#2 in our Mentee series: Michael Gasi

Many people in our NYCLA community have been hit very hard by storm Sandy. Our thoughts are with you during the extended cleanup and hope that the return to normal is swift. 

Due to Sandy, we have made some scheduling changes with the mentoring program and will be starting the new session in January. In anticipation of that and as we think about giving our time to less-experienced members of the bar, I am posting a piece from Michael Gasi. It is the second post from a mentee-participants in NYCLA's mentoring program.

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When I sent in my application for the NYCLA Mentoring program, I had no idea what to expect.  All I knew was that I was a young lawyer with very few solid relationships in the profession and a whole lot to learn.  A year later I have developed a tremendous lasting relationship with an experienced, knowledgeable, compassionate and affable lawyer who has made sure that I am not alone in this huge world. 

From my particular experience, it was very easy to feel isolated and alone.  Though I had networked and developed some relationships, I wasn't always comfortable reaching out to those individuals for a variety of reasons. 

Although I barely knew my mentor at first, she made sure I felt welcomed.  She invited me out to lunch with her and, at times, with her and her colleagues.  Like a family member, my mentor accepted me as is.  I no longer had to fear being judged if I had a question a more experienced attorney would consider rudimentary.  She became my source of knowledge and wisdom that filled the gaps between the books, the statutes, the caselaw and the courtroom.

I'm deeply thankful to NYCLA for helping me form this relationship.  I have no doubt it will last for the remainder of my professional career.  I look forward to the day I can pay it forward and mentor a young lawyer such as myself.  I'm confident that day will come, now that I have such a great example to follow.

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Michael Gasi is a solo practitioner located in Queens running a general practice.

From the mentees ... Tiombe Carter

Below is the first in a series of blog posts from the mentees of NYCLA's mentoring program. Our first post is from Tiombe. We hope to hear more from Tiombe on this blog going forward...

NYCLA has an award winning mentor program and I am a most appreciative Mentee. The program’s broad spectrum of mentees made it unique. I had graduated from law school over 14 years prior to participating in the program. Not your average new attorney. My nontraditional path to practice had left me somewhat timid. NYCLA’s Mentor Program provided the support I needed. The year long program paired me with a seasoned attorney who practiced in the same area of law. During the kick-off event I identified the components of my mentoring plan. Then I met with my mentor and we strategized on how to address my action items: learning the unwritten customary rules of practice, reviewing my practice business plan, developing oral advocacy skills and how to deal with complicated ethical issues. My mentor seemed extraordinarily generous with his time, meeting with me, attending the planned events, answering my many questions. Later I learned during our networking sessions that the other mentees were having similar experiences with their mentors. That may be why NYCLA’s program is award winning. NYCLA supplemented the program with complementary CLE workshops on ethics, time management and professionalism plus activities designed to acclimate us to the legal community. At one particular workshop, “Myths of Lawyering Debunked”, a panelist posed the question to the attendees who included mentors and mentees - why did you become a lawyer? All the answers had one central theme – the high calling to help people. The NYCLA Mentor Program is that answer in action.

So you do think lawyers are risk averse

The latest poll results: Do you think lawyers are resistant to change? OK.  A few more responses than last time (very few), but enough to report that 100% of the respondents all agree that lawyers are indeed risk-averse. Is it nature or nurture? Training from law school or an inclination that leads to law school?  Let me know what you think in the comments.

Do you think lawyers are risk averse (and a reminder that the poll is anonymous)

I got so few responses from my last poll -- Why are lawyers risk averse? -- that I decided to re-word the question and answers and give the NYCLA community another chance at responding. 


This iteration is not so judgmental (to all of you who were insulted by the insinuation of lawyers being risk averse). That said, cast your vote on whether you think Lawyers are Risk Averse or not.


And don't forget that the poll is anonymous, there is no way for me to track responses.....you can comment anonymously as well.

How soon are changes coming to your practice

Lots of people are talking about changes in the legal profession and have been following the issue for over four years now. Obviously, changes are taking place (moves to alternatives to billable hours, rethinking large firm management procedures), but coming from New York big law and now a conservative legal department in a company, those changes are barely noticeable.

I read a recent quote by a partner at Seyfarth Shaw which sums up the reason for this phenomenon (paraphrase): never underestimate the power of a group of lawyers to argue  that a minuscule deviation from the status quo is a revolutionary change.   I had to laugh.

When are the smartest people in the room going to experiment with innovative business practices? Will real movement only be reactionary, the result of a domino effect: Heller, Thacher, Dewey, your firm ....

