Harrison Barnes » law job

Do Not Ever Be Afraid to Broadcast Your Value

Harrison Barnes — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 05:20:34 +0000

One of my favorite quotes is by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote: “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” A similar quote is this: “Build a better mousetrap, fail to advertise it or let people know about it, and the world will beat a path around your door.” If people don’t know about the true value of what you are offering, they will simply ignore you. You need to broadcast your value constantly in everything you do. Let me share with you a pair of quick stories about how to broadcast your value, and the importance of doing this. Donald Trump is not the biggest real estate tycoon in the United States, although he is great at what he does. There are numerous men who have vastly larger real estate holdings than Mr. Trump. What Mr. Trump does, however, is broadcast his success everywhere he goes. He gives speeches; he does television shows; he writes books; he does countless media interviews. Everything that Trump does is geared toward self-promotion. He does all of this because he knows the attention he receives from his promotional efforts will keep him visible and make his personal brand name stronger. When I was practicing law several years ago, I was on a large case with attorneys from several different law firms. One of the attorneys kept sending me and the other attorneys on the case various articles he was reading during his spare time, about relevant legal issues. I never forgot that attorney because this behavior was so unusual. That attorney went on to become very well known, and he ultimately became an important politician. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that he was the most visible and managed to stay close to mind for many people. If you do extra work behind the scenes, tell your superiors. In your career you need to educate people as to why they should work with you as opposed to other people, and one of the best ways of doing this is to do lots of work behind the scenes. If you go out of your way to say something positive about your boss to a coworker, tell your boss. If you are running an errand and get your boss extra service, tell your boss. At every single turn, you should be very clear about the value that you are providing and ensure that your bosses are keenly aware of what you are doing. Nothing is assumed. One example of this is in the construction and marketing of a car. Automakers go into excruciating detail in telling prospective buyers everything they do to make a car as safe as possible. The automaker has to tell people the size of the engine, the number of airbags, the sophistication of the stereo system, and everything special that the car does, because the buyers assume nothing. You want to know this information when you are making a purchase. In the same way, your supervisors (or the person who is hiring you) wants to know the value you are bringing when they hire you and while you are working for them. Do your best to communicate your value to those around you at all times. Show that you have passion for what you do. One of the ways to educate your superiors as to why they should be working with you is to demonstrate that you have a passion for your subject matter. For example, let your superiors know that you like to study materials related to your profession during your spare time. Forward them articles and keep books lying on your desk regarding the subject matter of what you do. Become a member of clubs and other organizations related to what you do. Having genuine passion and interest in your profession also shows that you are likely to have more insight into it and that you will probably be better at your chosen job, whether it is in public relations, health care, or government. I once watched a relatively unknown marketing person sell probably $100,000 worth of CDs and other instructional materials after giving a one-hour speech. The man got up on stage and started talking about how he had the largest collection of marketing books in the world and had read them all. He spoke about how he loved marketing and was extremely passionate about it. Given that he was relatively unknown, I think it was the fact that he communicated a major amount of passion for what he did that assisted him in selling so many CDs and other products. Essentially, people seemed to feel that if he was so enthusiastic about marketing, he must be someone they could trust to teach them about marketing. When you are communicating with your superiors or with people interested in hiring you, you must appeal to what they are interested in. Ultimately, you need to be concerned about what other people believe is most important, not necessarily what you think is most important. In 2002, the market for corporate attorneys in the United States was absolutely horrible. One firm in Denver, Colorado, had an opening for a corporate attorney, one of the few openings in the United States. The firm was using our legal recruiting firm, BCG Attorney Search, exclusively. The qualifications of the candidates who were interviewing for that one opening were absolutely fantastic. Most of the candidates interviewed were from the best law firms, the best law schools, and all had stellar communication skills. The job of one partner in the law firm was to interview about twenty-five different candidates and to hire one. After a few interviews, the partner told us that basically all of the candidates seemed pretty much the same. One of the candidates had an interest in snowboarding and spoke about this interest during the interview. The partner he was speaking with was also an avid snowboarder, and the two spoke about the sport at length. As you can imagine, this is the person who was hired for the job. He spoke in terms of the other person’s interest. The reason the candidate had started talking about snowboarding in his interview was that he had noticed that the partner had a picture of himself snowboarding on his wall. The candidate could see that the interviewer was bored by the procession of candidates coming through, and he wanted to ensure that he stood out. It is important career advice that you communicate in terms of the other person’s interest. If your value to the organization is the fact that you can snowboard, and that you can quickly bond with your coworkers, that is perfectly fine. If your potential employer is interested in discussing stamp collecting, do your best to discuss that too. Whatever it takes. Your superiors, or the person who is hiring you, needs to ensure that the business they are working for makes money. They need to make sure that what you are offering can contribute to the bottom line. Contributing high value, and broadcasting that value to your superiors, is key to securing and maintaining your position within any organization. THE LESSON You need to constantly broadcast your value in your current job; make sure that your bosses are aware of what you are doing and the value you are providing them. Your supervisor or potential employer wants to know what you bring to their organization. In order to accomplish this, work behind the scenes and make sure your boss is aware of everything you do!

