Filed under: Blogroll
venable LLP, one of the better-known firms in washington, d.c., is already bragging about its performance in the latest building a better legal profession (bblp) report. we ranked venable 5th in overall diversity for large d.c. firms, and they’ve posted this accomplishment on the front page of their website. (we’ll try to get a screen shot, but in the meantime, you can see the page here.)
yesterday morning, we got a call from venable, asking for permission to distribute copies of our “diversity report card” to all of their summer offerees. (we happily obliged.) it’s great to see a firm with such a strong commitment to these issues. we hope other firms will follow venable’s lead!
Filed under: Law reform
judging from the e-mails we’ve received, it looks like law students make up a large part of our readership. that’s great news. we hope you find this information helpful as you decide where to work after graduation. as you can see from our report, there’s a lot more to firms than their Vault prestige rankings and compensation packages.
we hope you’ll join our effort to educate other law students about the differences between major law firms. our goal is to visit every law school in the country to present our findings and distribute paper copies of our report to students. if you’re a law student and would like to help us arrange a visit, contact us at refirmation (at) gmail.com. thanks!
Filed under: Law reform
over 15,000 people have viewed our website since yesterday’s press conference. it’s amazing. we hope you’ll continue to spread the word about our work! keep the momentum going: link to our site from your blog or share the URL (http://refirmation.wordpress.com) with your friends.
it’s only a matter of time before this groundswell of support turns into a mandate for reform at large private firms…
thanks for checking us out online. henry weinstein’s great article today in the los angeles times nicely summarizes the findings of our just-published report on the status of the legal profession.
for those of you joining us for the first time, building a better legal profession is a national grassroots movement of law students committed to improving the quality of life at large private law firms. with reports such as the one we released at yesterday’s press conference in washington, d.c., we educate our fellow students on the differences between major firms and encourage them to select future employers based on criteria beyond salary and prestige. for firms seeking to attract and retain top applicants, we create a market pressure for firms to reform their workplace culture.
feel free to look around our site for more information. if you have any questions, comments, or criticisms, don’t hestitate to e-mail us at refirmation (at) gmail.com. look forward to hearing from you!
Today we released a series of reports ranking firms on diversity, pro bono participation, and billable hours in six major markets. You can find our rankings and charts for the New York, DC, Boston, Chicago, Northern California, and Southern California markets here.
And press releases:
Boston (coming soon)
Filed under: Law reform
in two hours. national press club @ 12:30 est. 13th floor, zenger room.
information from the press club website.
as soon as the press conference starts, we’re lifting the media embargo and officially releasing our full report on the state of large private law firms. we’ll be posting links here for our data on six markets — manhattan, washington, boston, chicago, los angeles, and san fran/bay area — so be sure to check back in a bit.
Filed under: Law reform
we just wrapped up a taped interview with cbs news radio. we think their affiliates will be airing the segment tomorrow during the day.
the size of our audience increases once again.
it’s our biggest endorsement yet. many thanks to the national women’s law center — one of the country’s most prolific public interest organizations — and their founder, marcia greenberger. here’s what ms. greenberger had to say:
“building a better legal profession has provided us with a resource that has great promise. by comparing the largest law firms in the top legal markets, the students have put a spotlight on the key issues of demographic diversity, pro bono participation and hours billed, which are such important indicators of the heart and soul of a firm. it is particularly noteworthy that these law students are showing initiative and demonstrating a commitment to improving the profession and career options for themselves and for all those who will come after them. these enterprising law students have an enormous potential to be a force for good and for positive change – now and throughout their careers. i commend them for their dedication and hard work.”
– marcia d. greenberger, founder and co-president, national women’s law center
fantastic! it’s wonderful to receive praise from such a visionary in women’s rights. to see all of our endorsements, click here or follow the link on the left side of the page.
we’re excited to receive support from our friends in new haven. jen broxmeyer, chair of yale law women, has joined our national board, and she’s sent along y.l.a.’s endorsement:
“yale law women applauds building a better legal profession’s latest project. as fellow law students, we appreciate dialogue on the firm policies and recruitment strategies that shape our profession. building a better legal profession’s rankings provide important information for law students to make informed decisions about our careers. yale law women recently released a ranking of the top ten family friendly firms as part of a parallel effort to encourage students and firms to think about a work-life balance and evaluate the policies and cultural practices that affect the lives of all young attorneys. we hope these student-led efforts will spark a greater commitment by all to a better work environment.
