common denominator, the internet is where people go to find the best deal on whatever they are going to buy.

If your goal is to be the best deal as a lawyer, then I recommend you put every single marketing dollar, dime, and penny into internet marketing.

This is not a criticism. We need low fee lawyers for clients. People need access to legal representation and if someone can do it, or claim they can do it, for $500 instead of $5,000, then the client should have that choice, we just hope they make an informed one.

But not every lawyer is in that market. Not every lawyer is looking for every client with a few dollars to spare.

And not every client is looking for a lawyer with the most toys, or best ability to get to the top (of Google).

So we come to my point.

Regardless of who is telling you otherwise, there are things about the legal profession that will never change, no matter how many toys Apple makes, how many social networking sites are invented, or how many tips and tricks exist out there to play the marketing game.

There are so many tech and toy related "10 tips," "5 tips," "20 things every lawyer needs to know," lists.

But here's what will always matter about the profession.

[1] Most clients come to a lawyer when they have a problem. They are looking for someone to understand the problem. People understand problems, toys don't understand problems. It will always require a person, to understand a problem.

[2] Cases and disputes are resolved between people. They will always be resolved with people talking to people. Always.

[3] Reputations of lawyers are not ever going to be determined by which lawyer has which toy or placement on the internet.

[4] Real clients with real problems will never hire a lawyer because of the toys they own, or the tech they use, ever.

[5] The best tech a lawyer can have is ears.

[6] Marketing may get you a call, or an appointment, but it will never get you a happy client.

[7] Happy clients will always be the best source of referrals, not Google.

[8] Even unhappy clients will be a good source of referrals, if their unhappiness is not viewed as your fault.

[9] Being on the first page of Google means just that, you are on the first page of Google. There are plenty of unethical, crappy lawyers on the first page of Google, and the clients will never know that until it's too late.

[10] Your ability to persuade a judge, jury, prosecutor, opposing civil counsel, client's boss, client's wife, or licensing board will never be determined by the success of your marketing.

[11] There will never be a toy or app that will make a client feel better about their situation. Only you, and your words and actions will ever make a client feel like they are in the right hands.

[12] Machines have no emotion, no ability to care, and they break. The best thing your client gets from you is your voice, after you use your ears.

[13] No one will ever become great merely because they own something.

[14] There is no app, toy, or marketing technique that will get you a "thank you" from a client for saving their life, or making it better.

[15] The amount of people you "know" on-line has nothing to do with you getting a client who needs a good lawyer.

So go, be on the front page of Google, "exist" on the internet, buy all the cool new toys.

There's a whole world out there that doesn't care about any of it, but they are looking for good lawyers.

Maybe like you.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

Who Are You Listening To?

Yesterday I spent 4 hours at the home of a lawyer who's been practicing law for 64 years. I became friends with him when he'd only been practicing 48 years, and have had the opportunity to learn from him and even work on good case together. We talked about law, lawyers, legal stuff, court, clients, and judges. The only time the word "computer" came up was when he told me his hands are having a hard time typing these days.

When I look around the internet, and see the lawyers who frequent this place, I wonder from where other lawyers get their advice, tips, mentors, and philosophies.

I see what I call "real lawyers," those with clients who get up every day and whether it be in their home office, rented time-share office space, or an actual real office with a name plate on the door, spend their days practicing law. They take phone calls and e-mail inquiries about representation, they research, write pleadings, negotiate resolutions to cases, or stand in courtrooms and seek a jury's input on their dispute.

I see what I call "Starbucks Lawyers." They don't necessarily sit in Starbucks all day, but they are lawyers who pray to the god of beans and free wi-fi because they would otherwise be at home, typing about social media among the silence. Starbucks Lawyers have law degrees, may have had a law job at one point, but for the most part spend their days being asked to or begging to speak at conferences, spending money they don't have when they actually are asked to speak at a conference, telling each other how great they are all day on the internet, taking vacations that only lawyers with no clients could take, and make sure they spend some part of everyday talking about how great their "work-life balance" is because they can do whatever they want. They may have wanted to be "real lawyers" at some point, but it was just too much to get up early, drive somewhere, and tax their brain with legal issues. Life is better trying to convince other real lawyers that they could have the life of "Starbucks Lawyer," if they just would hire them as consultants.

