There Are Only Three Reasons an Attorney Should Ever Switch Law Firms

 

d. Don’t avoid billing.

 

Some attorneys get a reputation for working hard and others get a reputation for finding solutions quickly and not billing a lot of hours. In many law firms, there are certain clients and matters that partners always want a lot of work done on, where associates can bill a ton of hours. If you do not bill a ton of hours then the partner makes less money and is unhappy.

When I was a young associate I worked on behalf of a Middle Eastern “monarch” and also on behalf of a billionaire deposed dictator/president of an Asian nation. I was the third associate to work for the powerful partner that represented these people. These clients had no care in the world monetarily. One was in a dispute with a perfume designer who received $8,000,000 to design a personal fragrance for his family. Another was in a dispute over $500,000,000 he had stashed in a Swiss bank. These people made more money in interest on their billions each hour than a team of attorneys could possibly bill in a day.

When I started working for the partner I quickly picked up that the two associates who had done work before me had gotten into trouble. The previous associates had found a lot of the work “unnecessary” and told the partner as much. In response, the partner had stopped giving them work—and so had all the other partners in the firm. One literally spent six months with no work before he got the message and started looking for a new job.

When I was assigned to the matter I was tasked with writing an incessant number of memos. I was encouraged to stay late and work weekends on these memos, and it involved tons and tons of busy work. I wrote memos on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that were so routine I felt like I was basically rewording what was written in various treatises. I then turned in these memos and was given additional memos to write. I followed instructions and billed 70+ hours a week writing these memos. I did this for weeks on end. Then one night at about 9:00 p.m., while I was writing one of these memos, the partner stopped by my office and in his own way told me I was doing a good job:

“You’re a good soldier,” he said. “I need a soldier and you are being a good soldier.”

What he meant, of course, was that I was billing and doing what was asked of me. It made no difference that I could pull out a treatise and answer his various questions in minutes instead of hours. He wanted the memos and he wanted me to bill. Perhaps the billionaire dictators wanted to see a bunch of memos, or perhaps he needed to cover his ass for every move because that was what the handlers of the billionaire dictators required. Who knows? It was really none of my business.

The point is I saved my job and got into the good graces of this partner because I did what I was told. He respected me so much he hired me years later to be his recruiter when he moved firms. You need to do what is expected of you. If you are under the impression that lots of billing is expected or required, that is what you need to do. Your job is to follow orders, do the best possible job and bring in the money.

I’ve seen many associates get 100% frozen out by calling their superiors “unethical” for asking for too much work. Law is a business. You earn political points and stay in the good graces of the right people by billing as many hours as expected, when expected.

 

e. Pick an “in” tribe.

 

If you choose to align yourself with a given group, make sure you pick the right group.

Sometimes the group you choose may be one or more partners that do work for a certain type of client, or even one client. If they lose that client or the client(s) go out of business, this can have serious repercussions for the partners in power. The tribe no longer has access to business; without access to work it is in trouble.

To stay safe politically, an attorney needs to be part of more than one tribe, or part of a tribe that has access to more than one line of business (i.e., several clients). There is no other way.

In addition, there are different tribes within most law firms—some more powerful than others. One tribe with the most business may want for whatever reasons (fewer client conflicts, animosity towards other powerful members of another tribe) to push another tribe out of the firm. In this sort of situation, being part of the wrong tribe can also have devastating consequences for your career.

 

f. Avoid getting involved in a practice area that does not generate much money for the firm or is on its way out.

 

The first firm I joined out of law school started out primarily as an employment law firm, but became a commercial and intellectual property firm by the time I joined. The problem with employment litigation and counseling is attorneys cannot bill as much doing this sort of work. As the law firm grew and partners started making a lot of money doing commercial litigation, they suddenly told the employment attorneys they could no longer do this sort of work unless they billed more money to their clients. The employment attorneys were thus in the situation where their only option was either to leave the law firm or stop doing employment litigation and hope they could find other work. Most of these attorneys ended up leaving the firm because they had no choice.

