I articled for the now defunct law firm of Goodman and Carr. It was a well-regarded firm in its day. Wolfe Goodman was a senior partner and a leading tax lawyer of his era. In my tax rotation, I spent considerable time with him. He made tax sound so interesting that there was even a brief moment in time that I thought I wanted to be a tax lawyer.
There was once a mid-sized law firm that wanted to develop a specialty in a niche area of litigation.
At the bottom level of that specialty, there were general commercial litigation lawyers who wrongly thought that they knew enough to be competent. One step above, there were lawyers with a decent reputation who gave good, creative, advice and achieved decent results most of the time. And then there were the Tier One superstars. Big reputations, high billings, and in demand for the most difficult assignments.
Those of you who have been following this series know that I said that Part Seven was the final article in the series. It turns out that I lied.
The purpose of the series is to set out the questions which Articling Students and new Associates should figure out about their firms when deciding whether to stay there over the long-term.
This time it is about the Chief Marketing Officer (“CMO”).
This is the last in a series about the questions which Articling Students and new Associates should figure out about their firms when deciding whether to stay there over the long-term.
This time, I will speak about supervising lawyers (“SL”).
This is the sixth in a series about information that Articling Students and new Associates should have before deciding to stay at a firm for the long-term.
Today it is about some of my favourite people in law firms – the Law Clerks (“LC”) (aka Paralegals).
This is the fifth in a series about questions that Articling Students and new Associates should consider when trying to size up their new firm.
This time I will address the most senior person in charge of the money. In your firm, this person could be called any of the following: Chief Financial Officer (“CFO”), Controller, Accounting Manager, Accountant or Bookkeeper.
This is the fourth in a series about questions that Articling Students and new Associates should ponder while trying to determine whether they have landed in the right place.
This time I will address the Chief Technology Officer (the “CTO”). Of course, being lawyers we need a definition, so let’s use this one from Alexander Gillis and others at techtarget.com:
In Parts One and Two, I set out some questions that articling students and young lawyers should ask about their firm’s Managing Partner and Practice Group Leader.
Today I will tackle the much trickier issue of the Chief Operating Officer (the “COO”).
In Part One, I set out some questions that articling students and young lawyers should ask about the Managing Partner. This time let’s talk about your Practice Group Leader (the “PGL”).
When articling students or young lawyers enter a law firm of any size for the first time, they see the carefully cultivated image that the law firm promotes and are often thrilled to be part of a legal fantasy world where every lawyer is dynamic, brilliant, experienced, strategic, and practical.
Over time they get to know the lawyers and other key players, and eventually figure out what is real and what is not.