–statement of yale law women
if you aren’t familiar with y.l.a.’s annual ranking of the top family friendly firms, check out their most recent press release. it’s a perfect compliment to our report. these two projects demonstrate the growing student demand for better information about the work environment at large private law firms. we’re looking forward to our continued alliance with y.l.w. in our push for workplace reform.
we’re flattered and excited by all of the media interest in tomorrow’s press conference. we’ve spent the afternoon doing interviews with several national publications and we’re taping a radio interview tonight.
andrew bruck just arrived in washington, d.c., for tomorrow’s event and andrew canter is mid-flight from california. the rest of the staff is busy arranging interviews and contacting media outlets. thanks to everyone who’s helped out today!
if you’d like to do a piece on our work, please visit here. note to reporters: all media information is embargoed until 12:30 pm EST tomorrow (wednesday, october 10).
michele landis dauber, ph.d., has offered just one of our strongest endorsements to date. winner of the 2006 walter j. gores award, stanford’s highest teaching honor, and a well-known writer on race, gender, and employment law, prof. dauber is highly respected by academics and students alike. we’re glad to have her on our side.
“this pathbreaking research sends a message to america’s law firms that is loud and clear: the best law students want to work at the firms where they have a fair chance at promotion, and where it is possible to work hard and enjoy a family life. it’s about time students collected this kind of basic information about law firms and began to vote with their feet.”
–-michele landis dauber, ph.d., professor of law and (by courtesy) sociology, stanford law school
additional endorsements coming down the pike. click here to see everyone who’s supporting our efforts to build a better legal profession.
Filed under: Law reform
exciting news! we will be unveiling our first major report on the status of the legal profession later this week. several of our members will be traveling to washington, d.c. to release the report at a major press conference.
if you’ll be in d.c., feel free to stop by:
wednesday, october 10, 2007 @ 12:30
national press club, 13th floor, zenger room
media folks: please click the “media inquiries” link on the sidebar for more info. it’s going to be a great event.
stay tuned for additional updates.
we’re proud to announce the latest statement of support. this time, it’s coming from the project for attorney retention, a fantastic research institute sponsored by the university of california, hastings:
“these reports are extremely important. even the best intentioned law firms can have gaps between policy and actual practice and objective numbers can help point out those gaps. law firms as well as law students will benefit from better information that is widely available.”
– cynthia thomas calvert, co-director, project for attorney retention
p.a.r. is one of the nation’s leading academic centers for study of the workplace, and we’re thrilled to have their support.
if your organization would like to endorse our efforts to publicize law firm employment data, don’t hesitate to contact us.
we’re excited to announce support from our friends at harvard law school. kate reilly, vice president of the women’s law association at HLS, has joined our national board of advisers. she’s also passed along an endorsement from W.L.A.:
“law students are in a powerful position to positively influence the legal profession by making educated choices early in their careers about the kinds of law firms for which they want to work. too often, students don’t have the information to really evaluate what a firm prioritizes in hiring and retaining lawyers. this program has the potential to remedy that problem and to give law students the tools to begin their careers in environments where they will be welcome and encouraged while getting to do important, challenging work.”
–katherine reilly, vice-president, women’s law association (WLA) of harvard law school
kate has written prolifically on women’s issues — see here and here — and we’re glad to have her on board. it’s further proof that our national grassroots movement is growing by the day.
deborah l. rhode, former chair of the aba commission on women in the profession, issued a statement today praising our work. we couldn’t be happier to receive support from professor rhode, one of the nation’s leading experts on professional responsibility and reform of the legal profession:
“this is an extraordinarily impressive effort to shine much needed light on law firms’ commitment to diversity, not just in principle but in practice. this should be the starting point of a constructive conversation between firms, law schools, law students, and bar organizations about how to create a just and equitable professional culture.”
–deborah rhode, mcfarland professor of law & director of the center on ethics, stanford university; former chair, aba commission on women in the profession
more endorsements soon.