Find Joy in Your Life’s Work–and Never Be Without Work

Harrison Barnes — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 05:57:07 +0000

In my work as an advocate for people to find jobs, I insist that the people who work for me enjoy their own jobs, and this includes the recruiting team. I expect the recruiters I work with to thoroughly enjoy, appreciate, and respect the people they are helping to find work. Everything we do is affected by our mindset. Your mindset needs to be in the right place with regard to your work. A good mindset is a foundation for success. A poor mindset makes for job dissatisfaction, frustration, and long days, and, ultimately, can bring about failure. This is why enjoying what you are doing, and enjoying it immensely, is key. Many people cannot seem to grasp this simple but powerful perspective, so I would like to elaborate on it a bit. I think it is one of the most important perspectives one can have. It will change the way you look for a job, and if you really get it, it can really help you achieve success in your life and career. After my first semester at the University of Chicago, I had a mandatory meeting with a counselor. I had gotten a 3.3 average for that semester despite taking a difficult calculus class and several advanced classes that had made me study harder than I ever had in my life. I was feeling pretty good about myself for getting these kinds of grades. In the meeting, the counselor asked me what profession I wanted to go into after graduation. I told her that I was interested in going to law school. She told me that if I wanted to have a “shot in hell” of going to a top law school, specifically the University of Chicago, that I would need a minimum of a 3.6 grade point average. That meant my B+ GPA wasn’t good enough. I would need to score at least an A- for the rest of my time in college. At the time this seemed like an impossibility. I spent several weeks that semester thinking about how I could achieve this goal, and I worked even harder than I had worked to get my 3.3 average. Then, it hit me: I would get As if I simply took classes that I loved and knew I would do well in. Over the next three and a half years, that’s exactly what I did. I took classes in anthropology that studied African cultures. I took a class where I studied my hometown of Detroit. I took classes where I got to study and write about the personalities of American presidents throughout history. I loved these classes and my plan worked. In fact, in my junior year of college, every single grade I received was an A, except for one A-. This was not because I was smarter than other people. It was because I did what I loved and I was enthusiastic about all the work I had to do. I absorbed more information, I read more in my free time, I wrote more, I talked more in class–in short, my passion came through. During this same time, I saw other students flunk out of school or come close to doing so. Many students had parents pushing them to be doctors or business majors. These students took one class after another that they hated and in which they did poorly. I watched all of this going on around me while I continued to read about tribes in Africa, and to take courses about fossils and other things that interested me. When all was said and done, I ended up with great grades and a real love for school. I ended up having more opportunities, job offers, law school admissions, and so forth than I would have had if I had followed the pack and done what I believed I was supposed to. I think the world would be a much better place if everyone followed his or her passion. People would enjoy work more and success would be much sweeter. I know that my career and life would be vastly different than they are right now if I hadn’t chosen to do what I loved. Several years later, as I was spending 12 hours a day in an office tower in downtown Los Angeles practicing law, I thought of this advice again. See, I did not love what I was doing at the time. In fact, I did not even really like what I was doing–not to the degree I knew I should. As I investigated options for other employment I spoke with legal recruiters, and, incredibly, that sort of job had major appeal to me. I liked the creative aspect of it. I liked the fact that I would be able to do research the way I wanted. I liked that I would be able to speak with lots of people. I liked that I would be able to write. I liked that I would have more control over how much I earned. I knew