First-Year Associates - Daily Business Review

T u e s d a y, S e p t e m b e r 4 , 2 0 1 2 F i r s t - Ye a r A s s o c i a t e s • 1
| Special Section | September 2012
First-Year Associates
2
3
4
5
6
Office Etiquette for
New Associates
The Need for
Formal Training and
Mentoring Programs
Learning Lessons
for Your Future
Balancing Work for
Multiple Partners
First-Year Hiring
Rising as Firms
Look to Fill Gaps
2 | Fir s t - Ye a r Asso ciates T u e s d a y, S e p t e m b e r 4 , 2 0 1 2 A Hard Line on Soft Skills: Office Etiquette for New Associates
By Katherine LePore Hamill
Special to the Legal
T
his will be one of the most challenging years of your professional
career. You have chosen a profession in which there is little room for error
and where reputations and relationships are
a critical component of success. You have
already demonstrated the technical skills to
become a successful practitioner and are
now officially a first-year associate.
Unfortunately, being a great lawyer
requires more than just good technical
skills. Lawyers with good “soft skills” are
more likely to stand out as premier practitioners. Demonstrating sound work habits,
communicating effectively with others and
establishing a solid reputation all require
strong soft skills.
Recognizing the importance of soft skills
and devoting the appropriate amount of
energy to developing them will ease your
transition into law firm life, help distinguish you among your peers and build the
foundation for a long and successful legal
career. Here are some soft skills that will
serve you well through the early months of
your career and beyond.
BE PRESENT
This may seem obvious, but it is one of
the most common mistakes made by young
lawyers. Being present means being avail-
Katherine LePore
Hamill is director of
recruiting and development at Stradley Ronon
Stevens & Young and is
responsible for overseeing
the recruitment, retention,
training and evaluation
of nonpartner timekeepers
and staff. Her development responsibilities include
managing the associate evaluation and compensation process; developing policies and procedures for
associates; acting as a liaison between the associate
body and firm management; and developing the
firm’s professional development training programs
for associates. able to those around you at all times and
being engaged in your work and your environment. Are you constantly on your
iPhone or BlackBerry in the halls and during meetings? Do you engage in Gchat at
work? Do you listen to music in your
office? Do you have headphones on when
you step into the elevator every morning?
Is your office door always closed because
you are buried in your work?
You might claim to be a skilled multitasker and say these distractions do not
affect your attention or the quality of your
work. While that may be true, these habits
do in fact create the perception that you are
distracted and not fully engaged in the
work you are performing. Take the ear-
phones out, turn the music off, avoid the
urge to check Facebook every 10 minutes
and keep your office door open. You want
people to perceive you as completely
focused, dedicated and available at all times.
You will quickly discover that the more
present and available you appear, the greater the opportunities available to you.
DO NOT COMPLAIN
As a junior attorney, you may be given
work that makes you question the value of
all of your law school training. Document
reviews will seem endless; traveling for
weeks on end will take a toll on your personal life; having all your meals paid for
will get old. Do not complain about it — at
least not where others can hear you, and
definitely not in email. Most new lawyers
have to pay their dues by working seemingly endless hours on projects for which
they are less than passionate. Complaining
about it will only annoy those who have
had to suffer through it before you.
Furthermore, there will likely be others in
the trenches with you and complaining to
them will only make the situation less tolerable.
It may not be easy, but try to make the
best of it. Nobody wants to work with
someone who complains all the time. It’s
bad for morale, it’s bad for productivity and
it’s bad for the positive reputation you are
trying to establish. Performing well on the
less glamorous projects will generally lead
to opportunities on the more exciting ones.
PROFESSIONAL EMAIL ETIQUETTE
While at first glance it may seem easy,
proper use of email can be one of the more
difficult skills to master. Email is best used
for answering a quick question, making a
record of a conversation or sending a brief
status update. Email is not ideal in situations where you want to convey any sort of
emotion, solve a complicated and nuanced
issue, or in situations where you would not
want the communication to be shared with
someone else. Once you hit send, you have
no control over where the email will end
up. It may not go further than the intended
recipient’s inbox or it may be forwarded to
several people you never imagined reading
it. Always keep emails professional, as the
person you are sending the email to might
forward it to other attorneys or even clients.
Always double-check who you are sending the email to before you hit send.
Mistakes related to unintended recipients
are some of the most common in email
communication. It will happen to you at
some point in your career. Be aware of it
and make it a habit to double-check the
“to,” “cc” and “bcc” fields before sending.
Also make it a habit to read the entire
Etiquette continues on 8
T u e s d a y, S e p t e m b e r 4 , 2 0 1 2 F i r s t - Ye a r A s s o c i a t e s • 3
The Need for Formal Training and Mentoring Programs
By Philip R. Voluck
Special to the Legal
A
mong the issues facing law firms is
how to train new law school graduates in the art and practice of law in
the midst of billing pressures and client
concerns that they are footing the bill to
train newly hired lawyers. There may be no
tougher job in the legal profession than
facilitating the transition of a first-year
attorney into a functional, successful professional. According to a 2011 study by the
Association of Corporate Counsel for The
Wall Street Journal, internal cost controls
have resulted in more companies refusing
to pay for the work of first-year lawyers.
New attorneys graduate from law school
with little, if any, practical experience. The
cost of recruiting and then training young
lawyers is enormous. Clients are no longer
willing to pay for this learning curve. They
want only experienced attorneys working
on their matters, believing that they work
more efficiently, saving the company
money, notwithstanding higher hourly
rates. The conundrum is that knowing the
law is but one component of an attorney’s
development and it is a universally accepted
truth that the best way to become a good
lawyer is by doing.
Relegating a new attorney to document
review, proofreading and basic research for
two years may be economical — and justifi-
Philip R. Voluck is
the managing partner
of Kaufman Dolowich
Voluck & Gonzo. He has
concentrated his practice
for the last 32 years in the
area of employment practices
liability, with a particular
emphasis on defending and
resolving claims of sexual
harassment, employment discrimination and wrongful discharge.
ably billable — but the attorney is not
learning anything substantive. While most
attorneys will agree that training and mentoring new attorneys is crucial for maintaining a skilled and ethical profession,
growing pressure for billable hours in many
firms has severely limited the number of
firms willing to take the young attorneys
under their wings. Unfortunately, however,
such an approach results in frustrated associates, increases turnover and those who
remain are significantly limited in their
ability to “think like a lawyer.”
