Category: Young Attorney

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LSAT Test Taker Numbers Continue to Drop

As reported by the New York Times, the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) is reporting that there has been a 16% drop in the number of LSAT test-takers from the previous year.  That drop represents a decade low according to the Law School Admissions Counsel.

According to the Times:

The Law School Admission Council reported that the LSAT was given 129,925 times in the 2011-12 academic year. That was well off the 155,050 of the year before and far from the peak of 171,514 in the year before that. In all, the number of test takers has fallen by nearly 25 percent in the last two years.

Those are some pretty interesting numbers.

No doubt, the drop in the number of test-takers can be directly tied to the recent recession and the news of student’s suing their law schools for false employment data reporting.

My two cents?  I’m not at all surprised.

My wife asked me the other day if I would talk to one of the children of someone she works with about being a lawyer and going to law school.  The first thing I did was frown and say, “I hope she isn’t another liberal arts major that doesn’t know what else to do with her life.”  (Ok, I’ll admit to being a cynic and rather negative at times.  I’ll also admit that I was that liberal arts major).

However, I was speaking with a local judge in Minnesota recently about practicing law, starting a law practice, and, in general, being a lawyer.  It was a great, lawyer-to-lawyer, conversation.  I don’t have them all the time, but I enjoy the chance to speak with a good lawyer about what the law means to them.

We talked about many things related to practicing law.  The judge had been a solo lawyer for a while, he had been a public defender, and then he became a judge.  He talked about how he enjoyed nearly every aspect of the being a lawyer – no matter in what capacity.  His candor to me was refreshing.

The judge also made a statement that many people ask him “should my son or daughter go to law school?”  After all “isn’t there a lot of competition?”  His response?  If you like the law and you want to be a lawyer, yes, of course, I would recommend law school.

I smiled and nodded.  I don’t know if I would give the same answers to people who ask me if their son or daughter should go to law school.  I hope I would.  However, I knew what the judge meant.

The law is a service profession.  There is much joy in it if you like learning, having an active mind, enjoy competition, and like helping people.  It was the judge’s life work – his ministry, if you will.

So, I am thinking that maybe it isn’t the lawyer part that is bad.  Instead, it is the misconception that I think people have about what law school and being a lawyer means.  People shouldn’t think of it as a means to an end.  The law is the means.

Being a lawyer won’t make you happy if you are in it for the money or prestige or whatever reason you have.  You should only take the LSAT and go to law school if you want to be a lawyer.  If you don’t know what that means, I suggest you go intern a while and figure it out before you make the financial and life-altering leap that is going to law school.

 

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I Went to Law School, Passed the Bar Exam, Now What?

I’m at a weird crossroads right now in my life.  Starting a law firm is taking up all my energy and – to be perfectly honest – it is beginning to stress me out.

To that end, I was forwarded an article by my uncle concerning how law schools are not teaching law students how to be lawyers which was in the November 19, 2011 edition of the New York Times.  My uncle said he found the article “interesting”.  I found it depressing.

These kinds of articles aren’t new.  They seem to pop up every few months.  My guess is that a reporter somewhere in the world had drinks with some lawyer sometime and the lawyer said something like:  “law school is a joke.”  Intrigued and looking for a scoop, the reporter then asks “why?”.  Later, we all get an article to read about how law schools don’t teach people to be practicing lawyers.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the public needs to be aware that law schools don’t teach their students how to be lawyers.  I worry quite a bit that some young lawyer will read this blog, decide they can start a law firm, and then go out and committ malpractice and screw up somebody’s life.  It might not even be this hypothetical person’s fault.  After all, they went to law school and took a ridiculous bar exam that doesn’t teach them one thing about being a good lawyer.

Ok, it’s not all doom-and-gloom.  A diligent, honest, and hard-working person can probably make it right out of law school.  I couldn’t have.  I’m not even sure I can now.  One of the mantras that keeps flloating through my mind is “I may fail.”  Luckily, I have a fallback in my wife if that happens.  Do you have a fallback?

Go read the NY Times piece if you want to wallow in the misery that is law school v. law practice.  Me, I’m going to take the four years or so I spent AFTER law school where I learned to be a practicing lawyer and I’m going to continue to get better and hone my skills. As the article so aptly points out:

To succeed in this environment, graduates will need entrepreneurial skills, management ability and some expertise in landing clients. They will need to know less about Contracts and more about contract.

