New York Times on New Strategies for Hiring Law Firms

Posted by Jeff Lipshaw

The “Small Business” section of the New York Times has an article this morning about models small and entrepreneurial businesses are using to hire law firms, and strategies the firms are using to serve them.  I’m not sure there’s anything really new in here, but it does bring up a point that legal educators and young lawyers need to appreciate, particularly for those law grads who aren’t headed to the traditional big law associate posting.  Lawyers to small businesses are often the first and only outside adviser the firm has ever had.  Listen to some of these snippets:  “Make sure the attorneys understand your business – who your customers are, what your biggest areas of risk are, and so on.”  “One issue is a traditional distrust of lawyers shared by many entrepreneurs: ‘They see the lawyer as saying no to daring business moves.”  “I needed access to a trusted source and only to pay for it when I use it, like weekends and so forth.  I use my attorney also to brainstorm ideas.”

This is consistent with my view that business lawyers (or at least effective or successful one) can’t simply give clients the law and expect them to make the integrated business/legal decision.  For more on this from a theoretical standpoint (with practical examples), see The Venn Diagram of Business Lawyering Judgments:  Toward a Theory of Practical Metadisciplinarity, 46 Seton Hall L. Rev. 1 (2011).