Law firms have the ability to help change
the perception that first-year lawyers are
incapable of contributing quality work.
Changing this perception requires a firm’s
sincere commitment to actually mentoring
first-year attorneys as to how to practice.
Mentoring not only fulfills a lawyer’s professional duty to supervise junior attorneys,
but it also makes sense economically by
reducing attrition and increasing the quality and efficiency of the young lawyer’s
work.
Most successful attorneys — practitioners, judges and law professors — can identify those special individuals who influenced their approach to the law and the
path of their career. When I was being
trained, there was absolutely nothing an
associate generated that was not first
reviewed in depth by the assigning partner
— often with the associate present —
before it could leave the office. Then, new
associates were rotated among several partners in order to learn how experienced
attorneys analyzed claims and managed a
particular client or case.
Today, the drive for billable hours has
dramatically curtailed the ability of senior
attorneys to engage in nonbillable activities, and true mentoring is often considered
economically unfeasible as the business
community resists having young attorneys
working on their files — companies want
senior attorneys who know the law and
know how to write.
Associates today are as focused on worklife balance as they are on advancing their
careers. Attorneys move from firm to firm,
where their prior training might conflict
with their new firm’s operating protocols.
Young associates also become very frustrated at receiving an assignment with little
or no direction from the partner in charge.
That frustration grows when the associate’s
time is written off by the firm as inferior
because of the time expended reviewing
and revising by the partner in charge.
Law firms must realize that strong training and mentoring programs are economically feasible to the extent the firm produces more sophisticated legal analysis and
better writing skills from the trainees.
Firms must be willing to budget these programs if they expect to produce good attorneys. Firms need to make an investment in
their own futures and recognize that the
up-front investment in training and mentoring will pay off in stability and quality
lawyering.
Law schools could be doing much more
to allow a new attorney to seamlessly move
from the classroom to the conference room
or the courtroom. Not enough law schools
provide opportunities for real-world application. Knowing the law is quite different
from applying it to a particular set of facts
and/or analyzing a client’s exposure to liability. As one Midwestern law school’s
motto states, it is a “Law School for the
Real World.” New attorneys often lack the
ability to think like a lawyer. There is too
much that law schools do not teach that
might otherwise prepare first-year attorneys for the real world. A stronger focus on
Mentoring continues on 9
4 | Fir s t - Ye a r Asso ciates T u e s d a y, S e p t e m b e r 4 , 2 0 1 2 Modern-Day Apprenticeship:
By Joey Tsu-Yi Chen, Meri J. Kahan
and Courtney L. Schultz
Special to the Legal
P
rior to the 19th century, eager
would-be lawyers never set foot in a
brick-and-mortar school of law.
Rather, they served as apprentices to established attorneys who instructed them in the
lessons of the law through observation and
hands-on experience.
Over the years, this model changed: Law
schools were established, providing students with a formal curriculum focused on
classroom discussion. As of the early 20th
century, post-graduate education became a
requirement for admission to the bar.
In the more modern legal times of the
late 20th and 21st centuries, another trend
emerged: Law students would enter law
school and immediately upon graduation
begin their first job at, more often than not,
a private-sector law firm.
Law schools embraced the concept of
modern apprenticeship in the forms of
externships and clinics during law school.
However, newly minted lawyers raced to
begin their careers following graduation
and typically relegated these experiences to
the period of time before they were handed
their diplomas. This was a stark contrast to
other fields, such as medicine, where a
post-graduate internship is the standard for
Joey Tsu-Yi Chen is a
litigation associate resident
in Saul Ewing’s Baltimore
office.
a complete education.
Economic Change
But with the shift of the financial landscape over the past few years, a new trend
materialized. The recruiting and employment patterns that employers and students
alike had come to expect were disrupted by
the Great Recession. The NALP
Foundation estimates that somewhere
between 3,200 and 3,700 students from the
class of 2009 were deferred from their law
firms.
Suddenly, the market was flooded with
junior legal talent and the legal “internship” (used loosely here to also include fellowships, clerkships, etc.) was elevated to a
new level — eagerly pursued by recent
graduates looking to fill the time of a deferral, fill out the substance of a resume or
obtain temporary employment.
And while judicial clerkships have been
sought after for many years, the zeal with
Learning the Lessons of the Past
And Present for Your Future
Meri J. Kahan is the
manager of attorney recruitment firmwide.
which students began to pursue these
opportunities
was
unprecedented.
Applications made to judges for post-law
school clerkships via the OSCAR system
nearly doubled between 2008 and 2009, the
time when the economy collapsed.
Though these recent graduates certainly
may not have wished for their careers to
unfold in the middle of an economic disaster, there is a silver lining. Students and law
firms alike are realizing there is a lot to be
learned from post-graduate opportunities.
Internship, clerkship and fellowship numbers continue to soar with stiff competition
for these experiences. In fact, online judicial clerkship applications have generally
held steady at the 2009 levels for the past
two years, even as the economy begins to
rebuild itself and deferrals are less common.
Many firms, including Saul Ewing, welcome the opportunity to see bright, talented lawyers return after a post-graduate
Courtney L. Schultz
is a litigation associate resident in the firm’s
Philadelphia office.
clerkship or internship with polished legal
skills and a mature perspective. Let the
evidence speak for itself: Below are the lessons learned from two such associates.
Courtney L. Schultz, an associate in the
Philadelphia office, spent a year as associate
general counsel at Arcadia University from
2009-10.
While working in the general counsel’s
office at Arcadia, I quickly learned to adapt.
I learned something new about the law
every day. My responsibilities predominantly included drafting university policies,
providing compliance training programs,
drafting, negotiating and reviewing contracts and advising the university on any
number of matters of importance at any
particular time. This broad range of responsibilities often required learning on the fly.
