By Peter Scheer
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. So is a highly skilled and expensively trained junior lawyer at a large law firm.
That is what law firms across the country must be thinking as they hand out pink slips to very talented, but now underutilized, young lawyers (aka “associates”): over 1,200 in just January and February of 2009 (according to the running tally on lawshucks.com), including 190 associates let go by Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles last week. Lawyers who only two or three years ago were being aggressively recruited have now lost their jobs or are wondering whether and when they will.
The downsizing of the legal profession is obviously most painful to lawyers who find themselves suddenly unemployed. But layoffs are also a big loss to big law firms. They invest heavily in the training of junior lawyers, hoping to reap a return in future years, as the lawyers become more proficient in their work and valuable to clients. When those associates, instead, are laid off, the law firms’ considerable investment is wiped out.
There’s gotta be a better way. Here’s a modest (and concededly self-serving) proposal . . .
Law firms should place the best and brightest of their laid off associates with nonprofit organizations that can provide them with interesting and challenging legal work that is relevant to their legal practice. The placement could last one, maybe two, years.
The lawyers would receive a salary, paid substantially or entirely by the firm, which, although well below law firm scale, would be competitive for lawyers working in nonprofits. A key point: all parties must agree that these “loaner lawyers” would return to the firm when business conditions improve.
This is a good deal all around. The law firms would save salary costs while preserving their investment in the recruiting and training of its most promising junior lawyers. The lawyers would have continued employment–which is certainly better than the alternative–and a salary that, although much lower than they are accustomed to, also would be better than the alternative (unemployment benefits).
For the participating nonprofits, this arrangement is a windfall. As an example, consider the California First Amendment Coalition, the organization I am associated with. We need a staff litigator to initiate and handle important free speech and access-to-government cases across the state.
To hire a lawyer would require our securing a foundation grant for that purpose–no small feat in the current economy and, in any event, not something that can be accomplished quickly. But if we could collaborate with a California law firm to bring aboard a talented lawyer who otherwise would be laid off, our staffing needs would be fully met–and the entire transition could be made to happen over a weekend.
Participating law firms might ask how they can be sure, after subsidizing lawyers’ employment in nonprofit organizations for a year or more, that the lawyers will come back when the firms need them. Even if the lawyers sign an agreement with the firms (and/or the nonprofit), they can’t be forced to honor it.
The answer, for my organization, is that lawyers who renege on their promise to return to their former law firm will not receive a positive reference. Since they are also unlikely to get a positive reference from the law firm, they will find their mobility within the legal profession rather limited.
Aligning law firms and their lawyers’ incentives is important, but the reality is that most lawyers will (and should) feel an obligation to law firms that have given them, instead of a pink slip, an opportunity that amounts to a sabbatical leave to work at a nonprofit that allows them to do good and also pursue their legal interests.
Downsizing a law firm is painful all around. Let’s hope at least some of that pain can be mitigated through creative arrangements that also contribute to the public good.
Peter Scheer, a lawyer and journalist, is CFAC’s executive director. Law firms interested in collaborating with CFAC should contact him. (ps@cfac.org // 415-460-5060.)