The Apprentice
The National Law Journal recently reported that the law firm of Howrey & Simon has adopted an innovative training program for new associates. Newly hired lawyers will serve a two year “apprenticeship” prior to being fully integrated into the law firm. This program will reduce the number and the compensation of the law school graduates hired by the firm, and it is part of Howrey’s overall program to eliminate “lockstep” salary increases for its associates.
Lawyers in Howrey’s apprenticeship program will be paid significantly less than the going rate for first year associates at other large law firms. During their first year, the new associates will take firm sponsored classes on legal writing and gain practical experience by working on pro bono matters. During their second year, the associates in the program will spend several months “embedded” at client sites where their work will be charged at a reduced billing rate. The law firm’s managing partner compared the apprenticeship program to the training programs typically employed in the medical and accounting professions.
The Howrey program provides an opportunity to reconsider the entire continuum of legal education: a process that begins with undergraduate instruction, continues through law school, and is perpetuated by continuing legal education requirements. From time to time, each stage in the continuum comes under scrutiny, as Rick Esenberg’s post on Reengineering Law School illustrates. In my opinion, the continuum should be viewed holistically when we evaluate whether we are succeeding at training competent and ethical members of the legal profession. Law schools, law firms and the state bar all need to cooperate in order to ensure that there are no gaps in the preparation that new lawyers receive as they start their careers. As a member of the Wisconsin Legal Education Commission in 1996, I argued in favor of a program of mandatory skills-based CLE instruction for recent bar admittees. Many of our students are undoubtedly pleased that the State Bar chose not to implement this particular Commission recommendation.
Given my predisposition in favor of practical training, I should be supportive of the Howrey apprenticeship model. Instead, I find myself troubled. In particular, I am wary of the idea of embedding future corporate lawyers within a client’s legal department for any significant period of time.
Since last month China has been on an economic rampage that could have serious long- term effects on the United States and Europe. While Americans have been inundated with a vast and steady diet of “news” focused on personalities (the ongoing deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett and the death-like experiences of Governor Mark Sanford, Senator John Ensign, and Governor Sarah Palin, just to name a few) the economic movements in China that will have a much more significant impact on Americans and their futures have gone virtually unreported by both the American major print and electronic reporting media. Unlike American media, foreign news services have given front-page coverage and deep analytical assessments of China’s economic developments.
Today marks the 75th anniversary of the Communications Act of 1934. For most of its existence, the Communications Act provided much of the essential regulatory structure for the telecommunications (in Title II of the Act) and broadcast (in Title III) industries. The former provided some of the basis for my own practice back in the 1990s as an associate at a large Chicago law firm, one of whose primary clients was American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (or “AT&T,” as at one point it was formally renamed).