Every day was something new, and I soon
realized that it was pointless to plan each
Apprenticeship continues on 9
T u e s d a y, S e p t e m b e r 4 , 2 0 1 2 F i r s t - Ye a r A s s o c i a t e s • 5
The Art of Balancing Work for Multiple Partners
By Joseph R. Williams
Special to the Legal
A
nyone who has ever attended law
school knows the intense pressure
that law students face every semester. Overwhelmed with the amount of
material that a first-year law student has to
learn, all 1Ls know memorizing the substantive rules and concepts is only half the
battle. To achieve high grades, law students
have to write a completely different style
and tone for each of their exams. A torts
professor might expect definitions of any
relevant legal terminology and a thorough
application of rules that do not even apply
to the exam fact pattern, while a criminal
law professor prefers responses that are
concise and to the point. As a first-year law
student at Duquesne University School of
Law six years ago, I thought to myself that
I couldn’t wait to be done with law school,
where the law would be the law and I
wouldn’t have to alter my work product to
the preference of any one person. I was
wrong.
Three years later, I landed my first job
working as an associate at a 14-attorney
boutique family law firm. My workload
consisted of assignments from all five of the
firm’s partners. I quickly realized that just
like my law school professors, each partner
had his or her own expectations as to the
format and style of pleadings, the approach
to preparing for a trial and the overall strat-
Joseph R. Williams
is an associate at Pollock
Begg Komar Glasser
& Vertz in Pittsburgh.
He is a member of the
Pennsylvania Bar
Association, where he has
served as a member of the
young lawyers division
executive council, and the Allegheny County Bar
Association, where he is active in the family law
section and the young lawyers division.
egy to a case. The personal preferences of
one partner were sometimes discouraged
by other partners. In fact, one partner
would often send me in a completely different direction than the other partner who
was right down the hall.
In addition to learning how to fine-tune
my work based upon the assigning partner,
I faced the challenge of balancing the time
commitment associated with each partner’s
case load. How could I make the brief I was
drafting for one partner perfect when I had
a huge discovery project going on for
another partner? What about the trial I was
supposed to second-chair the following
week with a different partner? And how
could I accomplish any of these things
when I was presenting a motion in a county
two hours away for yet another partner?
As time passes, the task of balancing
work for multiple partners becomes more
manageable, but other challenges arise.
Now a third-year associate, my responsibilities are far more significant than they
were when I was a newly licensed lawyer.
Instead of doing research, sorting through
discovery and second-chairing proceedings,
I am now taking on a larger role in more
complex cases, serving as the first chair in
court proceedings and counseling clients
independently from the partners with
whom I work. In addition to working for
partners, I am now building my own book
of business and trying to balance the
demands of those cases, which requires not
only legal services to be performed, but also
the time associated with practice management.
Meeting the expectations and time commitments associated with working for multiple partners can be done, but it might take
some affirmative steps by you, the young
attorney. Of course, the best way to become
valuable to your particular firm is to mold
yourself to the needs of those for whom
you work. That said, here are some suggestions that every first-year associate can rely
upon to keep his or her head above water
and outshine the competition:
1. Get organized. Stay organized.
The best way to instill confidence in your
superiors is to show them you are on top of
the things coming your way. Keep a to-do
list and update it every day. Notate due
dates, deadlines and reminders on not only
your own calendar, but the partner’s calendar, too, so he or she sees you are cognizant
of the deadline. Maintain a binder or folder
of the memos you receive from partners
with assignments and case updates.
Communicate with your legal assistant to
establish a system that will enable you and
the people with whom you work to complete tasks in the most time-efficient manner possible. Keep a case list of all of your
active cases, which should include items
such as: the client name, the assigning partner, the opposing counsel, the judge and/or
court and any pending court dates or filing
deadlines.
2. Ask questions. Ask follow-up questions. Then ask more questions.
It is imperative, especially in the early
stages of employment, for you to communicate with your assigning partners about
what they expect from you. Find out how
involved you should be in the case. Is your
task to just complete the research memo or
would the partner like you to take control
of the file and serve as lead counsel on the
case?
Ask questions about the logistics of handling the project. How far in advance of the
filing deadline would the partner like to
have a draft of the pleading? Does the partner prefer to have final signing authority on
the pleading or is one cursory review of the
document sufficient? Does the partner
want the client to see all preliminary drafts
of the document or only the finished prodPartners continues on 10
6 | Fir s t - Ye a r Asso ciates T u e s d a y, S e p t e m b e r 4 , 2 0 1 2 First-Year Associate Hiring Rising as Firms Look to Fill Gaps
By Gina Passarella
Of the Legal Staff
D
espite the worst jobs report in
NALP’s history when it came to
jobs for 2011 law school graduates, Pennsylvania law firms have been hiring at increasingly higher rates for the last
two years, with 2012 data compiled by The
Legal showing double-digit growth in firstyear associate hiring.
In looking at data gleaned from The
Legal’s 2012 Pennsylvania First-Year
Associates Survey, Pennsylvania firms saw a
10.6 percent increase in first-year associate
hiring in their offices in the state between
the 2011 class and the 2012 class. The firmwide hiring of associates for survey respondents grew at double that pace, with
Pennsylvania firms hiring 20.5 percent
more first-year associates firmwide in 2012
than they did in 2011.
There were 21 survey respondents that
provided data for Pennsylvania-based firstyear associates in both 2011 and 2012.
Those firms collectively hired 123 firstyear associates in 2011 and 136 in 2012, for
an increase of 10.6 percent. That follows a
6.6 percent increase reported last year for
the growth in hiring between 2010 and
2011.
There were 14 survey respondents this
year for which firmwide hiring data was
available for both 2011 and 2012. Those 14
firms hired a combined 185 first-year asso-
ciates in 2011. That same group hired 223
first-years for this year’s starting class, making for a 20.5 percent jump in hiring across
their offices.
Along with hiring more, the firms are
also paying a bit more. While most respondents kept starting salaries for first-year
associates the same, four firms have
increased their entry-level pay. The average
starting salary across the class rose 1.8 percent from $127,000 in 2011 to $129,250 in
2012.
Drinker Biddle & Reath pays its firstyear associates $105,000 for the first four
months while the associates focus on training as opposed to billing clients. That pay
was increased to $130,000 for the remainder of the first year in 2011. But the firm
has bumped that up to $140,000 for 2012.
Woodcock Washburn increased its starting salary from $130,000 to $140,000 and
Pepper Hamilton raised its starting salary
from $125,000 to $135,000, with former
judicial clerks earning $140,000.
Saul Ewing increased its first-year associate class and its starting salary in 2012 in an
effort to meet demand as well as fill the
firm’s pipeline of associates. The firm
increased salaries from $110,000 last year
to $125,000 this year.
