Innovative and flexible law firms in Seattle and around the country are acknowledging that 1,800 billable hours are not the hallmark of quality and financially rewarding lawyering. They are discovering that firms that support lawyers who work fewer hours to achieve work/life balance not only attract, but also keep, great lawyers, resulting in satisfied clients and new business.1
This approach serves as a counterpoint to the law firm culture that has evolved over the last several decades: bringing in bright, creative and energetic young attorneys and then, ultimately, churning out large numbers of dissatisfied lawyers.
In 1961, a “full-time” lawyer billed 1,200 hours per year.2 That meant a 25-billable-hour work week. There were hours in the day and in the week to spend outside the practice of law, with family, exercising, engaging in a hobby or traveling.
In contrast, today’s mainstream law firm demands high output from each timekeeper. High billable hours — typically at least 50% more than was worked by lawyers of the 1960s — is deemed required to be a good lawyer, to service client needs and to float law firm economics. Time spent off the clock in the 1960s and 1970s now is spent chasing additional billable hours, thereby creating legions of lawyers who are dissatisfied, depressed and burned out.3 Lawyers who do not embrace this regime are perceived as unprofitable, undedicated and incapable of doing the high-quality work of their higher-billing colleagues.
To a large degree, lawyers today who buck this system are women. They are parents who seek a true work/life balance. They want something apparently radical: to be excellent, dedicated attorneys doing high-quality work, partnering with their clients and building their law firms, while being able to participate meaningfully in the lives of their children.
There also are a growing number of male attorneys who want to work fewer hours so they, too, can play a larger role in their family lives.4 And, perhaps most radical of all, there are those lawyers who simply want to “have a life” outside the office.
In a 2007 survey of mid-level associates at the nation’s largest law firms, only 44.9% predicted they will be at their firms in five years.5 A significant role in associate departures is the stated desire for work/life balance.6 James J. Sandman, managing partner of Arnold & Porter from 1995 to 2005, acknowledges: “The single biggest source of dissatisfaction in our profession is the inability to achieve work/life balance. And the cause of that inability is the hours lawyers feel they are expected to work.”7
But law firms lose much more than just talented attorneys when they walk out the door. The most obvious collateral damage from regular turnover is to client relationships. Working relationships are damaged, momentum and institutional memory are lost, and the client commonly pays to get new lawyers up to speed.
Linda Madrid, general counsel of CarrAmerica, explains: “It is frustrating when outside counsel don’t provide consistent lawyers. … [N]othing [is] worse than investing in and relying on someone, and then having that person pulled out. Or, even worse, the firm isn’t treating them well enough to keep them.”8
The effects are external, too. More and more, recruiting lawyers and maintaining and attracting clients also are on the line. Forty-four percent of law students are women9 and, according to a 2001 survey, 50% of women law graduates found that work/life balance was the primary consideration in choosing an employer.10 By the same token, more and more corporations are shopping for law firms that retain and promote women and attorneys of color.11
In 2004, Shell Oil Company’s General Counsel Catherine Lamboley conducted a beauty contest to reconsider which law firms Shell would use for its substantial legal work.12 The four criteria guiding Shell’s process were quality, cost effectiveness, professionalism and — by no means least — commitment to diversity. Applicants had to report the number of women and minority attorneys at their firms. Of the 27 winning firms, seven have partnerships in which women and minority lawyers outnumber white men. Not surprisingly, many of the Shell law firm teams are led by women partners.
A growing number of corporations employ meaningful tools to evaluate whether the firms they use “walk the walk.” Shell’s search for a diverse body of outside counsel did not end with the initial beauty contest. Its law firms must break down their invoices to indicate the gender, ethnicity and race of the billing attorneys.13 Similarly, Sears, Roebuck & Co. monitors the fees it pays to women- and minority-owned law firms and tracks the hours billed by women and minorities at their other firms.14 Johnson & Johnson requires the law firms doing its legal work to report quarterly regarding the work being performed by women and minority attorneys.15
Corporate clients also look a lot more diverse today. In 2004, there were 103 women or minority general counsels at Fortune 500 companies compared with only 25 in 1996.16 As of 2005, half of the in-house counsel at Starbucks were women. Women comprise 44% of Wal-Mart’s legal department.17
How should a law firm respond to a competitive environment where both lawyers and clients appreciate and value diversity? Naturally, there are myriad answers. However, those firms that adopt and implement — without penalty — a balanced-hours program will attract and retain women lawyers.
Seattle’s Summit Law Group, for example, has embraced the idea of reduced-hour lawyering. In this 22-member firm, eight of whom are women, nearly 30% of the members work reduced hours — 75-90% of the standard 1,800 hours.
These women have sophisticated practices and long-standing, critical relationships with satisfied clients. They are valuable members of client development teams in the diversity and wealth of experience they bring to the table. These members respond to the flexibility with tremendous loyalty to the firm, which results in negligible lawyer turnover.
When it comes time to do the numbers, Summit attorneys working balanced-hours schedules are allocated a percentage of overhead equivalent to the percentage of a full-time schedule. The result is a vibrant, profitable and diverse law firm.
Plainly, recognizing and appreciating the value that women lawyers bring to a firm and adopting balanced-hour policies to support their practices create good “quality of life” law firms. It also makes good business sense. A firm of high-quality, diverse and engaged lawyers has precisely the tools necessary to improve firm profitability and client satisfaction.
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Jessica L. Goldman is a member of Summit Law Group where her practice focuses on commercial litigation and media law. She is the mother of a 10-year old and a 7-year old. She wishes to thank her partners Lynn Engel and John Chun and her lawyer-husband Adam Shapiro (who also works a balanced-hours schedule) for their assistance with this article. She may be reached at jessicag@summitlaw.com or 206-676-7062.
1 Joan C. Williams & Cynthia T. Calvert, Solving the Part-Time Puzzle: The Law Firm’s Guide to Balanced Hours 11 (2004).
2 Id. at 12 n.1.
3 Id. n.2.
4 Id. nn. 3–4.
5 Aric Press, Annual Survey Shows the Reality of Associate Life, The American Lawyer (Aug. 1, 2007).
6 Williams & Calvert, supra, at 15 n.8.
7 Id. at 7.
8 Id. at 17.
9 Karen A. Andersen, Unequal Partners: Why Are Women Partners Less Satisfied with Lateral Moves?, Washington State Bar News (Oct. 2007).
10 Williams & Calvert, supra, at 16 n.9.
11 Id. at 17 n.12.
12 Nathan Koppel, Courting Shell, The American Lawyer (June 24, 2004).
13 Id.
14 Dr. Arin Reeves, Diversity in Dollars and Sense, Diversity & The Bar (Minority Corporate Counsel Association Nov. 2002).
15 Id.
16 Id.
17 Peggy Nagae, How General Counsel Support Their CEO’s Diversity Efforts, Diversity & The Bar (Minority Corporate Counsel Association May/June 2005).
