Don't Talk About It, Be About It
Rick Klau points us to an article about two guys delivering high-tech (tv/internet/phone) services in the Bronx. Two quotes jumped out at me. The first is the title of this post and the second:
New York City is so big and so dense that you don’t have to be terribly successful to be terribly successful.
The company's founder was suggesting that his company could be successful by focusing on a small part of the market and not worrying about competing with the "big boys." However, the quote took me in a different direction. I read it and wonder if this is the ultimate reason why we see so little innovation in the legal marketplace among big law firms. I've beaten this drum before, but do big firms eschew change because they don't have to be terribly successful to be terribly successful?
The story is obviously much different for small firm practitioners. Contrary to public perception, small firm lawyers have to be terribly successful to be terribly successful. Put another way, management skills become more important as firms get smaller because the consequences are greater -- one month of failing to get the bills out on time can result in late mortgage payments or uncovered payrolls. For every small firm lawyer making $200K per year, I'd wager there are five small firm lawyers making $50K or less. I'd go further and suggest there is no measurable difference in legal skill between the successful lawyer and the lawyer opening his mail each day praying for some client checks to come in so he can pay his rent and his secretary.
What separates the two? Management skills. You know, those skills that aren't taught at all in most large law schools. Think I'm kidding? Ask your lawyer what law school taught them about running a law firm. Why is there so little focus on management skills for lawyers in most law school curriculums? I've got a bunch more thoughts on the issue of the woeful failure of law schools (at least those in the "top tier") to prepare future lawyers for the harsh realities of the legal business, but here's one: Of the people running the law schools (deans, administrators, professors, etc.), how many of them have actually practiced law? Of that number, how many worked in a small firm environment? Even of those that worked in a large firm, how many stuck it out long enough to make partner and finally get exposed to the business side of legal practice?
We are creating generations of lawyers who aren't taught by lawyers. And don't give me this B.S. about law school teaching students to "think like lawyers" because that's not true. Law students are taught to think like law professors. The most successful law students are the ones most likely to follow the same career path their professors did: clerkship/big firm/academia. If law schools were in the business of teaching students to "think like lawyers" they would be teaching them to think about marketing, client development, and how to pay the bills on time. Can't remember much of that from my law student days.
Can the same be said for business students? Architecture students? Are those students as removed from the day-to-day business of their professions as law students are? I'm just asking. I know this is heresy, but law schools could take a page from chiropractic schools: teach a bit about running the business you are "preparing" your students to enter.