After not holding a summer program in
2010, Saul Ewing only had one first-year
associate firmwide in 2011 and none in
Pennsylvania. This year, the firm has nine
first-year associates joining the firm, with
LAW SCHOOLS
Number of
Associates
Law School
26
Penn
16
Temple
15
Villanova
13
Rutgers-Camden
9
Pittsburgh
8
George Washington
6
Drexel
4
Duquesne
3
Boston College, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown,
Virginia, William and Mary
2
Dickinson, Harvard, Northwestern, USC, Vanderbilt
1
Boston University, Columbia, Illinois, Minnesota,
New York University, Seton Hall, St. John’s, Tulane,
Widener, Yale, Washington University
six based in its Pennsylvania offices.
Saul Ewing hiring partner Erik Williams
said the firm is seeing an increase in demand
across all of its departments, including corporate. But the growth in its first-year class
was also related to a perceived need to have
more junior attorneys at the firm.
“We’ve been committed for years to our
Hiring continues on 11
T u e s d a y, S e p t e m b e r 4 , 2 0 1 2 F i r s t - Ye a r A s s o c i a t e s • 7
FIRM BY FIRM
Firm Name
Total
Attorneys
in PA
Offices
2012
FY
in PA
2011
FY
in PA
2012
Women
First
Years
2012
Minority
First
Years
2012
Salary
2011
Salary
Law Schools
Archer & Greiner
35
0
0
0
0
N/A
N/A
N/A
Babst Calland
94
2
3
2
0
$100,000
$100,000
Duquesne (1), Pittsburgh (1)
Ballard Spahr
212
5
14
2
1
$125,000
$125,000
Drexel (1), Penn (1), Temple (2), Villanova (1)
Blank Rome
219
8
6
4
1
$140,000
$140,000
Rutgers-Camden (2), Temple (2), Villanova (3),
George Washington (1)
Buchanan
Ingersoll &
Rooney
280
7
5
2
1
WND
WND
Penn (1), Duquesne (2), George Washington (2),
William and Mary (1), Pittsburgh (1)
Cozen O’Connor
248
12
9
6
2
$135,000
$135,000
Penn (2), Rutgers-Camden (1), Temple (2),
Villanova (1), Cornell (1), Harvard (1),
New York University (1), Northwestern (1),
Pittsburgh (1), Virginia (1)
Dechert
163
10
11
5
2
$145,000
$145,000
Penn (1), Rutgers-Camden (2), Temple (2),
Villanova (1), Columbia (1), Cornell (1),
Vanderbilt (1), St. John’s (1)
DLA Piper
40
2
0
2
0
$145,000
$145,000
Villanova (2)
Drinker Biddle &
Reath
199
8
11
4
2
$140,000 1
$130,000
Rutgers-Camden (2), Temple (1), Duke (1),
George Washington (1), Harvard (1),
William and Mary (1), USC (1)
Duane Morris
204
5
5
3
0
$145,000
$145,000
Penn (3), Boston College (1), Vanderbilt (1)
Fox Rothschild
234
8
2
4
3
$125,000 2
$125,000
George Washington (4), Pittsburgh (1),
Seton Hall (1), USC (1), Tulane (1)
Hangley
Aronchick Segal
Pudlin & Schiller
51
1
1
0
0
$125,000
$125,000
Yale (1)
Morgan, Lewis &
Bockius
317
16
13
7
2
$145,000
$145,000
Penn (4), Rutgers-Camden (1), Temple (2),
Villanova (1), Cornell (1), Duke (1), Georgetown (3),
Pittsburgh (1), Virginia (1), Illinois (1)
Pepper Hamilton
145
16
13
6
6
$135,000 3
$125,000
Penn (7), Rutgers-Camden (2), Temple (1),
Villanova (3), Dickinson (1), Boston University (1),
Pittsburgh (1)
Reed Smith
408
14
12
7
1
$130,000 4
$130,000
Penn (2), Temple (2), Villanova (3), Duke (1),
Duquesne (1), Pittsburgh (2), Virginia (1),
William and Mary (1), Washington University (1)
Saul Ewing
115
6
0
1
1
$125,000
$110,000
Penn (4), Widener (1), Dickinson (1)
Schnader
Harrison
Segal & Lewis
102
2
4
0
1
$120,000 5
$120,000
Drexel (1), Boston College (1)
Stradley Ronon
Stevens & Young
158
5
7
2
1
$125,000
$125,000
Drexel (1), Penn (1), Rutgers-Camden (1),
Temple (1), Boston College (1)
Weber Gallagher
Simpson
Stapleton
Fires & Newby
80
2
2
1
1
WND
WND
Temple (1), Pittsburgh (1)
White and
Williams
164
2
5
1
1
WND
WND
Drexel (1), Rutgers-Camden (1)
Woodcock
Washburn
54
5
1
1
1
$140,000
$130,000
Drexel (2), Rutgers-Camden (1),
Northwestern (1), Minnesota (1)
1 Drinker
Biddle pays first-years $105,000 for the first four months while the associates
are in training. The base salary is raised after four months.
3
noted are for first-years in Philadelphia. Pittsburgh salaries are $125,000 for
2011 and 2012.
2 Salaries
noted are for first-years located in Bucks County, Chester County, Montgomery County and Philadelphia. Salaries for first-years in the Pittsburgh office are
$110,000 for 2011 and 2012.
Salary noted is for first-years. The salary for clerks is $140,000.
4 Salaries
5
Salaries noted are for first-years in Philadelphia. Pittsburgh salaries are $105,000 for
2011 and 2012.
8 | Fir s t - Ye a r Asso ciates Etiquette continued from 2
string of an email chain when forwarding
something. You never know what could be
lurking deep down in an email string. Use
caution and common sense when forwarding anything.
Finally, you are strongly encouraged to
avoid colloquial language, emoticons and
unnecessary exclamation points. I can honestly say that I have never received an email
from a partner or a client containing an
emoticon. Do not use them in professional
communications. Thanks!
DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL
RELATIONSHIPS
Before you have your own clients, some
of the most important professional relationships will be with your assigning attorneys. Treat them as you would a client.
Formality and deference are important.
Their time is literally more valuable than
yours at this point, so do not waste it.
