'Caste system' at some law firms won't survive, consultant says; multidisciplinary teams will
Image from Shutterstock.com.
Multidisciplinary teams of lawyers and nonlawyer professionals can help solve complex problems—if law firms change their caste mentality, according to legal consultant Ron Friedmann.
Friedmann believes there will be more incentive to change the caste system at midsize firms where there is intense competition for clients and professional talent, the American Lawyer reports. Law firms will get the better professionals if they are made to feel at home there, he said.
“If the nature of the work is changing, and the economics favor multidisciplinary teams, that’s where survival of the fittest comes in,” he told the publication.
Carolyn Park, a former associate and now a business development professional, has firsthand experience. She tells the American Lawyer she quickly learned about a caste system that downgrades the work of nonlawyers.
She was advised at one law firm to point out that she had been a practicing attorney to earn more respect from lawyers. She recalls confessing to a mistake in an email to a law firm partner, only to be called out in an email sent to all the law firm’s partners.
“If you’re a legal professional trying to earn respect from your partners, that’s how they destroy it,” Park told the American Lawyer. Park left the legal industry in 2017.
The article points to other snubs, including separate dining rooms for lawyers and most staff members at a law firm in Chicago.
“Nearly every law firm professional has a war story: a thrown stapler, ignored emails and even public shaming,” the article reports. “Professionals find themselves constantly scrambling to justify their presence, and just one mistake—even a small PowerPoint typo—can erase all the goodwill.”
