Someone commented on the last post: "Seems like this is an easy problem to solve. Let them do meaningful work."
We CAN'T let them do meaningful work, because some of them will prove incompetent. And if the work is meaningful, then by definition we need to have competent people doing it. If we have them do meaningful work, we'll need to have an associate babysit until we're sure the work is going to get done right. And, frankly, some of the associates can barely do meaningful work themselves, so having them babysit a summer associate isn't going to turn out well.
We also can't let them do meaningful work because one of the few chips we have left at the end of the summer is that meaningful work is somehow different from the bottom-barrel assignments we've been giving them. We know that's not true, but they don't yet. And so we can tweak the reality a little bit, if someone's on the fence, and tell them they haven't really tasted true big law firm work yet. The intellectual challenge. The unyielding pace. The power to make or break the country's corporate giants. Maybe we can't go that far. But we can try. We can try and pretend that research with consequences is different from research without consequences, even if it mostly isn't. And maybe we get a few more summers to accept the offer and be our indentured servants for a few years. It's worth a try.
But we lose that sales pitch if we actually let them see what "meaningful" work looks like. As if there's such a thing anyway. As if all they want is meaningful work to begin with. At a hiring committee meeting a few years back, I suggested that we do more to show the summer associates that we value them individually, for their own unique skills and talents -- that they're not just interchangeable cogs on a legal form-filing assembly line. We couldn't figure out how to do that -- how to tailor assignments to people's strengths and weaknesses -- whether as summers or as associates. Because all of this work is fundamentally pretty much the same. There are "good writers" and "good diligence doers" but for the most part we just need warm bodies with hours to devote, not necessarily the unique combination of talents one particular attorney brings to the table. Maybe at the most senior levels, with courtroom antics or client development. But not for the first decade or more of practice.
The Army has done a great job pretending it can do this, with its advertising campaign, "An Army Of One." I'm floored that anyone finds this persuasive. Is there an organization that depends on individual talents more than just having a set of interchangeable parts *more* than the army? Maybe just us. An army of one can't win the war any more than a law firm of one can do document review in a large case involving a Fortune 500 company. "A Law Firm Of One." Maybe that can be next year's slogan. Or next year's summer class size.
We CAN'T let them do meaningful work, because some of them will prove incompetent. And if the work is meaningful, then by definition we need to have competent people doing it. If we have them do meaningful work, we'll need to have an associate babysit until we're sure the work is going to get done right. And, frankly, some of the associates can barely do meaningful work themselves, so having them babysit a summer associate isn't going to turn out well.
We also can't let them do meaningful work because one of the few chips we have left at the end of the summer is that meaningful work is somehow different from the bottom-barrel assignments we've been giving them. We know that's not true, but they don't yet. And so we can tweak the reality a little bit, if someone's on the fence, and tell them they haven't really tasted true big law firm work yet. The intellectual challenge. The unyielding pace. The power to make or break the country's corporate giants. Maybe we can't go that far. But we can try. We can try and pretend that research with consequences is different from research without consequences, even if it mostly isn't. And maybe we get a few more summers to accept the offer and be our indentured servants for a few years. It's worth a try.
But we lose that sales pitch if we actually let them see what "meaningful" work looks like. As if there's such a thing anyway. As if all they want is meaningful work to begin with. At a hiring committee meeting a few years back, I suggested that we do more to show the summer associates that we value them individually, for their own unique skills and talents -- that they're not just interchangeable cogs on a legal form-filing assembly line. We couldn't figure out how to do that -- how to tailor assignments to people's strengths and weaknesses -- whether as summers or as associates. Because all of this work is fundamentally pretty much the same. There are "good writers" and "good diligence doers" but for the most part we just need warm bodies with hours to devote, not necessarily the unique combination of talents one particular attorney brings to the table. Maybe at the most senior levels, with courtroom antics or client development. But not for the first decade or more of practice.
The Army has done a great job pretending it can do this, with its advertising campaign, "An Army Of One." I'm floored that anyone finds this persuasive. Is there an organization that depends on individual talents more than just having a set of interchangeable parts *more* than the army? Maybe just us. An army of one can't win the war any more than a law firm of one can do document review in a large case involving a Fortune 500 company. "A Law Firm Of One." Maybe that can be next year's slogan. Or next year's summer class size.
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