Arrive early and overprepared for all meetings. Be direct and concise in your interactions. Your job is to support them in order
to best serve the firm’s clients.
Developing strong relationships with
paralegals, secretaries and other support
staff is also a critical component of your
success and requires strong interpersonal
skills. You will quickly learn that it takes
many people to serve clients effectively.
Most of the partners at your firm probably
don’t know when the last mail pick-up is or
how to electronically file something with
the courts, but all of the firm’s secretaries
and paralegals do. The support staff possesses a wealth of knowledge about your
T u e s d a y, S e p t e m b e r 4 , 2 0 1 2 firm, the legal industry and even your clients. They deserve the utmost respect and
professional treatment. Developing strong
relationships with them will help you
accomplish your objectives more efficiently
and effectively.
WORKING WITH ASSIGNING
ATTORNEYS
You have just been called to meet with an
attorney regarding your first assignment.
Now what? It may be some time before you
are given your own case to manage. Your
first few assignments will likely be discrete
projects on large matters. The most important thing for you to do is to gain a clear
understanding of the context of the assignment. Understanding the assignment within the framework of the entire matter will
help you deliver the most useful work
product. Do you understand what the client hopes to achieve? Do you know how
much time you should spend on the assignment? What is the deadline? Should your
work product be in the form of an email, a
memo or just an oral report? If you do not
understand something, ask. The worst
thing you can do is spin your wheels and
bill unnecessary time to a client. It is always
appropriate to ask how much time the
assigning attorney expects a given task to
take so that you can establish parameters
for your work. Make sure you understand
the assigning attorney’s expectations for the
final work product (structure, format, etc.)
and the deadline so that you can prepare
accordingly.
Now, take ownership of the project and
run with it. Always be prepared to give the
assigning attorney updates on your prog-
ress. Do not let a week go by without
checking in — even if there is little to
report. Demonstrating ownership of an
assignment instills confidence. Never ask a
question if you can find the answer yourself. If you encounter a problem that you
are unable to resolve, raise it with the
assigning attorney, but be sure to offer
some possible solutions. Doing so demonstrates that you have thought through all of
the options and have made a reasonable
attempt to solve the issue independently. If
you demonstrate the ability to manage your
assignment efficiently and effectively, you
will be given greater responsibility on the
next one.
You should generally accept all work
opportunities. Being too busy is not a reason to turn work down, unless you are
physically unable to complete something
within the allotted time. If you turn work
down too many times, people will stop asking and you will soon find yourself longing
for the days when you were busy.
You will make mistakes during the course
of your first year. The most important
thing to do after making a mistake is raise
it with your supervising attorney. Trying to
clean it up yourself could lead to bigger
problems down the road. Minor mistakes
can become very costly errors if resolved
improperly.
BUILDING YOUR PROFESSIONAL
REPUTATION
Protect your reputation at all times — it
can make or break you. Avoid situations
that might compromise it. Reputations are
built or destroyed by word of mouth.
Establishing a reputation within your firm
may take some time, but word will travel
quickly after your first few assignments.
Never submit anything short of your very
best work. Remember that others will be
relying upon it. Simply being available for
assignments can also impact your reputation. People will start to view you as a team
player and someone who can be relied
upon.
While building your reputation in the
community is important, you should focus
first on networking internally, as this is a
critical component of building your reputation. Start immediately. Get to know your
firm and its practice areas, learn everything
you can about the firm’s clients and their
industries, and get to know your colleagues.
In doing so, you are building the foundation for strong marketing and client development skills. Keep abreast of legal developments and current events that might
affect your firm’s clients. Use the resources
available to you within the firm. Do not
wait until you are up for partnership to
finally start working with your marketing
department. It takes time and effort to network, but it is arguably as important as
performing excellent legal work, because if
you do not have a source of work — internally and/or externally — you will find you
have nowhere to showcase your excellent
technical skills.
You will face many challenges in the first
few months of your career, but if you keep
these soft skills in mind, you will quickly
establish yourself as a valuable resource, a
team player and, above all, an excellent
practitioner who adds value to the firm and
its clients. •
Mentoring continued from 3
internships remains an excellent way for
first-year associates to hone their skills,
gain real-world experience and learn about
diverse areas of the law. Creating relationships with nonprofits and legal aid organizations, which are so desperately in need of
manpower, is a great vehicle to get law
students more hands-on experience. More
internships at more law schools would go a
long way to producing first-year associates
with a skill set that is transferable to the
real world of private practice.
Mentoring is still the norm with judicial
clerkships, and the possibility of being
mentored by a senior lawyer remains one of
the reasons many new lawyers initially
forego the financial benefits of private
practice. Private practitioners can implement a broad range of programming to
train and mentor first-year lawyers. Some
best practices are:
• Establish and communicate written
protocols.
The orientation process is critical. It is
during this time that new attorneys are
trained in the firm’s internal case-handling
protocols. Such protocols address the process of accounting for, recording and submitting time; communicating with clients;
communicating with supervising attorneys;
and writing client status reports, among
other tasks essential to ensure good business practices and important workflow
tasks.
Apprenticeship continued from 4
day — the plan always changed.
The biggest lesson that I took away from
this experience is that until you try something, you have no idea whether you will
like it or whether you will be good at it.
Indeed, at the end of my summer at Saul
Ewing, when it came time to rank my
department choices, I had many interests,
but litigation was not one of them. After
spending almost a year at Arcadia, I realized
that I wanted to take a second look at litigation. This was just one of a number of lessons I learned during my time there.
So, how does my experience translate
into a how-to guide for first-year associates? A few thoughts:
• Make sure that your department’s
assigning partner is aware of what practice
areas interest you.
• Reach out to partners who do the kind
of work you think you might like. This will
show them you are interested in what they
do and they will think of you the next time
a new matter comes in the door.
• Don’t be afraid to try something new
and a little out of your comfort zone — you
might surprise yourself.
• It is important to acknowledge early in
your career as an associate that in order to
be an effective advocate you will be required
to learn a great deal about the business
worlds in which your clients operate. This
knowledge is invaluable and will probably
help you on another case in the future, so
dive in.
