are entering a business
that will require them to
have business development skills for their professional success,”
offered Wanda Woods,
senior attorney recruitment administrator in Nixon Peabody’s New York office. She says law schools
should consider adding
the following to the curriculum: “The economics
of running a law business,
how to develop new business, networking, how to
interact with opposing
counsel, how to conduct
client meetings, the need
for efficiency, and the importance of time and project management.”
In fact, says Marc S. Fried-man, a partner in the New
York office of Sonnen-schein Nath & Rosenthal,
“I would offer non-cred-it courses in the above
topics to prepare law
students to become legal
professionals.”
The Rankings
What Frims Want
Our respondents point
out that they aren’t expecting new attorneys
to understand profit and
loss statements or to get
involved in the billing and
collections arm of the
business, but to realize
that a law firm is a business: that it lives and dies
on fees; that expenses
have to be monitored;
that their time has to be
carefully tracked; that the
latter is not some torture
system devised for them
alone, but part of the necessary running of a law
firm.
They want new hires
to recognize and respect
the business realities, and
realize that in addition to
serving clients, their job
is to help contribute to
the bottom line. As one respondent explained:
“Every law firm is
a business, solo practitioners run a business,
even government and
public interest law have
business aspects to
them. So it makes sense
to teach business skills,
including marketing,
management, basic accounting and finance,
and how to create a business plan.”
While a
handful of law schools offer joint degree programs
combining the J.D. and
M.B.A., few, if any, are
New hires must
respect the
business realities
and realize that,
in addition to
serving clients,
their job is to
help contribute
to the bottom
line.
really addressing the law
firms’ desire to have new
attorneys think like lawyers and business people. One that is trying is
the University of Virginia
School of Law, which allows students to declare
an outside concentration
in business organization
and finance.
One of the courses offered is “Accounting: Understanding and Analyzing Financial Statements.”
This makes a lot of sense
to one of our survey participants, who said that
law schools should make
“accounting or some finance courses required
for all lawyers, since numbers are part of every issue.”
The emphasis, according to our respondents,
should be on understanding basic law firm economics. Emily Busse, manager
of recruiting and professional development in the
Washington, D.C. office of
Sheppard Mullin Richter
& Hampton, suggests that
new attorneys should be
familiar with “realization,
utilization, the concept of
leverage, and law firm terminology like WIP (work
in progress), origination,
RPL (revenue per lawyer),
and NIPP (net income per
partner).”
She adds that lawyers
who understand the business aspects of the industry will become the leaders; those who don’t will
always be followers. To
put it simply, she says,
“Students who graduate from law school able
to think like a lawyer, but
also like a business person, are likely to be more
successful.”
And of course it is no
shock that respondents
want new associates to
be aware of business development opportunities
early in their careers.
“Entry-level attorneys
are surprised how soon
they need to start thinking
about strategies for business development,” notes
Ms. Woods. “Careers can
get off to a positive start
the sooner attorneys
learn the basics of business development, starting with keeping in touch
with college and law