instinctively, deep down, that this job was something I could love and do forever. I quit the practice of law, walked away from job offers, and started being a legal recruiter. In the beginning I of course had no income whatsoever–but I was pursuing something I loved doing. Despite having had a good salary as an attorney, despite the prestige, despite all of the work I had put into becoming an attorney, I knew that I would ultimately be much happier as a legal recruiter than I would ever be practicing law. I also knew that loving my work would make me a better recruiter, far better than I ever would have been as an attorney. The hardest thing about this career change was that it was going against what everyone told me I should do. Leaving the practice of law disappointed my parents and made me look something like a fool to the other attorneys I was working with. My law school classmates could not understand my decision either. It was just not what people expected of me. It was, however, what I wanted for myself. Sometimes you need to take charge and understand that when you love what you are doing, it changes everything. We are naturally better at the activities we love, and doing what we love simply makes us much happier. There is a final point I would like to make: When you find what you love doing and you practice it with passion, you are able to touch more people with your work, and you create much more value in the world. You inspire more people around you, and more people want to work with you. You also fulfill a higher purpose and discover a life with deeper meaning. No matter who or where you are, you can bring greater worth to the world and to yourself when you find exactly what it is that gives you joy. Success will surely follow. For example, there was a woman who worked in the restaurant up the street from me, where I would often go to eat as a child. She was always so enthusiastic about her job, and just seemed so happy to be there. This woman was the best waitress I had ever seen, and it still stands to this day. I imagined that this woman, at one time, might have had to choose from a couple of career options. One choice might have been to take an office job as a file clerk. If she had worked in an office, she would have the prestige of that office, a steady paycheck, and coworkers to collaborate and be social with. Her other option might have been the waitress job. Working as a waitress would mean she would not have the prestige of working in an office, she would be on her feet all day dealing with the public–which can be difficult, and her income would be heavily dependent on tips. Obviously, if there was ever a choice to be made, we know which one she took; she chose to do what she loved. This waitress was so memorable because she would anticipate your every need, call you by name, smile, and make you feel very good for coming to the restaurant. In fact, the waitress was so good that many people probably came to the restaurant just to see her. As it would happen, I had a relative who was a waitress at the same restaurant. I found out years later that the waitress had made three-times as much money working the same hours as my relative. Clearly the waitress absolutely loved her job, and that is precisely what made her so successful. Not everyone respected the waitress, though. In fact, I remember some people actually made fun of her. I wondered if she would have been as good at an office job, only because she had such passion for her job as a waitress. Some may believe that working in an office would be a better career than serving dishes at a diner. But who cares what other people think? You need to do what you love and be happy in your career, no matter what it is. Find what it is that excited your interest and grab it by the horns. Don’t be influenced by other people’s opinions or by society’s stigmas. Be passionate about your job and your career. If you do this and nothing more, you will have more success than you can imagine. THE LESSON Success in every part of your career and life depends on your mindset; a positive mindset lays the ground for achievement, while a negative mindset makes for an unhappy work environment and ultimately failure. Find work that you love and practice it with passion, and you will attract people and create more value in the world. Find what it is that makes you passionate in life, and commit to it. Passion is the most fundamental part of success, and you must exercise it even if you do nothing else.