“Where do these students go?” says Michael Roster, a former chairman of the Association of Corporate Counsel and a lecturer at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. “There are virtually no openings. They can’t hang a shingle and start on their own. Many of them are now asking their schools, ‘Why didn’t you teach me how to practice law?’ ”

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Learning How to Practice Law Again

Confession:  I had a bit of a breakdown this weekend when I realized how much work I have to do before I can open-up-shop and start practicing law again.   Calling it overwhelming would be an understatement.  Luckily, I have the greatest person I have ever met to listen to me in my dark moments:  my wife.

After discussing a myriad of concerns with her about how impossible it was to get everything done, I realized that my main concern right now is competency.  I’m a licensed attorney in Indiana, but I am hoping to be admitted to the Minnesota Bar in the relatively near future.  Until I am licensed in Minnesota, I have been doing the whatever due diligence work I can to get ready.  In other words, I need to train myself all over again.  Furthermore,  I cannot begin taking on cases in Minnesota unless I can competently handle the issue.  As I’ve discussed, my main practice area is and has been family law.  I’ve done a smattering of other legal work, but I feel the most comfortable saying I know what I am doing in family law.

However, I practiced for nearly four years in Indiana.  Indiana has different laws and different rules.  Indiana has different courts.  Indiana has different forms, filing fees, deadlines, etc, etc.  I could go on.

It is true that laws are very similar in many states.  However, I know from practicing law that the bar exam and law school doesn’t teach you how to be a competent practicing attorney.  I thought I was getting good at my job in Indiana, but Minnesota has different forms, rules, law, procedures, courts, etc.  It is scary.

In light of this, I have come to the conclusion that I have two options: (1) join a law firm, get Minnesota-centric experience, build a network, and then open a law practice, or (2) go to the law library and read, read, read, gain competency in the details, and then start a law firm.

At this point, I am going with option 2.  After I teach myself, I will talk to as many local attorneys as I can and, possibly, do a unpaid internship of sorts.  Also, as I stated in my previous post, I’m looking into trying to find a family law mentor of some kind.

Luckily, I have a couple of friends who practice family law close by.  I plan to pump them for as much information as I can.  Also, I remembered today that divorce pleadings are typically matters of public record.  I simply need to go to a courthouse and find a completed dissolution of marriage file and review the pleadings – preferably a case handled by a good, experienced lawyer.  I used this trick often in Indiana.  When in doubt, go look at the quality work of those that have gone before you.

Learning the law over again is not fun.  It is especially not fun when you have already learned one jurisdiction’s law.  But, it is necessary.

After practicing law for a little while I know that I have my client’s lives in my hands.  I cannot fail to meet the burden of that trust.  I cannot be incompetent.  If, after trying to teach myself the finer points of Minnesota practice, I don’t feel I am competent to handle family law work, I’m not going to start a law firm.  End of story.

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Being Young and Dumb and Admitting It

Young Attorney Tyler White posted about Being Taken to the Woodshed recently in a post on Lawyerist.com.

I really enjoyed the post because it is totally honest and to the point.  He discusses a recent instance of being taken-to-the-woodshed in open court and being humiliated.  The post resonated with me because I’ve been there and done that.

I know what it is like to get the dress-down by a fellow member of the bar or a judge.  I especially liked the post because Mr. White was honest about what happened and basically said that when you screw up (and you will) don’t blame others and learn from your mistakes.  Easier said than done.

I hate feeling like a guru or a know-it-all on this blog.  I’m young (31) and I have only been practicing for about four years.  I’m not even licensed in Minnesota yet.  I too am going solo. However, I also understand that inexperience doesn’t mean you can’t dream and do what you want with your life and career.  Just be prepared to face the consequences of the choices you make – like Mr. White has.

My wood-shed moment

In the vein of opening up a vein, let me share one of my more humiliating experiences.  When I was about two years out of law school (not that long ago) I had a steady stream of clients of my own. I thought I knew what I was doing.  In many cases, I did know what I was doing but I let success get to my head.

The story goes something like this:  a client called, I listened to her cry, she paid me a tiny retainer and promised more later (first red flag).  This person proceeded to yell and cry at me during the entire period of my representation. (second red flag)  She also showed up late to court hearing and made many excuses about why she could not get things for me which she had promised to get.  (how many red flags are we on?)  The obvious mistake here is client selection and not saying no to client who you know in your gut will be bad ones.

I didn’t say no.  For some reason, I continued on with this client to trial even though I wasn’t really getting paid.  Why did we go to trial?  Again, probably because she was completely unreasonable and I didn’t have the guts to tell her no.

