Contract attorneys, “status” and a paradigm shift in their favor … with some observations by Gabe Acevedo

We all know about the paradigm shift in the legal industry.  It has been well chronicled by Richard Susskind,  Jordon Furlong, Ron Friedmann and many others.  The legal industry melt down, the deep and rapid technological advances (of the disruptive kind), our relentless connectivity and burgeoning electronic legal marketplace — all have led to major threats to various aspects of the traditional law firm business model. 

But Susskind’s “decomposition of legal tasks” into component parts that can be delegated to various sources — in-sourcing, relocating, offshoring, outsourcing, subcontracting — has had its biggest effect on contract attorneys who are a large part of our membership base.  And the problem is that for the majority of contract attorneys the bulk of their work is not substantive legal advice but highly structured/repetitive functions such as document review, research tasks and processing.   And while they benefit from outsourcing/subcontracting they also can suffer from it.   When firms find themselves in a financial pinch they slash those that they consider most dispensable: the contract lawyers, part-time lawyers, and support staff. 

Note:  as we have noted, most contract attorneys face two horrendous problems — the enormous debt incurred in attending law school, and the lack of opportunity.  People are racking up an average $92,000 in debt because of the implied promise of a high-paying job at the end, and industry predications indicate that there are likely to be less than 30,000 legal jobs available per year — with some 45,000 people graduating from law school every year.  Many blogs focus on the massive portion of law school applicants who are extremely ill-informed about the career prospects resulting from a law degree and nobody has covered these issues better than the Tom the Temp blog (click here) and the Third Tier Reality blog (click here) where both blogs provide statistics and links.  

But there is another side to all of this and that was recently observed by our industry colleague Gabe Acevedo, founder of Gabe’s Guide (click here).  In addition to blogging on his site, Gabe is also legal technology contributor to Above the Law, the doyenne of online legal tabloids.  Gabe has a knack for picking up on stories you’d probably miss on other sites, offers good comment, and has a large following … which is probably why ATL hired him. 

In his recent post for ATL entitled “BigLaw’s Status Issue” (click here) Gabe uses a post by Orrick partner Patricia Gillette as a jump to make the following points: 

1.   The wholesale termination of attorneys, based solely on their status, ignores the paradigm shift in the legal industry.   

2.  The rising, new demographics of the contract attorney market:  ex-BigLaw associates, former trial lawyers and government lawyers, retired law professors, and even some former partners. 

3.   Part-time lawyers, contract lawyers, and lawyers who don’t want to be partners but have a wealth of experience can provide an alternative, cost-effective way of accomplishing a lot of traditional legal work, echoing the thoughts of Richard Susskind and the other members of the “paradigm shift” mob. 

4.   The growing power of litigation support managers, many of whom are attorneys and — in fact — former contract attorneys. 

As Ron Friedmann has noted, one of consequences of the paradigm shift in the legal industry is that “what is bad news for law firms could be good news for legal technology managers and legal technology professionals.”    Law departments must act to reduce legal spend.  If GCs don’t, CFOs and CEOs will step in.   Law firm partners like Patricia Gillette “get it”:  firms have lost pricing power and face a battle for market share.  Winning that battle will require that firms offer clients more value.  To do so, firms will get serious about process improvement, project management, outsourcing, and alternative fees.  

As Gabe mentions in his post and as he has noted several times on his blog, law firms must deploy new technology and new expertise but also use old technology more effectively.   This will require more business and technology professionals, in temporary/contract capacities.  And the existing contract attorney base — and its newest members — provide that. 

We can support Gabe’s observations.  In the last year we have seen a spike in our membership coming from ex-BigLaw associates, former trial lawyers, government lawyers, forensics consultants, and others.   And more contract attorneys moved into project management roles. 

And it is the reason that our job posts for substantive temporary legal work has increased dramatically.  For those on our job lists, you know that the legal recruitment industry is characterized by an enormous surge in demand for temporary legal professionals.  This was recently highlighted by Adecco (click here).  Some of the most sought after temporary legal positions require candidates to have the experience of having worked in a corporate legal division or law firm.  We have also seen it in straight document review projects where law firms and corporations have asked for the requisite substantive experience to work on a project.  Our job lists have greatly expanded in both geographic range and subject areas (for our job lists click here). 

And one thing Gabe and I agree on:  in spite of all the challenges we face we are working in a part of the legal industry that is unusual because it is open to sharing and collaboration, through publications, quality conferences, and trade shows, and peer networking organizations.  Use these resources.   We profile them constantly on our various pages.

Gregory Bufithis, Esq.   Founder/Chairman  The Posse List