Never Stop Growing

Harrison Barnes — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 05:01:16 +0000

Sir Edmund Hillary was the first man to climb Mount Everest. On May 29, 1953, he scaled the highest mountain known to man-29,000 feet straight up. He was knighted for his efforts. He even made American Express card commercials because of it! However, until you read his book, High Adventure, you don’t understand that Hillary had to grow into this success. You see, in 1952 he attempted to climb Mount Everest, but failed. A few weeks later a group in England asked him to address its members. Hillary walked on stage to a thunderous applause. He then moved away from the microphone and walked to the edge of the platform. He made a fist and pointed at a picture of the mountain. He said in a loud voice, “Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I’ll beat you the next time because you’ve grown all you are going to grow… but I’m still growing!” I first read this quote several years ago and it stuck with me. I am not sure who recorded it, or why, but the importance of this quote to my life, the lives of my employees, and to you cannot be overemphasized. I grew up in a small city outside Detroit to which I do not return often. A few years ago I had to go back, and in my few days in the town I visited gas stations, hardware stores, and other such places. Inside many of these businesses I saw people I grew up with working at cash registers and doing other, similar tasks. Many of these people are the nicest people you will ever meet, and they are also extremely happy. What struck me about the people working these jobs was that many of them had been far more intelligent, far better socially, and far more talented in many respects than I ever was. These were people I knew could have become doctors, lawyers, or anything else they wanted to be-and they still could. However, what happened to many of these people is that they stopped growing and stopped trying to be the best they could be in all respects. Don’t you ever stop growing. One of the most shocking things I saw when I visited home was a girl I had a serious crush on growing up. She used to be an athlete and someone who was very concerned about her appearance. She was someone who I remember as being so attractive and in demand that, from the time she was 14 years old, she was always dating men a couple of years older. What struck me when I returned home and saw her was that she had probably doubled her weight and looked like a completely different person. There is nothing wrong with being overweight; nevertheless, she was someone who at some point simply gave up on trying to look the best she could. There is a positive side to this: she has the potential to be who she was before. There is nothing more exciting than having an opportunity to improve yourself. You should never stop trying to be the best you can be. Each day is a new opportunity for learning. Your career and your life need to follow the path of constant growth. You want to get better and better at each thing you do. One of the men I respect the most in the world is Al Gore. After he won/lost the election to George Bush, I (and many others) believed that he would simply fade into obscurity like most politicians do after leaving office. Al Gore was different, though. Several years later, it almost brought tears to my eyes when I saw him campaigning for his movie, An Inconvenient Truth. To me this was a huge comment on his character because it showed that he kept growing even after losing. I imagine that if George Bush had lost the election he would have simply returned to Texas. Gore was different. He kept growing and did everything within his power to continue growing. And he is still growing. This is the sort of person we need to be in our careers. We need to always be looking for room to grow and get better at what we do. The more we grow, the more exciting our lives and careers continue to be. There is nothing more exciting than always growing in your career. Some of the hardest things for attorneys to do are get a job in a major law firm when they graduate from law school and make partner at a major law firm. It is interesting to watch the race between attorneys trying to make partner. What generally happens is that there are some attorneys who grow and others who do not. Attorneys who do not continue growing typically do not get better at their jobs and eventually leave the practice of law. The ones who end up with the best firms and with the best jobs are almost always the attorneys who kept growing. This is how it is with everything: the ones who never give up and never stop trying keep growing. When you drive down the street, you will see tons of businesses that are products of continual growth and reinvention-whether they are restaurants or department stores. Many people and businesses are content with staying small and never learning what it takes to grow and improve. Other companies keep growing. All around you are businesses and people who will refuse to grow. Some of these businesses and people may be better than you are right now. If, however, you are always seeking to improve, grow, and move forward, you will eventually wind up on top. Do not settle for mediocrity. As businesses, we are seeking to grow and improve every day while many of our competitors rest on their laurels. Remember that past achievements are never enough because you can always do better. A few years ago I drove by an open house in a very expensive neighborhood. It was the most expensive house in that neighborhood. I did not go into the open house, but the house was so remarkable that I asked my realtor about it because I was selling a house at the time. My realtor told me that it belonged to a couple who purchased this incredible mansion in their 90s. They had only lived in the mansion for one year before dying. Living in a house like that had always been their dream and, through years of saving, stock trading, and so forth, they had finally made enough money to afford the house. That is an example of two people who refused to stop growing. Think about it: while many people in their early 70s were checking out and going to nursing homes-or dying-this couple kept growing and pursuing their dream. It is an incredible story to me. You, too, should never stop growing. You can learn ways to get better and better at your job. If you have certain weaknesses, you can learn how to strengthen yourself in these areas. You can also work to improve on your greatest strengths. This is one of the smartest things anyone can do. Just keep getting better and better at everything. A couple of years ago I went to see Anthony Robbins speak for five days. Prior to attending this conference, I was always kind of secretive regarding my profound interest in self improvement. I must admit, I love self improvement and have been pushing myself for as long as I can remember with one self improvement product or another. In school, if I became aware of a vitamin that would help me think better to get better grades I would take it! Today, if I hear about a good business book I will generally do my best to read it. I have thousands of books on different subjects. What I realized at the Anthony Robbins event was that the majority of people there were among the most successful in society. There were surgeons, investment bankers, and numerous others who I did not expect to see there. I realized that most of these people were like me and also interested in continually becoming better and better. They never stopped improving. When I look around at the people I have known in the past who have been the best at anything, what I notice is that they, too, never stop improving. All they care about is ensuring that they make their next performance much greater and more effective than the last one. This is not confined to Anthony Robbins’ conferences. It is seen everywhere you find the most talented people. The past is over. What you need to do now is focus on growing in the future and getting better and better. Do this and you will always come out on top. THE LESSON Never stop growing and trying to be the best person you can be. Realize that every day is a new learning opportunity, and place your career on a path of constant growth. Progress and improve at everything you do. You can learn how to address your weaknesses, and build upon your strengths. Just keep improving at everything you do, and you will inevitably find yourself on top.