At the end of the day, much of my advice
falls into the category of being your own
advocate. In the back of your mind, always
think about whether you are getting all of
the opportunities that you need in order to
become the best attorney you can. If you
T u e s d a y, S e p t e m b e r 4 , 2 0 1 2 F i r s t - Ye a r A s s o c i a t e s • 9
• Conduct in-house CLEs.
At Kaufman Dolowich Voluck & Gonzo,
partners conduct in-house continuing legal
education programs for associates. Even
though actual CLE credits may not be
awarded, attendance is required, and all
attorneys ultimately benefit from the teachings of experienced practitioners.
• Practice group presentations.
New associates should be tasked with
explaining to their respective practice
groups new legal developments or an interesting matter in which the firm was involved
or of which the firm’s attorneys need to be
aware. Through practice groups, new attorneys are exposed to and engage in discussions regarding new legal developments or
interesting issues with which the firm was
involved.
• Assign mentors.
Mentoring for new associates is more
critical today than at any time in the history
of the profession. Law firms that invest in
formal mentoring programs for their associates are more likely to retain top talent
than those that offer only financial incentives for such things as billable hours.
Mentoring provides that real-life window
into the practice of law, the ability to learn
the tricks of the trade, as well as quality
oversight of the legal skills needed to excel.
For new attorneys, mentoring can be a
critical component to finding success and
happiness in the practice of law and can
accelerate personal and professional
growth. The results positively impact the
entire firm as productivity and collegiality
increases. Mentoring should be considered
a cornerstone to associate development,
and to execute on this commitment, firms
should implement formal mentoring policies and programs. Young lawyers must
recognize, however, that the most successful mentoring happens when they also take
responsibility for making the mentoring
relationship work. Young lawyers should be
proactive and make themselves someone
who others want to mentor — demonstrate
a positive attitude and be a good listener
who is receptive to criticism.
• Facilitate “on-the-job” training.
There is no substitute for the opportunity to observe, firsthand, how the practice
of law operates. Firms should initiate a
skills-development program designed to
incorporate practical training that most law
schools simply do not provide. In addition
to that training, new associates should be
given the opportunity to attend depositions, witness interviews, hearings and
strategy meetings, even if they do not have
any responsibility for that particular matter.
Training and mentoring can make substantial contributions to a firm’s economic
success by reducing turnover, improving
integration of new attorneys into the firm
and increasing the rate at which junior
associates can work independently. Taking
time and interest in mentoring young associates will create a positive work environment where the associates know they are
valued and sends the message that the firm
cares. In the end, lawyers will have greater
career satisfaction, be better trained and
the firm’s clients will be best served. The
bottom line: Mentoring associates is simply
good for business.
• Possible solutions to billing pitfalls.
The need to meet a firm’s billing requirement is the most common obstacle to a
good mentoring program. One solution is
to record the time an attorney spends on a
learning activity that cannot be charged to
a client to a nonchargeable account and at
the same time attribute the time toward the
attorney’s billing targets. Law firms could
alternatively allocate junior attorneys a
bank of hours to be used for professional
training, such as sitting in on a mediation
that the junior attorney would probably not
be doing for several years. The time would
be credited to the attorney’s billable
requirements but not charged to clients.
While these approaches will likely have a
short-term impact on the firm’s bottom
line, the learning will far outweigh the loss.
In the end, law firms cannot abdicate
their responsibility and role in producing
the newest generation of lawyers. While
the recent recession has changed the paradigm whereby clients are no longer willing
to absorb the cost of training their future
outside lawyers, law firms must actively
plan and work to ensure that the profession
thrives as the mantle is passed to future
generations. •
are not getting those experiences, speak up
and ask — no one can help you get what
you want if you do not take the first steps
yourself.
Joey Tsu-Yi Chen, currently an associate in
the firm’s Baltimore office, served as a judicial
clerk to Maryland Court of Special Appeals
Judge Stuart R. Berger (then a judge on the
Circuit Court for Baltimore) from 2010-11.
Now that I have nearly completed my
first year at a law firm, I have come to realize that relationships are the key to generating business. Of course, producing highquality work and evincing professionalism
are fundamental to any workplace, but in a
service profession such as ours, maintaining
good client relationships for business development is a no-brainer. As a first-year associate, learning how to build rapport with
clients can be challenging. Nevertheless,
building relationships early in one’s career
is critical and need not begin with paying
(or even nonpaying) clients. In fact, developing this skill with other attorneys inside
your firm, particularly senior attorneys,
serves the dual purpose of both adding to
your job satisfaction and establishing
potential sources of work.
I did not begin practicing law immediately after graduating law school. Rather, I
chose to spend a year clerking for a state
court judge, who over the course of the
year presided over both civil and criminal
jury trials. As an aspiring litigator, I thought,
“What better way to start my career than
with an insider’s perspective of the court
system?” It was here that I began forging
important relationships with judges and
clerks of that court. My judge was my client, and the other members of the courthouse, from law clerks to staff, were my
colleagues. It was my job to represent and
protect the interests of my client, not only
within the judiciary, but also to the legal
community at large. The judge relied on
me to assist him, and attorneys looked to
me as a point of contact for those cases on
Apprenticeship continues on 10
1 0 | Fir s t - Ye ar Asso ciates
T u e s d a y, S e p t e m b e r 4 , 2 0 1 2 Apprenticeship continued from 9
the judge’s docket.
Transitioning from law clerk to practitioner, while the face of the client has changed,
the importance of relationships has not. As
a junior associate in a law firm, particularly
a first-year associate, your immediate client
is the higher-level associate or partner in
the firm who can give you work. To cultivate these relationships, be visible and
proactive in your firm. Attending firm
events and firm-sponsored events are great
ways to show initiative and get to know
other attorneys who could be potential
sources of work for you or resources to
assist your development as a lawyer.
Partners continued from 5
uct? Does the partner want you to pull and
summarize any cases or other authorities
referenced in the pleading or does he or she
trust your use and application of them?
Ask questions about the partner’s preferred writing style and the presentation of
the document. Is a detailed case history
necessary or should you cut right to the
disputed issue? How vibrant should your
analysis be? How should you refer to the
parties — by name, as plaintiff/defendant,
as something else? What type of font does
he or she prefer? Should the paragraphs be
justified?
