May 25, 2007
Happy Memorial Day weekend, all! Today’s entry will be brief — let’s say it’s in observance of the holiday, since I’m running to catch a flight to DC, so I can spend the weekend gardening in southern Maryland. But I wanted to post because I’m excited to be announcing the creation of a bundle of resources to help lawyers in practice.
And be sure to read the final blurb at the very end of this post: there’s a new Altman Weil study out that indicates that at least some corporate clients are quite unhappy about the recent law firm salary increases. Thanks to Carolyn Elefant for highlighting the survey; visit her post Pushback on Rising Lawyer Fees for additional commentary.
FREE RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS
I’ve started offering weekly blog summaries, along with a monthly burst of exclusive content that you won’t find on the blog or anywhere else, via email to subscribers of the Life at the Bar Survival Kit. The Kit also includes the following:
1. Special Report: 7 Secrets Law Firm Associates Need to Know to Find Better Work, Faster Advancement, and Greater Professional Satisfaction.
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2. The Raising the Bar Assessment.
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3. Special Report #2: Find More Focus and Efficiency in the Office, So You Can Accomplish More Work in Less Time.
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4. A special invitation to a FREE teleclass on time management techniques.
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Please visit the sign-up page to receive all of these resources! (The sign-up form is at the bottom of the page.)
RESULTS OF LAW DEPARTMENT SURVEY RE ASSOCIATE PAY HIKE
And finally, I ran across a report on a survey conducted by Altman Weil on the reactions of large law departments (that is, clients) to the recent pay hikes for law firm associates. The results are, frankly, staggering to me, especially on two key questions: “Have any of your panel firms contacted you to discuss associate salary increases and what it meay mean to you?” 100% answered NO. “If no, do you think they should contact you?” 83.8% answered yes, 10.8% responded no, and 5.4% said it doesn’t matter. Granted that the survey responses were limited to those of  38 participants from a pool of the 200 largest U.S. law departments, I suspect nonetheless that some phone calls are overdue.Â
Moreover, 57.9% of respondents think the increases are “outrageous,” and 21.1% provided comments such as “[m]ay cause us to use second tier firms more aggressively on certain matters,” “[a]ffects our ability to recruit talented in-house counsel,” and “[t]he raises are unfortunate and disappointing; in many cases will have unintended consequences for both firms and the associates (making it harder for firms to provide the training they owe to the associates and putting increasing pressure on associates to bill hours) – none of which is in the best interests of the client.”Â
It will be interesting to see how client feedback continues to develop, especially since the salary increases are continuing even now.
Welcome back!
