Where do I find a big fat paycheck in the practice of law?

I want to talk about how to and how NOT to apply for a legal internship. To do so we need to talk about Wall Street vs Main Street and how Wall Street is making the acquaintance of their friend Mr. and Mrs. Tort Reform. I must say I miss hearing from my friend at the ATRA. He’s been quiet lately; he never did send in the form signing off on ever being able to file a lawsuit for personal injury. Funny how he and his organization advocated it for Main Street but he himself wasn’t willing to forego the right to file a lawsuit and 'take responsibility' for other's negligent conduct. It’s odd how that works. But let’s not digress.

Before getting to the meat of the idea being run up the flag pole let me point your attention towards Massachusetts where the Legal Talk Network has a new podcast show titled, New Lawyer, New Solo being moderated by Attorney Kyle Guelcher. This should give younger lawyers, newbies with no J-O-B an idea about what to do with your spare time. In this instance Mr. Guelcher describes his show this way: So you’re hanging a shingle – now what? In this debut edition of New Solo, host Attorney Kyle R. Guelcher, a solo practitioner out of Springfield, MA and chair of the Massachusetts Bar Association Young Lawyers Division, welcomes Attorney Gabriel Cheong, the principal attorney of Infinity Law Group LLC, to talk about some of the things to do after you have started your law firm -  networking, rainmaking and generating revenue and how to keep track of all those small business issues.

I’ll have to tune-in when I have some time, but for now let’s turn our attention back to that big fat paycheck and landing the j-o-b with a HUGELY EMBARRASSING paycheck. A lawyer friend in Chicago sent me the cover letter and a resume from a law school student looking for an internship. It was sort of well written and then again it wasn’t. The way she described herself it appears she came to law school from Wall Street. One problem with Wall Streeters is they believed all that stuff they said about Main Street needing tort reform and somewhere along the path to disemboweling tort law they were cutting bone in the name of cheating the injured and in the end they cut themselves right out of a job.

You see, we have no jobs for Wall Streeter types used to hundred thousand dollar bonuses and cushy work weeks. Down here on Main Street we actually work for a living and not for wage scales anything like they get on Big Bonus Wall Street. So if you want a job on Main Street you first have to learn to shop at Wal-Mart.

Let’s get back to that cover letter because in it is the answer to how not to apply for a J-O-B. So I read this letter from the law student and for the life of me I’m wondering if she has a clue as to what work this friend’s firm does for clients. What stands out is she has no idea who the hiring partner is because the letter is addressed to “Dear Hiring Partner”. You know I’m 56-years-old, but even I know how to use the Internet. With the internet you probably could have determined a name of the hiring partner or at least obtained a phone number to call the receptionist to ask for the hiring partner’s name. Not knowing the hiring partner’s name showed a lack of effort on the part of the writer and would only impress a lawyer that doesn’t know any better; like … someone on Wall Street.

Rule One: Address the letter to the right person; a real person.

Next thing I noticed is the wanna-be-PI+lawyer is talking all about what she has done in life, which is important, but her experience has no connection with the business of this firm she’s applying to. That’s a red flag because I’m asking myself why she wants to work here. And of course there is no answer in the letter as to why this person wants to do personal injury or workers’ compensation work for injured people. Coming from Wall Street I have to assume she hates how injured people smell and what bothers their day hasn't ever entered her day. I have to wonder does she know this is a personal injury firm and if so, does she really care about the work we do for injured workers. I don’t mean to be too insensitive, but this is a rough business where the lives of working people hang in the balance. We put food on the table and get lights turned back on. What we do makes late mortgage payments current and fills up the gas tank so kids can get to school or dance class; and that's assuming there’s any money for after-school activities. We aren’t pushing money around vaults so banksters can divvy it up amongst themselves at bonus time. No-way, what we do is more important than sounding important. We actually are important. You see we are your parent’s best friend when no one else cares what it’s like to have had surgery and be out of work with no way to pay the bills.

Rule Two: Get Real and answer this question; Why do you want to work at this firm?

Tell us why you like this firm, why you like our client base and why you want to do the legal work that we handle. While we want to know about you we also need to know you care to have this J-O-B.

Now one more thing; don’t’ talk all about you because here on Main Street it’s all about them, the client. So tell me, what is your mental and emotional connection to our client’s and then how you can help the firm achieve its goals for our clients and hopefully make money for the firm so we too can keep the lights on. Let’s face it if you’re willing to do everything from research, to client interviews and plead cases then say it. If you have no experience with those legal tasks, don’t be afraid to say so, but that you’re willing to learn. In other words, get real. While this may be just a J-O-B to you, we aren't S-T-U-P-I-D.

Rule Three: Tell us what drives you to be at the office every day. What makes you different from the rest and why do you add value to what we do and how we do it?

