Minnesota Lawyer Blog

The Minnesota State Bar Association is currently holding its annual Strategic Solutions for Solo and Small Firms conference in lovely Duluth. I've always thought it's a great idea to get a large group of attorneys with small practices together -- particularly the solos who don't always get to see another practitioner over the morning coffee pot. (That's not to say that there aren't some attorneys in other office setups who might not mind trying that themselves ...)

One of the more interesting looking offerings is called "Humor and the Bottom Line." I gather that the topic is not what to do when your bottom line is laughable (although there are plenty of practitioners who could benefit from that advice). The subject of this program is "how to use humor to improve your health, working relationships and productivity." To take a cue from the old adage: Laughter is the best medicine -- and also, apparently, not bad for the bank book either.

Minnesota Lawyer's own Michelle Lore is at the conference and will bring you up to speed on what was discussed there in next week's print edition. In the meantime, if you are at the conference today and reading this on your laptop (or IPod for that matter), make sure to say "hi" to Michelle. She's the one with the digital tape recorder furiously scratching into the reporters' notebook.

There is an item on the Findlaw Greedy Associates board implying that the Minneapolis law firm of Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly may be downsizing attorneys and whole practice groups. These rumors crop up about different local firms from time to time on the Internet and elsewhere, and often prove baseless. This particular rumor gained some traction, so we placed a call to the firm's chair, David Potter, to see if there was anything to it.

"Yeah, I heard that too," he said with a laugh, adding the rumor was completely unfounded. The firm has not lost any practice groups or had any major losses of attorneys since its restructuring in 2003, he said. He also said no staff cuts are either now occurring or planned.

In fact, Oppenheimer is on track to have a pretty good year, according to Potter. While mergers and acquisitions and general corporate work are down -- as they are elsewhere -- litigation has really taken off, he said.

"I think we are in a good spot," Potter stated

Potter also told us that Brad Keil will remain as the firm's CEO for the indefinite future. Oppenheimer has a unique management structure -- a CEO who gives up his/her practice to focus exclusively on the firm's internal operations and a chair who maintains a practice while focusing on the external elements of the leadership role. Keil began his current tenure as CEO last August when Tonia Teasley Schulz left the CEO post after less than a year to join the The Emmerich Group, a local consulting company. Keil -- who had been Schulz's predecessor as CEO -- stepped back into the role when Schulz announced she was leaving. It was unclear at the time whether this would be a stop-gap measure or something more permanent. Apparently, it's the latter.

"The management structure has worked well," said Potter.

Carol Elefant at Legal Blog Watch and the Wall Street Journal Law Blog report today on an interesting recent British study finding that the most productive lawyers of all are childless females. At the bottom of the list? Women with young children.

It's a study whose results are sure to offend -- particularly given that the methodology is subject to attack. As Elefant points out in her piece, the sole criteria used to determine productivity is the number of hours billed.

"[A]s we all know, hours billed don't necessarily correlate to efficiency; indeed, longer hours may signal less productivity, not more," Elefant writes. "I'd be curious to see, for example, whether women lawyers manage to complete tasks more quickly precisely because they have less time. If that's the case (and I suspect it is), perhaps having children makes them more productive, not less."

Interestingly, the study found the opposite was true of men -- i.e. male lawyers with children tend to be more productive than those without. One wonders if this "productivity" isn't a means of dodging out on domestic chores. Billing an additional hour may not look so bad when the alternative is to go home and change a diaper ...

Why did Twin Cities attorney Terri Krivosha -- a partner at the Maslon firm -- have this treadmill installed in her office?
A. It keeps her energized and fit as she works;
B. Having completed a four-year run as chair of the firm's Governance Committee, she thought it would be a good idea to get back on the partnership track;
C. These days an attorney must be really fleet of foot to stay ahead of the competition.

We''ll give you the answer to this and other compelling questions of the day in the Bar Buzz column in Monday's print edition of Minnesota Lawyer.

The Wall Street Journal law blog recently reported two surveys “that took the pulse[s] of junior lawyers at the nation’s large firms” and that found that their pulses are beating rapidly because they are so happy with their jobs (see "The Joys of Big Law"). Ok, one was by Hildebrandt International, which is a legal consulting firm, but the other was American Lawyer magazine, and who am I to say don’t trust the media?

In Hildebrandt’s study, 45 percent rated themselves “highly satisfied” while another 45 percent were “more or less” satisfied. Only five percent expressed strong dissatisfaction with their firms.
In August, in its annual associate poll, American Lawyer reported that associate satisfaction has inched up over recent years to reach a record high of 3.81 on a five point scale, up from 3.64 four years ago.