Culture of Perpetual Success

I have been reading a lot of articles lately about the value of calculated risk and failure in ultimately achieving success. Of course, those articles were not in the legal journals, business and management journals mostly. The concept of taking risks and learning from mistakes is not taking hold in the legal world. Most of the voters in our last poll appear to agree. 75% of those polled voted that the practice of law does not allow for learning from failure.

The Plight of Lawyers

I've been thinking about the "plight" of lawyers: working harder, longer hours, tackling difficult, more complex questions than the business people we work with, but getting compensated at a much lower rate.

If it is true, what is the counter balance benefit that allows us lawyers to continue?
If it is true, why does it happen?
Is it because we don't add value, rather we bog matters with more complexity adding more work for others?
Is that what the business people think, is it true?

Hot Practice Areas for 2012

According to our last poll, NYCLA readers reveal that the hot practice area in 2012 is mortgage and consumer issues. Sixty-five percent of those polled chose mortgage and consumer issues. The FTC, whose activities have been heightens and highlighted in the media in recent months, would probably agree with these results.

White collar litigation (always active in New York), IP and technology transactions also received some votes.

And none of our pollsters believe that international arbitration or privacy regulation will be talked about much in 2012.

On a different note, I changed jobs at the beginning of the year which has kept me busy, busy, busy. I will be updating my profile, so stay tuned.

Feeling Unprepared

The results of the latest survey demonstrate that 85% of our respondents feel as though their law school education did not prepare them for private practice.

Navigating office politics, understanding the relevance of the billable hour, learning the cost and value of legal services -- none of these essential issues involved in private practice success were ever addressed in my law school education. Were they in yours?

Beyond practice skills, taught in clinics and legal writing, practical private practice skills need to be addressed in law schools. We can't pretend that the law is a purely academic endeavor.


On an unrelated note, we have been experiencing an uptick in readers and survey takers. (Take a look at the bottom left hand column, we are at nearly 13,000 page views!) I want to thank you all for taking the time to read and cast your votes. You can follow this blog and receive post updates by email by signing up on the NEW FEATURES in the bottom right column.

Law School Reform

On the subject of law school reform, a new suggestion taken from a practice of new/established technology-enhanced retail darling, Zappos. (So, for that reasom alone, I am biased towards it.)

http://slate.me/lawschoolarticle

"Paying students to quit law school.  An unorthodox solution to the problem of too many graduates unable to repay their loans."

Let me know your thoughts.

1/2 Mentored 1/2 Not

Our last poll surveyed NYCLA members to find out if they had a mentor who assisted them in their legal career. The results were curious: 50%  of respondents were lucky enough to have mentors guide their careers, while 50% were not so lucky and wished that they did have a mentor. 

Beyond the scarcity of mentoring, the poll doesn't say much.  It would be interesting to hear from both groups to compare where they are in their careers and development. Success is subjective.  I would be curious to know how those with mentors view their success in terms of the mentoring they received. Likewise, I would like to hear from those who wish they had mentors to know how they feel they would have advanced if mentored.


At least we hope to raise the statistics with NYCLA's mentoring program, now in its third year!

Fixing Law Schools

I recently read an interesting article on how legal education needs to change to be more useful to the graduating law students.  The article posits that law schools must "Prepar[e] student … for a lifetime of successful, ethical and personally rewarding practice." That's a tall order. See the article here:

http://chronicle.com/article/Theres-More-to-the-Law-Than/129493/

Criticism aside, I do agree that law schools need to be re-engineered. The following except taken from the article concerns stepping away from the Ivory Tower to  a more inclusive (and IMO relevant) way to view legal work:

It is necessity, not fashion, that causes lawyers to pay attention to the work of anthropologists, economists, historians, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists. We look to those disciplines because their insights are useful—even indispensable—in understanding and solving legal problems in our complex and rapidly changing world.

Is There A Privacy Expert In The House

I recently attended an online privacy debate/discussion presented by Gotham Media at Frankfurt Kurnit.  I want to thank both of them for putting this type of program together: a mix of legal and non-legal and very cutting edge. Unfortunately, I left unsatisfied.

Each panel member was smart and specialized (government lawyer, Wired editor, journalism professor and ex-Microsoft lawyer) and the conversation was lively for the most part.  But, the panelists appeared to generally agree that (1) people want more privacy, (2) consumers need to be protected online (from advertisers? others, besides crooks? not sure who), and (3) the government is the entity that should police privacy.

I left the talk unsatisfied because I don't agree with any of those premises. (1) my public online presence is something I chose and am happy with, (2) I much prefer to get ads targeted to what I am looking for, especially if it includes a better price--I don't like to window shop, and (3) the discussion centered around privacy regulations that remain on the drafting boards since 2000. Social media and sharing sites (facebook, twitter, foursquare, flickr etc) were, of course, not even around in 2000. Which begs the question, who is writing the regs and do they have enough of an online presence to understand social media?