Filed under: Law reform
so we gave bad instructions in today’s e-mail to SLS students. to subscribe, don’t e-mail law-reform@lists.stanford.edu; all that does is spam the list. if you want to join our mailing list, click here and type in your e-mail address.
apologies for our earlier ludditism.
on monday, we posted throughout stanford law school a series of green-and-white posters filled with law firm employment data. these posters summarize the findings from our first major report, and we decided to do a limited release on stanford’s campus to gauge reaction and to solicit feedback before doing a full-scale press conference later this month.
well, the response has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. we’d like to thank all of the students and professors who have shared their warm comments with us.
we thought it would be helpful to briefly explain our project and answer the most common questions we’ve received.
q: uh, what are all these posters doing around the law school?
a: these charts rank large new york law firms by a variety of different metrics — the average number of hours billed by associates, the percentages of different minority groups at the firm, and the rates of pro bono participation.
q: where’d you get this information?
a: all of it is publicly available at nalpdirectory.com. the national association of law placement (n.a.l.p.) asks firms to self-report this data in an annual survey. but n.a.l.p. doesn’t do a good job of presenting the information. so, starting in july, we went through each page, copied the data into an excel spreadsheet, and then ranked firms by these various metrics.
q: why doesn’t n.a.l.p. do this?
a: no idea. but as far as we can tell, we’re the first people ever to present this information in such a user-friendly way.
q: didn’t it take you a long time to collect all this data?
a: yes.
q: so why’d you do it?
a: because students have a right to know as much information as possible before they decide where to work after law school. you wouldn’t buy a car without reading consumer reports, and you shouldn’t sign up for a firm unless you know how it compares to others. there’s a market for law students, and efficient markets thrive on information. we’re providing information in the hopes of creating savvier consumers.
q: but if i want to know how good a firm is, can’t i just check vault? they already rank firms.
a: sure, but they provide pretty limited information. vault ranks firms according to prestige and salary. we’re not denying that these are factors to consider. but we thought it’d be useful to have some other criteria available when students are making a decision.
q: doesn’t vault also rank according to diversity?
a: they do. but it’s unreliable and entirely subjective. vault creates their diversity rankings by sending a questionnaire to associates and asking them whether their firm is friendly to minorities. (vault explains this in the fine print on page 10 of its 2007 “top 100 firms” guide.) the company doesn’t include any hard employment numbers in their calculations. we thought students would be better served by knowing exactly how many minorities the firms actually hire and retain.
q: so now what? what’s the point of all this?
a: we created building a better legal organization in the hopes of encouraging law firms to reform their practices. we think the current model at large firms — one based on high salaries, but even higher billable hour expectations — doesn’t just hurt young associates, it hurts the profession as a whole. by working associates around the clock, the big firms pressure their lawyers to neglect other aspects of their lives, including family, pro bono practice, and outside interests. as a result, firms and their clients lose some of their best attorneys.
q: but what do we have to do with this? we’re not even at a firm yet.
a: that’s exactly the point. as law students, we still have leverage to encourage reform. firms recognize that students at top schools have an array of choices about where to work after graduation. if students begin choosing firms based on their billable hour expectations, pro bono participation rates, and demographic diversity — rather than simply the firms’ prestige or compensation packages — then these employers will be forced to improve on all of these additional metrics. it’s simple economics. we create market pressure for reform.
q: it seems like you guys are pretty anti-firm.
a: not at all. in fact, the CEO/chairman of orrick just released a statement praising our work. the extraordinarily high attrition rates suffered by firms hurt their bottom line. we want to help firms move away from the “billable hour” model of charging clients — as the ABA has already recognized, this model encourages inefficiency and unnecessarily long hours at the office. we’re trying to fix precisely those issues which drive out so many young associate. but firms won’t change on their own. we’re providing the initial energy necessary overcome their inertia.
q: yeah, but neither of the organization’s presidents have ever worked at a firm.
a: this is true. but most of our 130 members have, and plan to return to firms upon graduation. they chose not to publicize their participation for fear of retribution. also, why should it matter? the editors at consumer reports haven’t driven every car they review in their magazine. we’re just here to provide students with greater access to information before they make job decisions.
q: i’ll admit it’s an interesting project. but right now you only have data available for new york city. what about other markets?
a: we did new york first because it’s the largest legal market in the country. we wanted to get feedback from students before we proceeded to other geographic regions. but we’re in the process of collecting data for washington, dc; chicago; boston; northern california; and southern california and we plan to post it online next week.
q: how can i get involved?
a: we need all the help we can get. not only are we busy collecting data, but we are also working with firms and the media to publicize our efforts. here are two things you can do:
1. add your support by joining our organization. it’s easy: just subscribe to our list-serv by clicking here. don’t worry, we won’t tell your firm.