Law firms are continuously discarding attorneys in practice areas they now consider “beneath” them—even if they used that practice area to build the law firm initially. Practice areas that are constantly at risk of being eliminated (and the attorneys thrown out with them) include:

• Trust and estates: Often attorneys cannot command a high rate for this type of work.
• Patent prosecution: A lot of patent prosecution is “flat fee” work, and there is a tremendous amount of competition in the patent space. Much of the work is now shipped overseas to India, China, Korea and other areas to cut costs. Attorneys in the United States then sign off on the foreign attorneys’ work. Consequently, there is not as much money in patent prosecution as before. Patent litigation is more profitable.
• Trademark law: A lot of trademark work is also routine. This pushes down the bills.
• Immigration law: “Flat fee work” is common in immigration law, and many clients cannot afford to pay much. Some companies and firms bring in programmers and other contractors from overseas to fill out visas and take care of routine paperwork. There are a lot of attorneys willing to do this administrative legal work, which pushes down the rates.
• Employment litigation and counseling: Companies like Walgreens constantly face labor and employment suits from disgruntled cashiers and low-level people. The cases are so similar the work becomes routine. This pushes down the rates that firms can charge.
• Family law: Many clients cannot afford to pay their family lawyers much. Family lawyers often face difficulties collecting on their bills, and are constantly competing with lower-charging attorneys.
• Bankruptcy: The amount of available bankruptcy work fluctuates widely. While bankruptcy work for major companies is complex, lower level bankruptcy work is often routine and formulaic. This pushes the rates down.

Many practice areas are constantly at risk in large law firms. When a company is in serious trouble or is trying to get a major deal done, it hires the best litigators or corporate attorneys it can find, regardless of how much it costs. For routine work, average attorneys can be used and money can be saved. It is always important for an attorney to understand where her practice area is in terms of the political makeup and economic hierarchy of the law firm.

The reason that these sorts of mistakes are often “fatal” is because young attorneys do not yet have any political capital. Without political capital it is often difficult for them to recover. Political capital can often be recovered in many large law firms by doing the things that law firms value most—working an incredible number of hours, bringing in business or doing outstanding work—but it is not easy. In a politically-charged environment with all sorts of rules—including rules that are often subtle, if not invisible to most people—attorneys often have no choice but to work as hard as possible to get into the right social environment.

The rules of a law firm are difficult to understand for young attorneys, and can turn against older attorneys quickly. If you are not part of the right group inside the firm the best choice is often to leave. In fact, because young associates make so many mistakes, understand so little of what is going on and often find themselves in the wrong group, the best choice is often to leave. When you see partners inside a law firm in trouble and without any business, they are often in a situation where they too may be isolated and not getting work for higher-ups or clients. Ultimately, much of what is going on inside of law firms is political, and the political game is something that makes attorneys leave.
 

 

If the political tide of the law firm is against you and you do not believe it is fixable, you should look for a new job. If the political tide is in your favor—and possibly even improving—you should stay.

A final option in terms of the political tide of a law firm is that you are completely clueless. Perhaps you are just some nameless drone coming to work and leaving each day. This is quite common. Unfortunately, most attorneys cannot go on like this forever. While you may land an “of counsel” or similar role if your work is good enough, further advancement will ultimately depend on forming more powerful alliances. Of course, maybe advancement isn’t even something you’re interested in; if it is not, you may be perfectly happy never getting involved in any of the political games of the office.

 

2. You Do Not Have Access to Work

 

Access to work is the most important thing you need in any law firm. There is nothing more important than access to work. Without access to work, you cannot bill enough hours, and if you cannot bill enough hours you will not be able to keep your job. Incredibly, I have seen major law firms work associates to death and have them bill numerous 3,000+ hour years in a row doing deals or working on large cases. Suddenly the work slows down and the associate spends six months on track to only bill 1,500 hours for the year. Then the law firm fires them for not having enough work to do. There is no appreciation or calculation for the years of superhuman billing. The work slows down and the associate is fired.

If you do not have enough work to do, you will almost always lose your job. There is no question about it. Whether you are a partner or an associate, if your work slows down you are in danger of losing your job. Law firms are happy to make lots and lots of money off you, but the second it looks like they are losing even a little most law firms toss you on the street.

Associates, partners and others call me all the time looking for new jobs. My first question is always about how busy they are. Then I ask about the political situation in their office. Many times the political situation is fixable, but getting access to work may not be. There are several reasons you may not have access to work inside a law firm:

 

a. Political.