When I see the dozens of Google searches a day of "how to make money as a lawyer," I realize that my conversation with this lawyer yesterday seems like a complete waste of time. He didn't look at my website, he didn't ask me about my social media strategy. He just talked, and I just listened.

There are those reading this post who know this lawyer. He is undoubetdly one of the most legendary lawyers this country has ever seen. I don't need to mention his name, even though the Starbucks Lawyers out there couldn't imagine having a conversation with anyone they determine to be of some import and not spreading the word in order to make themselves appear relevant. Starbucks Lawyers love to let everyone know that they "just had a conversation with ________________." (insert seemingly important but really not person's name).

Someone asked me the other day why I care about these "Starbucks Lawyers?" Why does it matter that they falsely create this apparent celebrity life when in fact outside of a laptop screen, they are of no relevance to the practice of law?

I don't care. What I do care about is that I get the sense some of you out there who are real lawyers or want to be real lawyers, are listening to them. They have no secrets, they know nothing that you can't find yourself. They all need to go, away. They demean our profession by making you think that a piece of technology or "10 tips to pumping yourself on the internet" will make you a better member of our profession.

What will make you a better member of our profession, is spending time with those that are better members of our profession, even if they can't teach you how to use a toy.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

Oh No, Not More Proof That New Lawyers Feel Entitled!

Londoner John Flood updates his previous post on "The Future of Lawyers" today, and it's not difficult to read between the lines.

24% of associates plan to leave the legal profession in the next year.

Eight per cent want a career break and 16% are quitting the profession.

34% gave difficulty of work-life balance as main reason for leaving.

10% cited personality and management problems as another reason for departing, emphasizing gaps between management and employee communication.

OK, let's stop there.

24% of associates, i.e. those who haven't made partner yet.

8% want a vacation, and 16% realize that their get rich quick plan (including an appropriate mahogany desk, prime sports tickets, and 2 hour lunches) to go to law school didn't quite work out as it looked like it would on the various T.V. shows.

34% don't like the whole 5-day a week in an office, possibly in a suit, and not 3 days a week from 10-2 (with lunch) at Starbucks in shorts and sandals.

10% cited "personality and management problems." I think that means "don't you understand how lucky you are to have me working here?" "Gaps between management and employee communication" I think means "no, I'm not going to listen to you tell me how smart you are now that you've been here 4 months."

Flood picks out the following quote from the updates research as one of interest:

An absence of communication over the future of the profession, such as change from lock step to merit based pay, has been a catalyst for relationship issues between management and associates to surface. The survey found that 47% of partners had discussed plans to change their firms’ pay structure over the next five years, yet only 23% of associates believed such discussions were taking place.

Merit based pay?

mer·it   
–noun
1. claim to respect and praise; excellence; worth.

What is wrong with you law firm partners? When will you get the message that in order to keep associates you must respect and praise their excellence and worth (and be sure not to get too close to their law degree as the ink may still not be dry).

So to sum it up, a quarter of the young profession is leaving because they don't like being a lawyer (not that they ever thought of the concept), of those, 16% percent will find something else to do, 8% will do nothing while trying to find something else to do, 34% will find a job that gives them the "flex time" they need to "find themselves," and if partners don't get with the respect and praise of excellence and worth, more will leave.

I hope they leave soon.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

Asking Why?

Two years ago, a lifetime in the legal economy, Professor Bainbridge asked if the law was a "mature" industry:

If law in fact is a mature industry, we face a problem of systemic oversupply. The rate at which demand for new lawyers grows has permanently leveled off. Economic recovery will help, but it will not change the fundamental structural changes in the market for lawyers.

The Prof believes "we have been growing the number of law schools as though the demand for lawyers would permanently continue to experience exponential growth..." He thinks we should close the bottom third. Of course that will never happen - law schools are money makers. The fact that all law schools today are facing their own jobless graduates is of no moment.

When I began law school in Florida 18 years ago, there were 6 law schools. Now there are eleven. That's a new law school in one state in about every 3 1/2 years.

But say there are too many lawyers and you'll get two answers - "there's always room for good new lawyers," and "of course you'll say that now that you're a lawyer."

There are too many lawyers. More importantly, there are too many new lawyers and law students that have no idea why they went to law school. It wasn't to become an advocate, per se, it was to get a good paying job.