Learn from Every Experience You Have Ever Had

Harrison Barnes — Tue, 17 May 2011 06:20:58 +0000

One of the greatest things you can do for yourself is to learn from every single experience you have ever had. Each and every day you are having experiences, and you choose what to do with them. The wisest people are the ones who see every experience as an opportunity to learn. Smart people can transform even the smallest experiences into lessons that drive them to become better at everything they undertake in the future. You, too, can learn from your experiences and, in so doing, benefit tremendously. In every experience, there are things that did and did not work for you. Your objective is to learn from what happened. The more you learn from your experiences, the more effective you will be at whatever you do in your career and life. Think back on your career: There are things that have happened from which you can still learn. What lessons can you use to drive yourself forward? How can you get better at what you want to do now? Every experience, no matter how trivial, offers a chance for you to learn. I’d like to tell you a story about just such an experience of mine and how I shaped my life by learning from it. Years ago, when I was in college and about 19 years old, I was sitting in the television room of my dorm at the University of Chicago. As I sat there with a friend of mine, Danny Weisberg, a commercial came on for a real estate seminar led by a man named Tom Vu. In the 30-minute commercial, Tom Vu was shown driving around in fancy cars and on boats with beautiful women while talking about his real estate seminar. As I watched this commercial with Danny, I was incredulous when, near the end of the commercial, Tom Vu said something to this effect: “I came to the United States from Vietnam with no money, and the only job I could get was as a man who refilled people’s water glasses in a country club. One day, a very rich man came into the country club and sat down at a table. I asked him to tell me the secret to his success and he told me it came from only three words. He whispered them into my ear. Those three words changed my life! “All this I got from three words. Come to my free informational seminar and I will teach you the three words,” said Vu. At 19, there was nothing that Danny and I wanted more than to be surrounded by beautiful women, drive fast cars, and live in mansions. Therefore, we decided we would get up early on a Saturday morning and take the ‘L’ train from Hyde Park all the way to the downtown Chicago Hilton to see Tom Vu’s free seminar. Getting up early the morning after a Friday night party was something that I usually did not do in college – not even for an exam! In the spirit of fun, however, we decided we would get up early and go see Tom Vu that weekend. When we arrived at the Hilton, we were sitting next to a single mother who had brought two children no more than three years old with her. I noticed the children were dirty. The single mother told us how she hoped this would be a profound experience. We also sat near two men who appeared to have come to watch Tom Vu in order to heckle him. The two men had beers in their hands, despite the fact that it was still morning. There were literally thousands of people crowded into the Hilton ballroom for the Vu seminar. There were so many people, in fact, the only place we could get seats was at the very back of the ballroom, at least 30 or 40 yards away from the stage. But that is exactly where we should have been. About 15 minutes after the seminar was scheduled to start, Tom Vu entered the back of the banquet hall in a bathrobe, followed by a woman who started massaging his neck. She was saying stuff to him like “You can do this!” and “You control your future!” and other motivational encouragements. After a few minutes of this, some music started and she pulled off Tom’s bathrobe, revealing a business suit he was wearing. Tom Vu then rushed to the front of the stage to a standing ovation. The men drinking next to us roared with laughter. The woman with the children put down one child so she could stand and clap. Over the next hour or so, Tom Vu told the audience that if they paid him a couple thousand dollars, he would teach them how to buy distressed real estate and resell it at a profit. At the end of this sales pitch, Tom Vu got slightly teary-eyed and said: “Now, does everyone want to hear those three words?” The crowd roared and stamped their feet. “Don’t give up!” Tom shouted. “The three words are ‘don’t give up!’” I must admit I was really swept up in the passion of that moment. Despite the ethical considerations of whatever Tom Vu’s business practices were, I realized right then and there that there was a huge lesson in those three simple words. One should never give up. Giving up was the greatest mistake one could make. If you gave up, you almost certainly welcomed failure. Hearing those words that day had an immediate impact on me. I realized I had gotten up early in the morning to come see Tom Vu and