 

For the reasons discussed above, the political tide of the office may be against you. You may receive very little work or be frozen out completely. If this is the case, you should fix the political issues if they are fixable. Otherwise, you should leave.

 

b. Structural (Problems with the Law Firm)

 

The law firm may be doing a variety of things that are preventing it from getting work.

• It may be overpricing its services. Many partners leave law firms because the billing rates get so high it becomes exceedingly difficult for them to generate more business. Law firms often retard their growth by having billing rates that are far too high. This affects partners, associates and others who don’t have enough to do after clients start getting scared off by the high fees. Many satellite offices of national law firms are dangerous places to go. Firms open offices in smaller cities, but clients in those areas often refuse to pay their rates because they’re higher than others in the area. These offices then find themselves without work; associates who join them thinking they are going to have careers with major law firms find themselves quickly unemployed because there is no work.
• It may have a partner compensation structure that is driving away those with business. Partners with business generally want to work in firms where they can make the most money. While there are lot of factors that go into an individual partner’s calculation of the best place to be (availability of other practice areas to send work, quality of associates and support staff, number of offices, the firm’s reputation), ultimately most partners are motivated by money. Many firms will play with formulas for compensating partners. But if they play with this too much, partners with business will start leaving. This means there is less work to do for everyone else.
• It may be emphasizing the wrong practice areas (or have emphasized the wrong practice area in the past). Certain law firms may over-hire in some practice areas when business is good. For example, corporate hiring may pick up when the economy is good. If you join one of these firms and then the practice area slows down, you will often be completely out of luck and need to find a new job. In corporate and real estate, it can often take firms years to recover during a recession. If many litigation cases settle at the same time, a law firm may even go out of business.
• The law firm may be the product of a merger (or series of mergers) that have left it disjointed, confused and functioning as a set of separate “tribes” that are fighting and not doing well. This is far too complex of a situation to discuss in a lot of detail; however, sometimes firms become fractured and disjointed. They can become so prone to infighting that small groups of people hoard the work. This often happens for minute and crazy reasons that are nearly impossible to understand. In these sorts of situations, an associate or partner without a lot of business may suddenly find himself in the midst of a guerilla war with too many sides to keep track of. At that point, it is time to leave. (See Should I Stay or Should I Go: What Should Partners Do When Their Firm Merges With Another Firm? for more information.)
• The law firm may have over-hired. Law firms may simply over-hire for the wrong reasons and not have enough work available.
• The law firm may be too top-heavy or bottom-heavy. The law firm may have too many people at the wrong levels. If you are one of too many junior associates or senior associates, there may not be enough work to go around at your level.
• The law firm may have lost an important client (or multiple clients). If law firms are overly dependent on one or more clients, the loss of those clients can have devastating consequences.
• The economy may be in a recession. When there are recessions attorneys generally need to move fairly quickly to find new positions if the work is too slow at their existing firm. One nice thing about recessions is that there is always work—it is just not always being done by the largest and most successful firms. Our recruiting firm has had some of its best years ever moving associates to smaller and midsized firms outside of major markets when the economy slows. Companies generally save money during recessions by sending work to smaller law firms.

 

c. Problems with Your Seniority Level

 

As attorneys get more senior, their billing rates increase and get very close to what partners charge. Clients would prefer to have partners do the same work, and partners would prefer to do the higher hourly rate work themselves because they make more money on their own billables. Thus, a law firm may simply not have enough work for high-billing senior associates, partners without business, or counsel types. The legal landscape contains tens of thousands of attorneys in this situation. Their options are generally quite limited if they stop getting work in their existing firm.

Regardless of why you or your law firm do not have a lot of work, it’s not something you should spend a lot of time thinking about. If you are slow for more than a few months, your future will be at risk and you need to keep your options open.

The most important thing for any attorney is to constantly have access to work. During slow times, the attorneys who survive will generally do whatever it takes to seek out those in the firm with work or bring in additional work from clients—or even “make work” to be done, as described below. An attorney’s skill often lies in her ability to find work that needs to be done rather than just blindly following orders when asked to do a certain project.
 

Every successful business identifies a need in the market and sets out to fulfill that need. Whether it is a computer program, a web service, a new type of kitchen appliance, a new book about something or a television show, every successful person and company “creates work” to be done. The best attorney convinces clients and partners that a certain type of work needs to be done for the client. This keeps everyone busy.