Society is much to blame. The reason a high school diploma today is worthless is because we now encourage everyone to go to college. I know some plumbers and electricians that do pretty well financially, but we no longer encourage high school students to learn trades. A sociology degree that leads to nothing is more important. Now that we encourage everyone to go to college, a college degree is worthless. Used to be an MBA was impressive - that was until everyone was getting an MBA on the weekends.

Now it's law.

More lawyers don't create more cases - and don't talk to me about the "frivolous" law suits - those are just cases with which you don't agree. More family lawyers don't create more divorce. More criminal lawyers don't create more arrests. More lawyers just create competition between more lawyers. We eat our own. Competition just makes legal services cheaper (which is not necessarily the same as "affordable.") Nothing wrong with cheap quality, as long as both exist, and they rarely do. You normally get one or the other - cheap, or quality. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes.

In today's economy, getting lucky with legal services is often all that matters. A client buys a will on-line and hopes it works. Of course they'll only know if there is a message left for them at the pearly gates. In my world, there's some new kids on the block charging 20% of what I charge. Are they good, quality, experienced lawyers? Does it matter? Yes, to some it matters. To most, it doesn't. People will always say that if they needed a lawyer, they would seek out the best and find a way to hire that lawyer. Those are people who are not typically clients. Remember, most people never need a lawyer, and if they do, it's usually for a transaction like a house sale, will, or divorce. Most people have a number in mind, and whichever lawyer they meet, or talk to, or email with, that says that number, is hired.

As the economy worsens, and yes, it's worsening, struggling lawyers will have to make a choice - lower your fees to the point where the increase in clients is borderline unmanagable, take on matters for which you have no experience, or get out and find another way to make money. Hopefully by now most graduates are over the theory that going into massive debt in law school entitled them to a six-figure job. It ain't happening. Not for a while.

I've said before here that the good part of this recession is that lawyers who never wanted to be lawyers will get out. Would you want to go to a doctor who was just in it for the money? If you were here to make money and you're not - making money, you won't stay. Even those that are here because they wanted to be lawyers are getting out. Families have to be fed, mortgages have to be paid, Starbucks coffee and new iPhones have to be paid for.

The other good thing about this recession is that lawyers and law students are being forced to ask a complicated question about their venture into this profession.

Why?

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

We Lawyers Suck Worse Than Last Year

Trial and Jury Consultant Dennis Elias posted this gem yesterday about how far we lawyers have fallen in the category of ethics & honesty - in just one year.

The article is a fascinating, but not surprising summary of what people think of various professions.

Making the highest gain - police.

Making the largest drops - lawyers, and worse, clergy.

We're better than priests?

Not really, they just dropped more than us this year.

Maybe the clergy have lost our respect due to the various sex scandals, or maybe people think God is not doing enough to help the economy. I don't know.

But let's talk about lawyers.

Lawyers dropped from 18% to 13%. So I guess 87% of the public don't hold lawyers in high esteem.

Here's my suggestion of how we change this:

Do nothing.

Lawyers started losing the respect of the public when advertising became rampant. Lawyers then became no different than retail shops and car dealerships. We've taken the advertising baton and sprinted with it. We are everywhere, and ready to "fight for you," for a "reasonable fee."

Our Bar associations have beaten their heads against the wall - instituting pro bono initiatives and pumping our profession at every opportunity.

It's a waste of time.

Ethics and honesty is individual. We can't turn this entire profession around, and we know it. We've lost any opportunity to return to a time when lawyers were the pillars of society. An individual lawyer may conduct him or herself in a way that garners a high level of respect, but one bad apple, or 87%, spoils the whole bunch in terms of public perception.

People hate lawyers, but may love their lawyer.

In reality, most lawyers are ethical and honest, regardless of the public thinking that's impossible for someone who "makes a lot of money.". But the public has lawyers in their faces every minute of every day, advertising, litigating, stealing, threatening, filing lawsuits they deem frivolous, and yes, occasionally doing something good. It's not juicy to though to report that a lawyer did something good. Pro bono work is the talk of Bar association award luncheons, and maybe a blurb in the Bar newsletter. When doctors go to foreign countries and treat people for free, that's news. When a lawyer represents someone for free, most think it's a requirement for being a "big bad" lawyer.

Bad things make news. When lawyers do bad things, that's what interests people.

We dropped 5% in one year. Why?

It doesn't matter.

My advice, don't lie, cheat, steal, try to give some of your time when you can, and do a good job for your clients.

It's no longer about the profession, it's about you, as a professional.

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