PART II©

Last month we wrote about the most recent round of new associate starting salaries in large cities. This month, we’d like to offer some suggestions to lawyers and firms who are interested in getting off the wage war merry-go-round and creating both quality work environments and satisfying careers.

The widening income gap between lawyers and other Americans has been the subject of much commentary in the legal and lay press since starting salaries for associates were raised to more than $140,000. Both Newsweek and Parade Magazine recently reported that lawyers’ salaries at all levels of experience and in all practices (except some forms of government service) are more than double the national average. Lawyers are among the top 1% of income earners in the country. In real terms, then, lawyers make more money than almost all Americans, yet still remain among the least satisfied with their careers.

What this craving is doing to us as individual lawyers and as cooperative groups of lawyers attempting to practice together has been well covered elsewhere. (For example, the March 1, 2000, edition of the Fulton County Daily Report, an Atlanta legal newspaper, contained an analysis by Michael H. Trotter titled "Domino Effect of Associate Pay Hikes Could Cripple Some Firms.") Most of us believe that this latest in a long string of challenges may well cripple the American law firm as a business form.

Psychological research on human happiness is clear: money cushions us against unhappiness, but money does not make us happy. Because no firm can ever be the highest paying firm in the country, fighting the job satisfaction battle on the wage front is destined to fail. Instead, consider some of these strategies:

• Find new ways to price services that don’t require lawyers to sell their lives in chunks of six minutes each.
• Increase job satisfaction for lawyers to the point where lawyers return to the work for the love of the practice, instead of creating jobs lawyers feel are so demanding that they must produce astronomical incomes to justify the sacrifices required.
• Focus on the work, developing skills, delivering legal services to clients, return to civility and camaraderie, allow lawyers to have a balanced life, create a work environment that is fun, innovative and effective, engage lawyers with your practices by providing a stake in the outcome and scrupulously trustworthy leadership.
• Teach Career Design and Career Building skills to lawyers so that they have goals to pursue beyond money.
• Consider the public perception of lawyers and do your part to improve it. Publicize the good things you do for your community, not just to the legal community, but in your local newspapers and on your local television stations in public service announcements similar to the "just say no" type drug campaigns. Seek to inspire trust in the community you serve.
• Get to know your lawyers. Only by understanding what they want can the group fashion programs and plans that will keep them engaged. Invest in the group’s lawyers and their personal lives. Develop personal relationships with them. Lawyers will stay with the practice if they like the people and enjoy working with one another.
• Recognize that groups of lawyers view the practice differently. Men/Women, Junior Associates/Senior Associates, Associates/Partners, Minority/Majority lawyers all bring different expectations to the practice and different perspectives. Create an environment free of overt or subtle bias by understanding these differences and celebrating them.
• Never reject a serious request by a lawyer for more flexibility, challenge, support, compensation or anything else. Supporting the individual lawyer will most often benefit the practice, not cause serious harm. If you don’t give her what she wants, she will seek it elsewhere.
• Constantly reevaluate what the lawyers’ needs are and recognize and deal immediately with dissatisfaction. Consider climate surveys to determine how the practice’s lawyers feel now.
• Each lawyer should have a personal mission statement that interrelates to the organization’s mission. Helping the organization succeed in its mission must be a part of the firm’s evaluation process for every lawyer.

Please join us at the NALP Education Conference 2000 on Saturday, April 15, 2000, from 9:00 -12:00. We will be discussing these issues and more in our workshop titled:

PeopleWealth can assist your Professional Development staff on a regular or consulting basis to communicate effectively with lawyers and to help lawyers design and build successful careers. If you would like further information about PeopleWealth or our services, please contact our office, e-mail us: info@PeopleWealth.com Or visit our web site at www.PeopleWealth.com

©PeopleWealth March 2000