had wasted my time listening to him, because I certainly could not afford to go to his paid seminar. So, I told myself that I would at least learn from this piece of career advice and would never give up in anything I did. And I have refused to ever give up. I believe this particular lesson has not only served me well, but it has profoundly altered the course of my life. Let me tell you how. When I was in college, I wanted to go to law school. To be accepted by the best law schools, I knew I would need to get a near perfect score on the law school admissions test (LSAT). I studied for this test, but no matter how hard I studied, I could never get even close to a perfect score. Therefore, I kept delaying the test over and over again. I delayed it until December of my third year of college. By the time I finally scheduled the real test, I had taken enough practice tests to assess how well I would do. Then I got sick just before taking the test. I canceled my scores and retook the test in March of that year. I still did not do as well as I had hoped. By the time I got my results, almost all the law schools had accepted students for that year, and they told me I had simply taken the test too late. Notwithstanding this, some schools told me they would let me know later in the summer if they had an opening for me. In considering this, I did everything within my power to ensure I did not give up on the schools that told me there still might be hope. I was remembering the lesson I learned from Tom Vu. I wrote, I called, and I had teachers and others write on my behalf. I graduated from college knowing there was very little hope I would go to law school and, instead, I decided I would probably stick with my then current life as a pavement contractor. Working in the asphalt business was extremely hard work. Many people who do this kind of work get cancer or die very young because of the hazardous chemicals involved. For example, I was working with hot tar, which gives off gaseous fumes that stick inside your lungs. I would often get so burned from chemicals that I would have to peel a layer of my skin off of my arms or feet. As the summer progressed, I continued to drop short notes to the law schools with whom I was still corresponding. However, I still needed to make a living, so I continued building up my asphalt business. My friends were all contractors and I was associating and spending my life entirely with people who used their hands to make a living. I was enjoying my life. One night I was out with another contractor and my girlfriend, having pizza and beer. When I returned home there were a few messages on my answering machine. I checked the first message and it was from someone who told me he’d noticed I was becoming very busy with my asphalt business and that he and “other people he knew” wanted to meet with me. It was a person I’d heard about over the years. Essentially, he was with the mafia and he was demanding I pay money in order to operate in a certain area of Detroit. It might have been a prank call, but I doubted it. I think back on that message to this day because it was a sign of where my life was going. The moment was truly a crossroads because the next message was from a law school administrator, telling me classes would be starting in two days and, if I wanted to attend, I was welcome. I chose to go to law school. I’m not sure if I ever would have gotten into law school had I not learned the lesson of not giving up from Tom Vu. I kept studying for the LSAT even when I was not doing as well as I wanted. I took it again after I canceled my score. I kept writing law schools even after not getting accepted. In short, I did not give up, even after my life started going in another direction. Had I been six months further into my asphalt business, it might very well have been impossible to go back to life as a student. I would have had more trucks, more equipment, more employees – my life might have turned out much different. Who knows? I believe taking so much away from the single lesson of Tom Vu made a huge difference in the quality of my life. My first job after law school was one of the first times I had ever set foot in an office. I could not believe people got paid to work indoors and read and write! My entire working world up until that point had been hard and grueling manual labor. There are numerous moments in your life from which you can choose to learn a lesson, or not. Your own experiences present a wealth of learning opportunities on which you can build. I chose to learn from Tom Vu that day because I had invested so much time in the preliminary seminar. What can you learn from your past? Learning from your past provides you with a solid and rich foundation for your future. You can learn from your experiences every day, and each day can provide a better experience for your future. Your past and its lessons set the stage for what you can do differently tomorrow. There is so much available that can enrich your future. Learn from your past and enjoy a happy future.

