Hemenway & Barnes AUTHORED LITERATURE

Novices' 6-Figure Pay a Time Bomb
The Boston Globe
February 8, 2000

By Frederic J. Marx

TIME FOR A TRANQUILIZER. Starting associates at major law firms are going to be paid - no, this is not a typo - $125,000 to $140,000 annual salaries (not including bonuses, of course). They have never tried cases or done deals. They have not written legal briefs (except in moot court) or drafted complicated agreements. Yet their salaries will exceed the compensation of seasoned partners at many firms.

It is wonderful to see people who work hard be paid well. When a system takes on a structure that is not in the best interest of the public or of the legal profession and those who work in it though, and when pay scales become excessive, a careful review is needed.

With salaries at these stratospheric levels, young and undertrained associates will be pushed to do more, and at higher billable rates. This is the modern math of the practice of law.

Yet attaining real competency takes years of experience, training, and apprenticeship. The skills and knowledge required for major litigation and complex transactions are not taught at law school.

Yet the pressure is now increased to throw less trained individuals at more difficult tasks, and faster. You cannot pay your starters six-figure salaries and not put them to heavy use as soon as possible without adverse economic effects.

These salary levels, born of a unique but not everlasting economic boom, will have short - and long - term consequences. The near-term result will be the drive to increase the productivity of the new six-figure entrants and to limit the time given to training and pro bono service. You cannot train new associates, have them put in 2,000-plus billable hours to meet the cost of their new salaries, plus have them perform the public service that is a hallmark of our profession.

At major firms, the stress to do more in less time (efficiency) and to bill more hours (gross income) is tremendous. The conflicting demands of work and family are already driving many of our best away from the profession. Instead of taking steps to reduce the tension, firms are giving in to a new salary scale that will make matters worse.

Short term, the change will only exacerbate the "up and out" syndrome. Firms will not be able to afford to give someone paid at these levels the time and patience to mature into a seasoned lawyer, to make mistakes, to learn from experience, and at the same time to raise a family and participate in the community.

You slip, you're out.

It is easy to throw up one's hands and say, "They asked for it." But this would be an abdication of the responsibility to create a legal community and a culture that are supportive and creative, not purely economically competitive. Firms and the lawyers both need to understand a house built upon mutual selfishness will not survive.

The not-so-hidden secret of medicine and law is that they are apprenticeship systems. School provides the terms and concepts, but only actual practice develops the individual into a seasoned professional.

We are now faced with salaries that force firms to reduce or eliminate training, that undercut the ability to provide the time and support associates need, and that require them to be evaluated primarily as producers of billable hours. It is self-destructive. And it will hurt the clients and community we are duty-bound to serve.

Frederic Marx is a partner at the law firm of Hemenway & Barnes and spent five years as a member of its management committee.

Reprinted with permission from the Boston Globe Newspaper Co.,
135 Morrissey Blvd., P.O. Box 2378, Boston, MA 02107-2378, © 2000