In the middle of trial with a particularly obnoxious opposing counsel, I got into an argument with the other attorney from across the lawyer benches.  Mind you:  this is all being transcribed.  At the time, I thought opposing counsel had done something under-handed  (I still think that) but, instead of being a professional, I started yelling at the other attorney in open court. What did the judge do?  What he should have done:  he banged his gavel and berated both me and the other attorney in front of our clients.  I was (and still am) very embarrassed about my behavior.  Even worse, I could also tell that the judge had a different attitude about my motions and arguments I made before the bench after that.  I think I repaired my reputation over time, but it was a big mistake.

I took my dress-down in stride and learned from it.  One of the tough parts about being a young attorney is having to make mistakes.  You want to be a good attorney and learn, but you just haven’t been there before.  And yet that is also an excuse.

If you are prepared and know it, things go right the vast majority of the time.  If you let obnoxious clients cloud your judgment and act unprofessionally in court, you won’t win any respect from your peers or your clients.  You also won’t respect yourself.

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If You Want to Do It, Just Do It

I’ve been wanting to post for several days now and I just can’t seem to get one out.  I’m too busy working on my website, which I plan to talk about in detail because I made a bunch of mistakes that somebody can learn from.  Anyway, I’m posting now.

When I think about starting a law firm – and I think about it all day, every day – a comment by Steve Pennaz keeps coming back to me.  Who is Steve Pennaz?  Clearly you don’t fish.  Pennaz is the head of the North American Fishing Club.  That is not important.  What is important is a comment he made in a recent fishing show about his early salad days when he was a little guy and the world was a big, big place.

I wanted to share his comment.  I’m paraphrasing, but here goes:  during the show, Pennaz was asked about getting started in the fishing business.  He talked about how he wanted to be a fishing guru and head-honcho of the fishing industry soon after college or something.

To that end, he shared that, while he was still college, he went to a fishing seminar at which Babe Winkelman was the keynote speaker.  (Oh, you don’t know who Babe Winkelman is either?).  Pennaz shared that he went up to Babe Winkelman and asked:  “How did you start your own fishing show?”  To which, Winkelman replied:  “What do you mean ‘how’, I just did it.”

Whether or not you like fishing or embroidery, the message in that statement is clear.  If you want to do something, just do it and don’t look back.  That’s my new moto:  “I just did it.”

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Admission In Absentia

In my seemingly never-ending-quest to become licensed in the state I actually want to practice and start a law firm in, I moved one step closer today.  I appeared before Judge Mark of the Goodhue County District Court, State of Minnesota and swore my oath and pledge for admittance before the North Dakota Bar.  Doing this means I am one step closer to being licensed in Minnesota.  Thank God.

The irony of the whole thing is that I just appeared before a Minnesota judge so he could swear me into the North Dakota Bar when I would prefer to be admitted to the Minnesota Bar but must wait to be admitted by motion, instead.  I know, it is way too complicated and basically makes my life more difficult.

As any of the readers of this blog may know, I am licensed in Indiana and have just obtained licensure in North Dakota.  My ultimate goal is licensure in Minnesota and to do so, I have to request to be admitted by motion.  It’s a lot of work.

But enough about me.  I realize that people want to read blogs for at least some semblance of substance besides a personal diary.  To that end, I am going to include – right now – a breakdown of the necessities to be admitted “in absentia”.  Doing a quick Google search, I was only able to find this explanation for admission in absentia before the Supreme Court of Georgia.

The basic gist for admission in absentia appears to be this:

  1. You must either pass the bar exam or be admitted by motion;
  2. An oath or pledge must be administered to you by a Judge or judicial officer of a court of record in any state;
  3. You must sign the affirmation and the Judge must sign some form of attestation;
  4. The forms must be returned to the jurisdiction where you want to be licensed.

There is often a fee and possibly some other paperwork, but that mostly sums it up.  I talked with several attorneys in Minnesota who told me that they have gone through this process before.  When I began searching for Minnesota judges to admit me “in absentia” to the North Dakota Bar, I received a fair number of response which can fairly summarized as “no, we don’t do that”. Many of the judges or their staffs had questions about whether they had jurisdiction to even administer the oath.  Naturally, this was very frustrating.  I hope you have better luck than I.  However, I called around to quite a few different judges and found a couple who were willing to take time out of their busy schedules to administer the oath.  I made an appointment with their law clerk, and the rest is now history.

If you are trying to be admitted to a different jurisdiction in absentia, I hope this post helps you.  Basically, I suggest contacting the Supreme Court of the bar to which you want to be admitted.  Ask them what their admission in absentia policy is.  Then, you hopefully know a local judge who will be nice enough to help you.  I did and now I only have one step left to conquer:  admission by motion before the Minnesota Bar.