This isn’t as glamorous as a television show with Jimmy Smits; we are balding, overweight, have high blood pressure and frankly our wardrobe is more 90’s than a TV show about the 90’s. You’re not going to show up in the law library (which we don’t even have anymore) and fall in love with Matthew McConaughey’s double in our Main Street law office. No, getting married to Matthew or Julia can’t be the motivation. We need to know what motivates you so that we know you’ll actually show up long term. We aren’t interested in hiring you until that Wall Street job comes back into vogue. I personally would want to know what drives you to love this work and to show up for the next 30 years.

Where did we go wrong? Oh yeah, now I remember, it is what it is. Say it Steve, it is what it is.

Rule Four: What value would you add to this firm’s clients?

Forget what you’ll add to this firm because we already know that answer. I know they charged you an arm and a leg to get that law degree and you’ve watched every episode of LA Law and Boston Legal. You’re smart, good looking, dressed to the nines, you’re locked-n-loaded and ready to whip some butt, but realistically you’re worth very little financially. Yeah I hate to tell you but you're close to being worthless. Trouble is if we paid you what you’re worth you’d be a volunteer. You have no clients, have never tried a case, haven’t ever interviewed a client, have no money that the government’s student loan program didn’t put in your bank account; you can hardly afford to live and are wondering when you’ll get your first paid vacation because law school and the bar exam have exhausted you physically, mentally and spiritually. We know what your challenges are, but personally we are too overworked to care. Our concerns are a $5.00 weekly discrepancy in a weekly compensation rate or how to get medical bills paid so the doctor’s don’t refuse to see our clients. It’s called the life of a Main Street Trial Liar, I mean lawyer.

Rule Five: Get use to being physically, mentally and spiritually exhausted.

Now let me answer you folks on Wall Street about when bonuses get paid on Main Street. If you think law school made you tired, just wait. Our practice is more like moving grocery carts around the parking lot than it is about how to merge HyVee and Dahls (those are grocery stores in central Iowa). We don’t get involved in the esoteric legal stock of the food chain; ours is more meat and potatoes than culinary masterpieces. So get used to same-old-same-old with no bonus icing.

Rule Six: Never suggest outright that you know the PI business. You haven’t a clue, because while you were dismantling the rights of the injured and putting your judges on the bench to enforce those laws, I was busy trying to figure out how to get my client’s water turned back on.

Wall Street tort reformers cut bone, not fat and left Main Street’s clients with little to nothing. Remember all those million dollar cases you’ve read about; the same ones that were supposed to be bankrupting the insurance industry, you know the coffee case you all talk about. Well guess what those are exactly that: one in a million. This leads me to rule seven.

Rule Seven: Don’t apply if you don’t want to work harder than you’ve ever worked before; like 60 to 70 hours per week. And then apply only if you have a passion for helping people by using the law as a blunt instrument to help real people with real problems.

Rules Eight: Grow thick skin because as a lawyer doing God’s work on Main Street you’ll get blamed for everything by those on Wall Street sitting around getting their new wingtips polished.

After all, what else do you have to do with your time after receiving those hundred thousand to a million dollar bonuses? For further reading I direct your attention below to one big firm’s pay scale survey and the quick analysis of my law school classmate from a city a lot bigger than West Des Moines, Iowa. Does anyone know if there is a wing tip department at Target?

Rule Nine: Most of the "Ten Ways To Ruin Your Lawsuit" posts by PI lawyers aren't true.

Rule Ten: If you’re not interested in helping blue collar working people along with hard work for low pay then go to Washington, DC or one of the multi-city firms that have 100+ lawyers. There you can hide and still enjoy a bonus at Christmas time.

Here is my law school classmate’s assessment of the survey from Major, Lindsey & Africa: Big City Lawyer outside of Washington, DC: Quality of life issues aside, the survey generally suggests a few things, namely, that it’s the big cities that matter, that it’s the big firms that matter, that WC, domestic, immigration, etc. are pedestrian, and that there are lawyers making a killing practicing law.  Reading between the lines tells me that a lawyer who’s a partner in a large firm in a medium sized market like MPLS or KC will make half to a mil a year where the cost (and hassle) of living is half to 2/3 of what it is in the larger market.   

http://www.mlaglobal.com/pages/PartnerCompSurvey2010.aspx

MAJOR, LINDSEY & AFRICA
2010 PARTNER COMPENSATION SURVEY
By Jeffrey A. Lowe, Esq.
Managing Partner, Washington, D.C.

On June 1, 2010, Major, Lindsey & Africa (MLA) launched its seminal 2010 Partner Compensation Survey. The Survey, which was sent to more than 30,000 law firm partners across the United States, represents the most comprehensive effort ever undertaken to identify ranges of partner compensation, the criteria law firms use in determining partner compensation, and the satisfaction of law firm partners with their compensation and compensation systems. The Survey was administered on behalf of MLA by ADF Research, an independent marketing and research company, which allowed respondents to answer confidentially and anonymously.

This Report provides (i) an overview of the Survey, (ii) the demographical breakdown of the respondents to the Survey, (iii) selected highlights of compensation and other practice metrics as reported by the respondents, (iv) selected highlights of compensation satisfaction, factors and systems as reported by the respondents, and (v) an overview of various factors perceived by respondents to be important in the determination of their compensation.