2. email us at refirmation@gmail.com to learn how to you can help.
thanks for reading. we’re genuinely committed to providing a useful service to other students, and we hope you’ll contact us with questions, suggestions, concerns, or criticisms.
… about our efforts. we’re releasing a major report ranking large firms on key metrics, including five forms of diversity, pro bono participation, and billable hours. some firms are doing very well, while others are lagging behind.
who are these top performers, you might ask? you’ll have to wait until wednesday for the full results, but here’s a preview: when it comes to all forms of diversity, orrick is one of very best firms in new york city. Here’s what they have to say about that:
“we are proud to earn this recognition from law students building a better legal profession. a commitment to workplace diversity is essential in attracting and retaining exceptional attorneys out of law school and to ensuring the success of law firms. it will continue to be a top priority at o.”
–ralph baxter, chairman and CEO, orrick
stay tuned — more endorsements soon …
Welcome. Thanks for taking the time to check out our website.
Building a Better Legal Profession seeks to harness the market power of law students to encourage reform at large private law firms. We think the current model at large firms — one based on high salaries, but higher billable hour expectations — isn’t just bad for young lawyers, it’s bad for the profession.
Billable hours keep going up. Which makes it harder to do pro bono. Harder to live your own life outside of the office. And harder to have a family. Firms lose some of their best young lawyers — female AND male associates — when they fail to accommodate their employees’ need to balance work and family. That hurts their bottom line.
But firms won’t change on their own.
That’s where we come in. Law students are in a special position. We are in high demand. We can afford to be a little choosy about where we work after graduation. By opting for firms with more realistic billable hour requirements, higher pro bono participation rates, and higher retention rates for women and other minority lawyers, not only will we have a better employment experience, we will also send a powerful message to all firms that these metrics matter.
The information we posted all around school (about billable hours, pro bono participation, transparency, and diversity) is one way to show major distinctions between law firms. All of this information is publicly available, but, before this project, no one had ever bothered to display it in a useful format. You can use your market power to exploit these distinctions. You’re a valuable commodity, for better or for worse.
We’re not alone in believing that the billable hour could use some rethinking. See our posts below for articles about billables, their effect on a balanced work and life, and a few law firms that are doing things differently.
Want to hear more? Join our organization by emailing us at refirmation (at) gmail.com. We can use your help in expanding this to more markets (including the Bay Area, yes) and to cover additional metrics you’d find useful.
Filed under: Law reform
Hanson Bridgett, a midsize San Francisco firm, has just decided to lower its billable hour requirement by 50 hours a year:
Weeks before the fiscal year’s end, Hanson Bridgett circulated a memo to its 50 associates and senior counsel announcing 50 hours would be lopped off the annual billings expectations, from 1,850 to 1,800 hours, without compromising partnership trajectory. For comparison, most big law associates are required to bill north of 2,000 hours a year.
According to the San Francisco Daily Journal of Sept. 7, 2007 (no link available), Hanson Bridgett said “these changes reinforce our difference as a law firm committed to offering you rewarding careers as lawyers, while at the same time respecting your goals outside of work.”
We couldn’t be happier to hear the news. Hanson Bridgett’s movement — in the right direction, for once — is a tremendous step toward building a better firm and profession, benefiting both their attorneys and their clients. As a partner there put it:
“We think this is the best way to do right by our people, acknowledging that there’s a marketplace where they can go out and make more money; do right by our firm and our clients by trying to make sure we hold on to the best people and attract the best people; and not do something we think would damage our business, like going up to 160.”
You can learn more about Hanson Bridgett here.