The WSJ speculates that the level of attention being paid to the needs and preferences of young lawyers is one of the reasons for the happiness hike. Furthermore, they’re making a lot of money when others are unemployed. As one commenter wrote, “I believe that the knowledge of others who are struggling as lawyers makes those of us who have good jobs feel some sense of satisfaction and happiness (or relief and gratitude), thereby making the overall level of happiness for large firm lawyers rise. That and $160,000/yr.”

And, some readers commented, associate’s expectations may have come into line with reality in recent years. One wrote, “It’s hard sometimes, tedious sometimes, but what did I expect? It’s a big law firm and they’re giving me everything they said they would -- pay and bennies but also work and hours. I am no worse off than any of my peers at other firms and that helps too.”

I blogged last week about an Internet scam out there targeting attorneys. Minnesota Lawyer has a story on the scam today (subscriber password required).

It's easy to think no one at your firm would be dumb enough to fall for an e-mail scam. However, these folks can be pretty darn convincing, particularly if you routinely do business via e-mail. The most recent scam plays on lawyers' ethical duties, and takes full advantage of the bar's obligations to protect the interests of clients.

Anyone who thinks it can't happen at his or her firm should take a look at the article in Saturday's Star Tribune, "Supervalu sent $10 million to fraudulent bank accounts; money recovered." Fortunately for Supervalu, the company discovered it had been scammed before the money could be withdrawn from the banks to which it had been sent. Often the scammers use offshore banks, which fortunately for Supervalu did not happen in that case.

The Wall Street Journal Law blog has an item today about what some law firms are paying Google to come up as "sponsored links" when you do a search using certain keywords. (The blog reports that lung cancer and law firms dominate CyberWare's list of most expensive search terms.) There are all kinds of jokes waiting to be made of that pairing, but I am not going to go there.

Number three on CyberWare's list of the most expensive terms are the words "personal injury lawyer michigan." If you type in those Google search terms, and then click on the link of one of the firms that comes up as a "sponsored link," that firm will have to pay Google $66.46. The firm is gambling that it will pick up enough business to offset the advertising costs incurred when people click on their link, but don't wind up giving the firm any business.The highest Minnesota-specific legal search terms on the list were: "personal injury lawyer minnesota." Firms are reportedly paying $36.17 for each click on their link to be sponsors for those terms. While Minnesota is still a better bargain than Michigan, that price is fairly high up on the CyberWare list.

I was curious what local firms were employing this advertising strategy, so I went to the Google site and plugged in the keywords "personal injury lawyer minnesota" to see what came up. Not surprisingly, at the top of the list of "sponsored links" was Woods & Thompson. Since I find that firm's TV ads annoying, I didn't mind clicking on its link just so it would get charged $36 for my visit. A few other usual suspects came up as "sponsored links," including Mesbesher & Spence, Schwebel, Goetz & Sieben and Sieben, Grose, Von Holtum & Carey. There were also less familiar names, such as Terry & Slane, The Schmidt Law Firm, and Hall Law.

I have no idea if their strategy is paying off, or perhaps it's to early to tell. I suppose if you do wind up landing a big case through being a sponsored link," $36 might be a small price to pay.

Although the Wall Street Journal law blog undoubtedly has a vast readership, only a small fraction of visitors to any blog actually take the time to comment. Don't get me wrong, the WSJ Law Blog still gets a goodly number of comments by blog standards. I haven't done a scientific research study, but a typical post on the site may garner 20 to 40 comments.

That was not the case yesterday when the blog put up a post entitled, "The Dark Side of the Legal Job Market." By this morning, 379 comments had been made to the post. Why so much interest in this one post? Here is a taste of it:

For elite law-school grads, prospects have never been better. But the majority
of JDs are suffering from long-term economic trends are suppressing pay and job
growth. The result: Graduates who don’t score at the top of their class are
struggling to find well-paying jobs to make payments on law-school debts that
can top $100,000. Some are taking temporary contract work, reviewing documents
for as little as $20 an hour, without benefits. And many are blaming their law
schools for failing to warn them about the dark side of the job market.

The post was based on on a page 1 story on the legal job market in the WSJ. "Hard Case: Job Market Wanes for U.S. Lawyers: Growth of Legal Sector Lags Broader Economy; Law Schools Proliferate."

Here in Minnesota, we have four law schools pumping out a growing number of job-seeking lawyers. We are approaching the point of minting 1,000 new lawyers a year, many of them knee-deep in student debt. This summer, a record number of test takers sat for the state bar exam. Future lawyers may face uncertain prospects -- particularly if they do not finish in the top 10 percent of their class and do not go to what is considered a "top tier" law school. It's certainly grounds for concern, and something that should be discussed.