I prefer to be vigilant (not necessarily restrictive) about my own settings, so I can benefit from sharing and what is shared on my terms.


I am not a privacy lawyer, it is just an area of interest to me. If anyone can set my understanding straight, please comment, I would be grateful to hear why I am misinformed.

NYCLA thinking like a Techie

Our latest poll asked NYCLA members to think about the future of legal services and the extent that those services will become systematized in the future.  Surprisingly for a group of lawyers (since lawyers are notorious for resistance to technological changes) 87 percent of those surveyed said that more comprehensive legal services will be available online within the next 5 years.  The small minority disagreed saying that legal services need to be tailored, are too specialized and too complicated to be made available online.

I would love to hear more from those of you who predict more legal services will be available online in the future. What do you see: Skype consultations? form complaints? mutually agreed upon automated dispute resolution?

Musings on Mentoring

The next poll that I am going to post is about mentoring. I am truly curious as to the extent that successful lawyers have been mentored (sponsored, supported--whatever you want to call it) along their career path to their success.  A lot of discussion is currently being had on the need for more mentoring of young attorneys, but I don't recall any conversations in my ten years of talking with senior lawyers about their positive experiences with mentors. Is it just that my conversations with senior lawyers have been so narrow?

I wonder if lawyers will admit to each other (especially lawyers to their junior) that they receive help along the way.

Let's see if the poll reveals anything. Comments are welcome too. Both are anonymous.

Help Wanted: Blawg 100 Amici nominators

Dear Readers, for those of you who wish to express your gratitude for the opinions and insights provided during this blog's 3 and 3/4 years of existence (wow!) you now have a simple, painless way to do so. Just click on http://www.abajournal.com/blawgs/blawg100_submit/ and fill out the form explaining why this blog should be on the ABA's list of 100 blogs.

Thanks for your support!

Standardizing legal services

Legal visionary Paul Lippe wrote a recent article about the lack of standardization in the legal profession and forecasts areas where he sees standardization is imminent:

• How clients assess and communicate about the performance of lawyers cries out for standardization, so clients can give consistent feedback, incent improvements in performance, and provide a consistent way for law firm leaders to interpret data.

• How firms charge for work on a “value” basis beyond simple time will be standardized, so firms and clients can compare like to like (products liability defense litigation in Arizona to civil litigation in Colorado).

• How firms share information with clients—now a crazy quilt of alerts, blogs, seminars, treatises, multistate surveys and podcasts—will migrate into a more consistent and integrated model.

• How firms and clients work together to construct documents, or make choices around contract terms will continue to simplify or we will all surely drown in complexity.

• The general way lawyers and clients communicate will standardize through “profile-centric” systems (not “social networks”), just as 15 years ago email became the standard communication tool displacing FedEx and the fax machine (remember that one?) and three generations ago the standard communication tool was “lunch at the club.”

Do you agree with him? Can you think of other ways?

I predict an upcoming poll out of this.

Full article here: http://legalonramp.com/index.php/What-Aspects-of-Legal-Services-Are-Most-Likely-to-Get-Standardized.html

NYCLA Tweeters Unite!

I am impressed by the tech savvy NYCLA members--33% of you use Twitter in your business development. I bet that is higher than the national average for lawyers, in fact, an ABA article from 2009, remarked that "Only 6 percent of lawyers in private practice and 4 percent of in-house lawyers use Twitter."  Who knew that NYCLA was on the cutting edge?

Rounding out the poll results 46%  of pollsters did not use Twitter; 13% use it, but not for business development; and a mere 6% never heard of it or thought it was a waste of time.

 

To see the ABA article, click here:

http://www.americanbar.org/publications/young_lawyer_home/young_lawyer_archive/yld_tyl_dec09_digital.html

More on Twitter

I came across this article in the law journal. It relates directly to our latest poll concerning Twitter.  As usual widely differing views from our lawyer colleagues: Differing Views of Lawyers on Twitter: Savvy Marketing Tool or ‘Nonsense’?

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/differing_views_of_lawyers_on_twitter_savvy_marketing_tool_or_nonsense/

"Remember, you are always a member of the Bar when you are at a bar"

I do hate cute, but I had to take that quote and showcase it in the title to this post. It was taken from  this article: http://www.fromthesidebar.com/attorney-client-privilege/cocktail-party-chatter/.

However, beyond the cheezy quote, the article provides useful guidance on what to say and what not to say in the heat of the summer social season--from refraining from legal advice to protecting confidentiality.