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Law Students and Young Lawyers

Career Quiz for Law Students and Young Lawyers

So you went to Law School and participated in the legal clinic at the Fasken Building at University of Toronto or won a scholarship from Davies at Osgoode Hall.  Somehow you were given the impression by your Law School experience that if you did not get yourself hired by a Big Law firm (“BL”), you  would be a second-rate lawyer.

Although critical thinkers at Law School should have warned you about the Golden Rule, (“he who has the gold makes the rules”) and its corollary (“follow the money to find the guilty,”) you may have missed that lesson and ended up believing that bigger is better.

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The Mentality and Attitudes of Lawyers

Cowboys and Aliens

In the movie Cowboys and Aliens, the cowboys band together to vanquish the big, bad, powerful aliens.

When I retired, I moved to the country and tried to fit in with the country folks after having spent a lifetime in the Big City. 

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Firm Culture

An Alternate View of the Legal Universe

When I was young, so much younger than today, I completely bought into the fairy tale that the best and brightest lawyers are all at the large law firms and that everyone else is just not that good. After all, they practically teach you that at law school, although they never quite say it aloud, so I imagine that they have plausible deniability.

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Client Development

Competing With the Big Guys

Over 20 years ago, the flavour of the month in the legal press was that medium sized firms were doomed. The big firms were coming after our clients and we were going to lose them all. We had to merge with bigger firms or die. And yet, medium sized firms continue to flourish.

Categories
Law Firm Management

Targets (On Our Backs)

Law firms give lawyers minimum billable hours targets to meet. There is nothing wrong with setting expectations, I guess. The theory is that you make the lawyers aware of the firm’s expectations, and they then work to achieve them. Transparency is good.

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Murray The Wannabe Feminist

A Feminist Rant from an Old White Guy

Erin Durant of Durant Barristers recently posted the following on LinkedIn:

“A pain point for women who create firms is the narrative that they have quit rather than have built something. I did not quit my practice. I took my practice and built something better for my clients. I agree with a mentor who says that male founders do not face that assumption.”