There is always work to be done. One reason that law firms look so poorly on attorneys who lose their jobs for not having enough work is because the attorneys who do not have enough work are often seen as not being proactive enough to get work from others in the firm and from clients. The best attorneys know how to get clients and create work.

I will never forget going to the graduation party of one of my friends in high school. His father was an attorney who had gone to a fourth-tier law school and ran his own solo practice law firm. He did very well and the party was in a huge, modern house that he had just built on a lake. The attorney represented petty criminals, divorcing couples and people with traffic tickets. Notwithstanding the nature of his work, he made a lot of money.

I had received a traffic ticket and decided to speak with him about this. I told him about the ticket and he launched into a frightening monologue telling me I needed an attorney, it was very serious and he needed to do some research. Under no circumstances should I pay the ticket because it could have dire consequences on my insurance rates, and I did not need this on my driving record. Thinking I must be from a wealthy family, he asked me for my parents’ phone number. He told me he needed to call them and that he would “take care of it.”

In reality, the ticket was not serious. I went to court, the officer who caught me speeding did not show up and the ticket was dismissed. Nevertheless, the reason this attorney was so successful even doing little cases was he created as much work as possible every chance he got. He frightened the hell out of me and I was left with the impression I needed the best attorney possible representing me. After our conversation, I was ready to sit my parents down and tell them I needed a retainer of a few thousand dollars.

Law firms want attorneys who know how to create work. It is very important.

That is why the partner at the one firm had me write all sorts of memos for him about various topics. He was creating work. Creating work gives people access to work. All work needs to be created and all attorneys need to know how to create work to be successful.

 

Attorneys who do well find projects and additional work to be done for those they are working for—whether it is a partner or a client. They are constantly finding new angles and new types of work to be done on each matter that is presented. Ultimately, the more closely an attorney or group of attorneys looks at an issue the more likely they will be to win in any negotiation, case, or deal. The best attorneys and the largest law firms look at all matters they are working on more closely than their competitors. The best attorneys and firms provide more expensive services, but ultimately their efforts to create work provide clients with better service and more wins. The attorney who had me write all those memos never lost a case in his career.

You need to stay busy and you need to create work. If you ultimately can’t do these things, it is generally time to leave your firm and find a place with work.

 

3. You Can Get into a More Prestigious Law Firm

 

When you are in law school, the only method law firms have to evaluate you and distinguish you from the mass of other attorneys applying to them is essentially (1) your law school and (2) your grades there. This will ultimately determine where you end up.

After you have been out for a few years, things like your practice area and experience become more important. Once this occurs, you may find yourself suddenly marketable to large law firms in major cities, when you were not before. The ability to go from a small or midsized law firm to a major American law firm has all sorts of advantages:

• You will get access to more important work on behalf of larger clients. Large law firms get work on behalf of the largest clients. The most important work in the country goes to large law firms in large cities. To get access to headline-making work, an attorney often needs to be with a large law firm in a large city. If you want to do IPOs and other sorts of important work, you generally need to be with an important law firm. 
• The quality of work expected will often be higher and greater and your skills will develop more. Large law firms can charge a lot more money and get work on behalf of larger clients because what is acceptable in lesser law firms is generally not acceptable there. Large law firms require a high degree of perfection in terms of analysis and attention to detail. They often have multiple layers of attorneys and others reviewing work. You learn to be sharper, more detail oriented and harder-working on matters in a large law firm because the clients of these law firms are more than willing to pay for this—and expect it. 
• You will be practicing around more motivated and competitive attorneys—and will learn to play more advanced political games. Large law firms have competitive and motivated attorneys and attract the best. The highest-performing attorneys with the best social skills and educational pedigrees are the ones who most proportionately end up in the largest law firms (compared to the smaller ones). This means that when you are surrounded by these attorneys you will pick up their ways of thinking about issues and approaching situations and you will become more like them. This is something that will help you. You will also understand complex political and other dynamics that will serve you well throughout your career. 
• You will gain a “pedigree” that will make it easier for you to move to another larger law firm in the future. The most important credential for law firms hiring laterally is the quality of the law firm you are coming from—not where you went to law school. The reason for this is because the law firm you are with will shape your work habits and your approach to issues. They will have trained you politically and as a lawyer—much more than a law school ever could. You will also be exposed to larger clients and the sort of work that other large law firms do. Large law firms prefer to hire attorneys from other large law firms—the more prestigious the law firm the better. 
• You will gain new contacts and have new experiences you might not have in a smaller firm. Attorneys from large law firms are typically from major law schools and have a pattern of achievement that puts them on an upward track. These attorneys will go into important positions in firms, major corporations, and the government. They will be part of a network that can advance your career as you move forward. You are likely to meet more of these people in large, prestigious law firms than you are in smaller firms. 
• You can generally move back to a smaller law firm later and your experience in a major law firm will be valued more highly then. The small law firm values people with large law firm training (just as large law firms do). If you move to a large law firm and get exposure to sophisticated training and deals, small law firms will find you quite attractive. There is nothing wrong with getting high-level training, practicing at a high level and then using your experience in a smaller law firm later. You will be more adept politically and also probably more detail-oriented if you practice at a large firm before returning to a smaller one. 
• You will usually make much more money (sometimes even TRIPLE what you were previously making). An attorney in a larger law firm may make significantly more than an attorney in a small firm. This money goes a long way for saving, paying off student loans, or qualifying for a mortgage. 
• You will have the opportunity to go in house with a much larger variety of companies. Large law firms often place their own attorneys in house so they have allies there. Additionally, corporations want to hire attorneys from the most prestigious law firms to work as in-house counsel because they believe these attorneys have better training and represent a better economic deal. (They are getting the services of an attorney from a name brand firm like Skadden Arps for a low price compared to what they would have to pay per hour for the same attorney through their old firm). Companies prefer to hire in-house attorneys from the most prestigious firms that they can. 
• You will have a “pedigree” that will potentially enable you to work internationally, or have a “credential” that will open other career possibilities for you. If an attorney wants to work internationally, they generally need to have experience working for a major, name brand law firm. Law firms in other countries only recognize the big names. Additionally, a big name enables you to have access to a variety of opportunities with government, nonprofit and other organizations that would otherwise not be available to you. 
• Working for a major law firm will enable you to bring in bigger “brand name” clients because they typically want to have work done by larger “brand name” law firms. Large, prestigious companies almost always hire the most prestigious and well-known law firms they can for various matters. They do this because the name of the law firm connotes power and quality, and reflects how seriously the company takes itself and its legal matters. Large, successful companies pay for the security of a law firm’s name and reputation. When you are with a large, prestigious law firm you will have the opportunity to bring in major, brand-name clients who wouldn’t give you a second look if you were at a smaller firm.

 

Many attorneys in practice areas such as real estate, corporate, patent, tax, ERISA and others start out in small law firms and end up moving to major American law firms despite not having attended the best law schools or gotten the best grades. I literally see this all the time. It can be an outstanding career move for the attorneys who take these jobs.

There are also drawbacks of course such as longer hours, the difficulty of making partner, the increased likelihood of losing your job and more. Every attorney needs to make this calculus. What I have seen in my career, though, is that most attorneys will jump at the chance to move to a prestigious law firm when the opportunity presents itself. The more specialized your practice area, the fewer attorneys like you there will be, increasing the odds of moving to a larger, more prestigious firm.
 

If the political tide of your law firm turns against you and it is not fixable, or if you do not have access to work for a prolonged period, it is generally time for you to find a new law firm, no question about it. On the flipside, if the political tide of the firm is in your favor, or even neutral, and you have access to work, you should stay at your current firm. The one exception is if you can get into a more prestigious firm.

Attorneys with access to lots of work generally have at least six months of employment security in front of them at all points in time. If you suddenly run out of work, or it slows down dramatically and this drags on more than three or four months—or looks like it will–you’d better start looking for a job and fast.

The politics of any law firm are difficult to understand. It can take attorneys months (or years) after leaving a law firm to understand what they did wrong or how political forces were operating against them. Nevertheless, if you are in a political situation and you feel it is fatal, then it probably is and you should go.

Finally, while there are real advantages to moving to a more prestigious law firm, it is not without risk. If you believe you are in a situation to move to a more prestigious law firm it is generally something that is recommended because the advantages generally outweigh the disadvantages. Law firms and the rest of the world always respect those who are trying to improve themselves and move up.

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