The Heller Ehrman Dissolution

Harrison Barnes — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 05:20:18 +0000

The dissolution of Heller Ehrman is an event that makes me quite sad. The September 2008 article in The Wall Street Journal stated one reason for the dissolution was that several major cases the firm had been working on were settled, and therefore the firm now had much less litigation work on its plate. I really liked Heller and the people there. It was, in its time, a great firm to work for as a litigator. With this recent news, what really burns in my mind is the idea that a firm could suddenly go kaput due to cases settling. I have been involved in litigation several times as both a litigator and as the CEO of EmploymentScape. In speaking with attorneys (outside counsel), I am always struck by how expensive they can make litigation. The work they do is often unnecessary or extraneous, and the goal of many law firms (and I say many, not all) often seems to be to get cases and start milking them for fees, until the client will no longer pay and/or the case settles. Incredibly, what seems to happen with most litigation, after discovery and motions, is the parties settle and the resulting net gains or losses from the settlement are no different than if the parties had not litigated at all. None of this is to say I have any issue with the judicial system or law firms in general. My concern, however, is that when a law firm begun in the late 1800s like Heller Ehrman goes down the drain because cases settle, something is seriously wrong. Law firms should try to avoid unnecessary litigation and to promote settlement. Settlement is important, and it’s what clients generally prefer. Settlement does not waste valuable time and money in the way full-blown litigation can. I am reminded of a situation many years ago, before I was in law school. I was at a high school graduation party, talking with my friend’s father, who happened to be an attorney, about a speeding ticket I’d gotten. He told me a speeding ticket was very serious, and he spent about fifteen minutes telling me all of the steps he needed to take to defend me–and then he got to the part about what his work would cost, which was more than $500. That was a good amount of money, especially in those days. I walked away from that conversation wondering what would be the better outcome for me. In the end, I paid the speeding ticket, which I think was $65. No big deal. Yet some lawyers tend to make small matters into big matters, always in search of those billable hours. This really does not suit their clients. Nor does this suit the judicial system. In watching Heller’s demise, I wondered what its failure said about the firm and the way in which many law firms do business today. I am left thinking maybe events like this will change the way we look at litigation and settlement. I think this is a good thing, though the result for Heller Ehrman was not.