Minnesota Lawyer has learned of at least one member of Minnesota's legal community who participated in the heroic rescue efforts following the collapse of the I35 bridge.

Bowman and Brooke summer associate Will Barron and his wife were in the immediate vicinity of the bridge when it collapsed last Wednesday evening. They were on the scene assisting victims immediately.

A photo of Will carrying an injured person out of the wreckage appeared in People magazine on Thursday Aug. 2. (He's in the gray shirt and blue pants.) A co-worker of Will's, Christopher Fowlkes, sent an e-mail around to other Bowman and Brooke employees today in which he states: "[Will] insists that he is not as bald as the picture depicts. Whether or not that is true I can't say. But I can say that what he did was truly heroic and I am glad to know him."

A recent piece in The New York Times about a Manhattan law firm's charity program has been vexing me, and it seems I’m not alone.

The Times article (fourth item down) highlights a Chow for Charity program at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. There, summer associates get a $60 lunch allowance when they meet with firm lawyers. But if an associate spends just $15, the firm will donate the remaining $45 to a nonprofit legal organization.

Hmmm…

The essence of charity—to me at least—requires a conscientious act of selflessness. And Chow for Charity doesn’t pass muster.

The $45 donated to Legal Aid is money that the firm had expected to pay anyway, so there's little conscience. And eating a $15 meal versus a $60 meal hardly constitutes sacrifice—someone who trades extravagance for abundance shouldn't sit at the same table as, say, a Red Cross or Children's Law Center volunteer.

To be fair, Simpson Thacher has other, meaningful pro bono and Legal Aid programs. And I heartily applaud all attorneys who donate time and money for the greater good.

But Chow for Charity is not true charity—it's a sideshow, like Crocs or Adam Sandler movies. I'm glad that our firms here in Minnesota have better sense.

Note to all big law-firm partners who thought that losing your job was the only bad employment action that could be taken against you: Think again!

A Chicago-based litigation firm has announced that it is going to "de-equitize" 15-20 partners, according to an article posted today on Law.com. (See "Jenner & Block Will De-Equitize Partners.")

Here is an interesting quote from the Law.com article: "Jenner is the latest Chicago firm to push some of its equity partners out the door and follows similar moves by firms across the country. Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw downsized its partner group in March, saying that it was looking to eliminate 45 equity partners to boost its profit-per-equity-partner ratio. Some recruiters and lawyers say the strategy is likely to become more common amid rising competition."

The idea is that the selected partners essentially go back to being more like associates. A nonequity partner receives only a salary while an equity partner also receives a share of the firm's profits. Only equity partners can vote on firm matters, the Law.com article explains.

Nonequity partners have existed locally for sometime. However, I am not aware of any large group of Minnesota equity partners who have been simultaneously stripped of their equity status in order to increase firm profitability. Unfortunately, this may be a trend of the future as firms continue to look for new ways to increase their bottom lines.

Personally, I am not crazy about the phrase "partner de-equitization," but I suppose that it's better than calling it "equity partner liquidation," which some might find offensive. How about calling it equity partner euthanasia? Guess not.

The Rocky Mountain News reported last week that the Denver office of Faegre & Benson is being sued after one of its attorneys forged the signature of a federal judge on a legal document. The forgery allowed a client of the firm to obtain a loan and pay the firm for its work.

The attorney involved, Mark W. Fischer, has since admitted the forgery. For the full story, see "Law firm sued over forgery by attorney."

It's sad to see Rider Bennett go the way of Popham Haik, which dissolved in 1997. There is an interesting piece on the Popham Haik implosion that I found with a Google search. The article -- which ran in the Business Journal on June 27, 1997, is entitled: Dissolved firm teaches start ups. The piece delves into the lessons learned from the breakup by the many spin-off firms from the dying oak that was Popham.

With the demise of a quality firm like Rider Bennett, one wonders what future mid-sized general practice law firms have in the scheme of things. Was this unavoidable? What will the lessons learned of the inevitable Rider Bennett spin-offs be? Hopefully the Rider Bennett partners won't get involved in the kind of acrimony that accompanied the dissolution of Doherty Rumble & Butler a few years ago.

In any event, I would like to send out my regards into the blogosphere for the latest mid-sized firm to bite the dust. Whether it is law-firm Darwinism that killed it or something else, it will be missed in the legal community. R&B had a sterling reputation and its untimely demise is unfortunate on many levels.

Good luck to all its lawyers and support staff in securing a new gig. And if you do start a spin-off, make sure to get Minnesota Lawyer subscriptions for all your lawyers! You can click here to subscribe. ;0)