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