Ask questions about the partner’s likes
and dislikes. Does he or she have examples
of good pleadings in other cases that you
can review to get a better idea of what is
preferred? What about examples of bad
Outside the firm, it is important to be
active in your personal and professional
communities, not only for work-life balance but also as potential sources of business development later in your career. Bar
associations, for example, provide excellent
opportunities to meet and network with
others in the legal community. Get involved
in your community, establish your relationships early, and allow them to grow and
bear fruit for your practice.
Just as relationships are the key to building business, communication is the key to
fostering good relationships. The adage
that comes to mind is “knowledge is power.”
In the workplace, people do not like surprises. The best practice is to keep your
client in the know. Start by getting a sense
of how much the responsible attorney
wants to be informed regarding your progress on the assignment. Does your assignment necessitate progress “checkpoints”?
Good communication can assist the supervising attorney’s decision-making — i.e.,
how he or she wants to use that information for the client’s benefit. A word of caution: Not all communication is good, however, and it is important to exercise common sense and good judgment regarding
the information you decide to share and
with whom you choose to share the information. As long as you are mindful of your
audience, and tailor your communication
accordingly, you will enhance your credi-
work product that illustrate what not to do?
In addition to asking questions, don’t be
afraid to answer questions that are asked of
you. If a partner asks you if you have time
to do something and you truly don’t, be
honest with him or her. He or she will be
more upset if you take on something you
do not have the capacity to complete and
then do not give the assignment the time
and effort it requires.
3. Talk to other associates and staff
members.
Perhaps the best way to get an understanding of what a partner expects and likes
is to ask those who know best: other associates, secretaries, paralegals and office and
billing administrators. Ask other associates
for tips on the best approach to addressing
the partner’s needs, such as extra things that
can be done to move a case forward or
bring the partner up to speed on a particu-
lar issue. Does he or she prefer status
memos? Should you schedule a time for the
two of you to have a conference regarding
the case?
Find out how the partner does his or her
own work. Talk to his or her secretary
about the tone and style that the partner
uses when he or she dictates pleadings and
client correspondence and about considerations that should be given if scheduling
the partner for a client meeting or court
appearance. Talk to the billing administrator about common revisions on time entries
by the partner and ways to draft favorable
billing descriptions that will enhance the
partner’s client bills. Other individuals who
support the partner are often the best
resources for figuring out what is expected
of you.
4. Plan ahead. Work ahead.
Inevitably, you will face the day when a
Litigation
DepartmentS
Year
General LitigationLarge Firm
Morgan Lewis & Bockius Winner
DLA Piper Finalist
Cozen O’Connor Finalist
General LitigationMidsize Firm
Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin
& Schiller Winner
Meyer Unkovic & Scott Finalist
Products Liability / Mass Torts
Labor and Employment
Insurance
Medical Malpractice
Class Action
While the two anecdotes above make it
clear that there is much to be learned during an internship, clerkship or other handson educational opportunity, they also shed
light on another important lesson: Your
colleagues are a rich source of advice and
insight. Though you may not have worked
in a judge’s chambers, the second- or thirdyear attorney in the office next to you may
have. Draw on the collective experience of
your peers whenever possible. •
partner comes into your office on the day a
pleading is required to be filed with the
court with pages and pages of corrections
and additions to the document you drafted.
It will be much easier to make the requested revisions if you haven’t backed yourself
into a corner with your time and you are
not facing imminent deadlines on other
projects. The time commitments of a law
practice are like a roller coaster. There will
be very busy days and there will be days
with fewer balls to juggle. Take advantage
of those light days. Look at your case list
(see tip No. 1 above) and see what projects
you can work on in advance. Start compiling research for a brief that may not be due
for another month. Put together a preliminary settlement agreement for a case close
to resolution, knowing that you can finePartners continues on 11
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T u e s d a y, S e p t e m b e r 4 , 2 0 1 2 Partners continued from 10
tune the details later. Prepare a discovery
request for a case even if it has been relatively dormant. There are always items you
can tackle to enhance your productivity.
Even during the busiest of times, find ways
to work ahead and avoid procrastination.
Take work home even if you only have one
free hour in an evening. Come into the
office on weekends. The more you can
avoid facing last-minute crunches, the better your work product will be and the happier your boss will be with you.
Hiring continued from 6
summer program and growing from the
ground up. And when in 2010 we had no
summer class, leading to no starting firstyears in 2011, when you have that gap, all
of a sudden you need to backfill to get your
associate numbers and keep your balance
throughout the firm,” Williams said.
Williams echoed a trend several recruiters have reported to The Legal in recent
months — a dearth of fourth- and fifthyear associates in certain corporate practices like real estate. Firms weren’t training
many corporate lawyers when the market
turned in 2008 and now that they are looking to hire mid-level corporate attorneys,
there are few places to look. The junior
associates who were being hired were put
into litigation practices, Williams said.
“That has created a gap in training,” he
said, adding firms have more senior associates and no junior associates in certain
practices.
5. Embrace and encourage constructive criticism.
As bright as you might be and as hard as
you might work, as a first-year attorney
(and after, for that matter) there are always
things you can learn from your superiors.
Don’t take it personally. It’s a necessary
process in career development. In addition
to the feedback partners provide, do not be
afraid to seek out advice and tips for
improvement. Even if you receive a “great
job,” follow up with the partner about what
you could have done to make the document
better. If the partner is too busy to provide
constructive criticism on a project-by-project basis, try to schedule a time for lunch or
coffee every few months to obtain generalized comments on things you can do to
grow professionally. Your superiors will
never fault you for caring too much.
The practice of law can be overwhelming
in the early stages, but with a proactive
approach, it is not only manageable, but
incredibly worthwhile. Similarly, although
balancing the workload of multiple partners or assigning attorneys can be intimidating, it will make you a better lawyer. Of
the five partners in my firm, no two of them
run their practices the exact same as the
other. In fact, I am sure that no two attorneys in any firm run their practices identically. As you develop and grow as a lawyer,
you will develop your own approach and
style for practicing law. Learn from those
above you and appreciate the experience.
You will acquire different skills from each
of them and over time you will find what
works best for you. And before you know it,
you will be one of the partners sending a
new associate in a different direction than
your colleague right down the hall. •
“So in order to appropriately staff various matters and have lower-rate, more
junior attorneys to do certain aspects of
assignments, you need to continue to hire
at that level and continue to train,” Williams
said.
If firms don’t hire at the junior level, the
alternative for clients is to pay higher rates
for more senior attorneys doing the work a
more junior lawyer could do for less,
Williams said.
After several years of hearing that clients
aren’t willing to pay for first-year associates
and aren’t willing to pay for their on-thejob training — something that helped
spawn Drinker Biddle’s training program
— firms are apparently billing clients for
the work their first-years are doing.
For the first time, The Legal asked survey
respondents whether they were able to bill
for first-year associate work or whether
they were billing less of that work in favor
of training the associates.
All of the 21 respondents said they were
able to bill for their first-year associates.
Four firms — DLA Piper, Drinker Biddle,
Babst Calland and Schnader Harrison
Segal & Lewis — also said they were billing
less in favor of training junior associates.
“Clients are realizing that and accepting
the fact that there are aspects of transactions where it’s cost-effective and makes
sense for junior attorneys to work on matters,” Williams said.
Saul Ewing decided to increase its starting salary for first-years, Williams said,
because the market and competition are
picking back up. While several firms
reduced starting salaries during the recession, the market rate has quickly rebounded
and Saul Ewing wanted to stay competitive,
Williams said.
Saul Ewing wasn’t the only firm that
upped its first-year associate hiring. Reed
Smith grew its first-year associate count in
Pennsylvania from 11 associates last year to
14 this year. Even more noteworthy, however, is its firmwide hiring increase from 25
first-years in 2011 to 41 in 2012. While it
increased its class size, Reed Smith was the
only respondent that said it was deferring
associates. The firm said it was deferring
“some” associates until January 2013.
Cozen O’Connor grew its Pennsylvania
first-year class from nine to 12, and
increased its firmwide numbers from 13 to
20 year over year.
Not every firm grew its class size, however. Ballard Spahr shrunk its Pennsylvania
first-year class from 14 in 2011 to five in
2012.
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F i r s t - Ye a r A s s o c i a t e s • 1 1
The Breakdown
In total, the responding firms hired 136
first-year
associates
across
their
Pennsylvania offices. Morgan, Lewis &
Bockius and Pepper Hamilton had the largest class sizes in Pennsylvania, each with 16
first-years.
Of those 136 associates, about 56 percent
Hiring continues on 12
1 2 | Fir s t - Ye ar Asso ciates
T u e s d a y, S e p t e m b e r 4 , 2 0 1 2 RETENTION IN PENNSYLVANIA
Firm
2009 Hired /
Still With Firm
Percent
Retention
2010 Hired /
Still With Firm
Percent
Retention
2011 Hired /
Still With Firm
Percent
Retention
Archer & Greiner
1/1
100%
0/0
—
0/0
—
Babst Calland
1/1
100%
2/2
100%
3/3
100%
Ballard Spahr
0/0
—
15/12
80%
14/14
100%
Blank Rome
10/8
80%
5/5
100%
6/6
100%
Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney
9/9
100%
5/5
100%
5/5
100%
Cozen O’Connor
9/7
78%
10/10
100%
9/9
100%
Dechert
11/10
91%
27/24
88%
11/11
100%
DLA Piper
0/0
—
2/2
100%
0/0
-
Drinker Biddle & Reath
19/16
84%
10/10
100%
11/11
100%
Duane Morris
9/7
78%
5/4
80%
5/5
100%
Fox Rothschild
6/4
67%
5/5
100%
2/2
100%
Hangley Aronchick
Segal Pudlin & Schiller
0/0
­—
2/2
100%
1/1
100%
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
9/9
100%
22/19
86%
13/11
85%
Pepper Hamilton
20/19
95%
6/6
100%
13/13
100%
Reed Smith
15/12
80%
8/8
100%
12/11
92%
Saul Ewing
4/4
100%
0/0
—
0/0
—
Schnader Harrison
Segal & Lewis
6/3
50%
6/4
67%
4/4
100%
Stradley Ronon
Stevens & Young
9/9
100%
3/3
100%
7/6
86%
Weber Gallagher Simpson
Stapleton Fires & Newby
3/1
33%
3/3
100%
2/2
100%
White and Williams
6/4
67%
5/4
80%
5/5
100%
Woodcock Washburn
5/3
60%
2/1
50%
1/1
100%
Hiring continued from 11
are men and 44 percent are women. That is
a big shift from the 2011 first-year class in
Pennsylvania, in which 59 percent of the
class were women.
Minority associate hiring has remained
basically steady year over year. In 2011,
19.4 percent of the first-year class were
minorities and in 2012, 19.9 percent are
minorities. Of the 136 first-years in
Pennsylvania, 17 are black, four are Latino,
four are Asian American and two fall into
another minority category.
When it comes to where these first-years
matriculated, area law firms are hiring the
most from the University of Pennsylvania
Litigation Summit
Attention All Litigators Join The Legal Intelligencer, in partnership with Furia Rubel
Marketing and Public Relations, on September 13 for our first annual Litigation Summit.
This 6 credit CLE program (including ethics credit) will cover the latest trends and issues
in litigation that affect your law practice. Seminar topics will include:
•
•
•
•
•
What’s Hot in Litigation
E-Discovery Challenges, Solutions & Trends
Computer Forensics
Judicial Panel Discussion (Ethics Credit)
Plaintiff and Defense Use of Economic Damages Experts
•
Jury Consulting
Law School, with 26 of the 136 first-years
in Pennsylvania graduating from the university.
Temple University Beasley School of
Law came in second, with 16 graduates
represented among the first-year classes in
Pennsylvania. That was followed by
Villanova University School of Law at 15
and Rutgers University School of Law-
Camden at 13.
Law schools from out of the area were
also represented among this year’s firstyear associate class. Eight of the class members were from George Washington
University Law School.
Gina Passarella can be contacted at 215557-2494 or at [email protected]. Follow
her on Twitter @GPassarellaTLI. •
September 13, 2012
Sofitel Hotel
120 South 17th Street
Philadelphia, PA
To Register: Logon to
www.thelegalintel.com/summit
or contact Diane McCollum
215-557-2335 | [email protected]
Registration and Breakfast:
7:45am – 8:30am
Registration Fee:
$155 per registrantt
Five or more from one firm –
Call for details
Program:
8:30am – 4:00pm
Seating is limited – REGISTER TODAY!
Event Partner:
Event Sponsors: