Free yourself from the grip of BigLaw

Thanks to Susan Cartier Liebel of the Build a Solo Practice LLC blog for pointing out a great resource for women lawyers: the most recent edition of the Complete Lawyer.  Her blog, by the way, is a great resource and one that is well worth following.

This month's focus is "What Do Women Lawyers really Want?" 

Over the next few weeks I'll be highlighting articles from this edition.  Today's article is written by Susan and is entitled "Free Yourself From the Grip of BigLaw."

Solos work very hard 24/7, but most will tell you that the reason they work so hard is for the freedom it affords them. And for not having to apologize for, or feel guilty about decisions that put their family first. Not having to risk their promotion or job because life means more to them than eighty hour work weeks. Not having to ask anyone's permission to live their life the way they choose...

(W)e ... live in a culture of fear: fear we won't meet our student loans, fear we won't be able to pay our living expenses, fear we won't have clients, fear we won't know what we are doing, fear of not having a steady paycheck and health insurance, and so on. And then there is fear of what others will think if we try to make a go of it as a solo practitioner...

Unfortunately, this fear can take a disproportionate toll on women in the legal field. A very disturbing article in the Boston Globe, (May 2007) reported: "Of the 1,000 Massachusetts lawyers who provided data for the report, 31 percent of female associates had left private practice entirely, compared with 18 percent of male associates. The gap widens among associates with children, to 35 percent and 15 percent, respectively—reflecting the cultural reality that women remain the primary care givers of children and are therefore more likely to leave their firms for family reasons. The dropout rate among women lawyers is overwhelmingly the result of the combination of demanding hours, inflexible schedules, lack of viable part-time options, emphasis on billable hours, and a failure by law firms to recognize that female lawyers' career trajectories may alternate between work and family." ...

It's impossible to put a price tag on the freedoms solo practitioners enjoy, including the freedom to balance and improve the quality of their lives, and the other psychological bank accounts that get hefty deposits every day. Apparently, 74 percent of all private practice attorneys have done Ben Franklin lists when making the decision to work for themselves. If the statistics tell the tale, then independence, autonomy and a day at the ballpark is winning by a long shot.

The journal Nature refers to WARF win on stem cells as landmark rulingIPBiz

In an article Stem-cell patents confirmed; Victory for Wisconsin foundation in landmark ruling. in the 17 March 08 issue, Nature observed:

An effort to overturn two contested stem-cell patents was quashed last week by the US Patent and Trademark Office, in a move that strengthens the position of the patents' holder, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF).

See also

ScienceToday on WARF victories over PubPat, FTCR

Is BigLaw truly making an effort?

From Law.com comes an article about a law firm trying to "include" women attorneys: Mayer Brown Associates Take a Grassroots Approach to Networking.

Will it work?  Only time will tell.

From the article:

When the firm's New York office formed its Women's Forum, the group found an almost universal desire for access to the keys to success that often are not equally shared with women attorneys in major law firms: opportunities for networking, strong relationships with mentors, opportunities for business development and consideration when leadership roles are delegated. Thus, the mission of the Women's Forum -- composed of women associates, counsel and partners -- emerged: Promote the success of our women lawyers by creating networking and marketing opportunities both internally and externally...

The lessons learned here are important for developing successful women attorneys:

• Women need to ask for such opportunities. If we don't, you can be sure that nothing will happen.
• Women should ignore the myth that networking is an innate talent or requires pre-existing connections.
• The key to successful networking is careful planning and strategic thinking.
• Rainmakers and networking coaches alike emphasize the need to follow up.
• Providing early networking and client development training to women associates will give them the tools they need to take advantage of every opportunity.

Mayer Brown believes that in order to begin to change the cultural fabric of a law firm world in which there are inherent obstacles in the path of female attorneys, law firms must be willing to empower their women associates and counsel and to view those efforts as a benefit to the firm -- not simply a favor to women lawyers. Events like this one have the potential to hasten the slow process of changing those cultural obstacles. At Mayer Brown, that process is well under way.

Mediation SkillsSOLO Independent IP Practitioners

I hope you all subscribe to fellow SOLO, Justin Patten's e-zine as his articles are always stimulating and interesting. His latest offering starts:

"Set Aside Your Legal Skills to Become an Effective Mediator

A recent article by Sir Henry Brooke, dealing with his new career as a mediator set me thinking about the different skill sets that mediators and lawyers need to do their jobs effectively.

Sir Henry Brooke is a retired Judge and became a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1996 and Vice-President of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in 2003. In the article he wrote about his personal perceptions and experiences:
"The advocate's skills are to conquer the details of a dispute, to give clients high quality dispassionate advice about the pros and cons of pre-trial settlement offers, and if settlement fails, to place their case clearly and persuasively before the court or tribunal, whether in written or oral submissions.
The skills of a judge, on the other hand, are to conquer the details of a dispute, to read or listen attentively to the arguments on both sides, and then to deliver a judgment, whether orally or in writing, which shows that one understands what the dispute is about and is giving clear reasons for preferring one side's case rather than the other.

A mediator's skills are different. Of course he or she also must conquer the details of a dispute in order to secure the trust of both parties. But there the similarities end."

Sir Henry Brooke raises an important point. It's not a natural switch for someone trained in the law, as a judge or a lawyer, to adopt the completely new stance of a mediator."

It was just the insight I needed to understand a threatening letter I was dealing with for a client. I knew the writer was a trained mediator and the letter positively dripped with mediation cliches, but the legal basis for the claim was dubious and poorly articulated. I realised that mediation organisations were amongst the first to offer training to patent and trademark attorneys and these opportunities were taken up to fill the gap in the patent attorneys' formation for legal and litigation skills.

I question whether mediation training is an effective substitute for litigation training. A fully trained litigator may benefit from mediation training. Certainly most major law firm litigators advertise the mediation qualifications of their members but I wonder how many of them use these skills in the initial assertive stages of litigation. Fortunately the legal training organisations are now making formal training in litigation skills more widely available.

CAFC Goes Nonprecedential to Prescribe Patent Litigation Practice Pointers for Counsel and Judges.ISinIP

One past 'practice in the vicinage' of the SDNY was for a Judge to announce a rule in open court. Only those attorneys who happened to be there that day heard this new, unwritten rule. It worked for those firms that were in court everyday, but for those there occasionally, it could work a hardship. Who knew that this Judge required you to call his chambers 24 hours before appearing, or your client would be defaulted.

Today, in LSI Indus., Inc. v. Imagepoint, Inc., the CAFC put forth some practice rules for patent cases, but did so in a nonprecedential opinion. Why? The panel chastises litigation counsel for making "little effort to simply" the patent issues for the judge, and instead bulk-filing a "firestorm of issues and arguments" plus a "voluminous" reexam file wrapper. Then, as mentors to their members, the CAFC instructs that it "warrants our reemphasizing that an attorney has a duty …to aid in the fair and efficient adminstration of justice," and then, cited its earlier ruling that attorneys "are expected to assist the court …particularly in difficult cases involving complex issues of law and technology." That's what we, the flock admitted to practice as trial counsel, were told to do.

Next, the panel opinion was politely uncomplimentary of the work of District Judge Wm. Bertelsman (W.D. Ky.). In the main, the panel reversed some of his claim term interpretations. That follows their review, a year ago, of his "erroneous approach in construing the claims," in Byrne v. Black & Decker Corp. (CAFC 5/21/2007) which affirmed his conclusion, in another non-precedential ruling. The LSI panel notes his expressed "lack of familiarity with patent law." It goes on to state its dislike for a district judge having "adopted [one party's] proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law verbatim." [Yeah, like that never happens.] The panel observes, nonprecedentially, that although "this practice is not prohibited, it is frowned upon." That wholesale adoption can give "the impression that there was insufficient independent evaluation" of all the arguments of record. The best precedent cited in support of the panelists' 'frown' and "impression" was a 9th Circuit case about TBS withholding royalties payable under Director Wm. Wyler's 1958 contract to direct "Ben-Hur." That's IP, right?

So, if you weren't in court today, you may've missed this practice pointer, but don't worry, it's nonprecedential and can't be cited in another CAFC case.

On the Bessen/Meurer bookIPBiz

One commenter on a Bessen/Meurer post (related to their book) on Patently-O wrote:

I actually worked at a large (huge multinational) corporation. One of my jobs was to evaluate technology to decide whether to buy (license) or build. Part of the analysis was do they have IP protection.

I have also worked at and with start-ups for 25 years. The first job I had was with a software start-up in Boston. Now I am an attorney that protects IP.

Would anyone who has real experience with large corporations, IP, and start-ups take this book seriously? No. They have built a little model of the world that is not accurate and applied a silly methodolgy to get some title that will get some attention.

And, only a bunch of professors would have the time and ethics to produce a book like this.

See also

Do patents tend to harm inventors?--part 3

Poking at Fitzgerald on Bessen on patents as money losers

A crazy day in the life of a lawyer-mom with a flexible schedule

AKA, wearing 10 hats in one day.  Or, I'll never understand how those stuck in the rigid law firm environment with no flexibility stay sane.

My day yesterday:

6:30--Wake up, shower.

7:00--Eat breakfast and help get older child get ready for school, although hubby has the day off so it's mainly his job.

7:45--Check email, catch up with news, etc. online.  Post to this blog.

8:30--Leave for office.

9:00--Arrive at office and pick up and drop off files.

9:30--Go to grocery store to pick up food supplies for dinner that we're making for people very close to us who are going through a very difficult time.

9:40--Go to TJMaxx to buy a birthday present for my eldest daughter's friend's birthday party on Saturday.  Pick up small gift for friends going through a tough time.

10:15--Arrive home.  Wrap gift for friends.  Get cup of coffee, set iPhone alarm for 11:30, and do legal research on Westlaw.  Hubby and youngest daughter are gone to the doctor.

• She's been sick for nearly 7 week now. First we all had the flu in late January, which turned into an ear infection for her in mid-February, so she went on a course of antibiotics.  She never really got better, and in the last week, has had a fever of 103 and is constantly coughing and then throwing up when she coughs really hard--mostly in her bed at night.  She had to go to the ER in the middle of the night a few nights ago when her cough turned into croup and she had a very hard time breathing.

11:25--Go outside and get eldest off school bus.  Make her lunch and eat lunch myself.  Hubby comes home.  Youngest has a very bad ear infection (again) and and upper respiratory infection and has been prescribed stronger antibiotics.

12:30-3:00--Draft letter to New York State Court of Appeals, the highest court in New York, seeking leave to appeal a criminal case.  Hubby makes baked ziti for our friends.

3:00--Drive to office and oversee preparation of enclosures for letter to NY State Court of Appeals. It takes longer than expected.

4:30--Leave office and drive home in the middle of a snow storm.  Stop at pharmacy to pick up antibiotics for youngest.

5:00--Arrive home.  Everyone piles into the car and we head to friend's house. 

5:30--Arrive and visit for 1/2 hour or so.

6:15--Arrive at the best grocery store ever--Wegmans.  We eat and then kids and hubby watch kid's movies upstairs while I do the weekly grocery shopping.

8:00--Arrive home.  Give youngest the antibiotics.  She doesn't like it and begins to cry.  Youngest is getting a fever again and gets very cranky.  Continues to cry and then promptly pukes up her dinner and the antibiotics right next to the piles of laundry waiting to be put away, splattering her clean sheets and blankets, that she'd puked on two nights ago, in the process.

8:05--Strip her down, give her ibuprofin, and take kids upstairs to get them ready for bed.  Hubby cleans up puke, throws the puke spattered bed linens into the washer and puts away groceries.

8:30--Kids are in bed. Kids don't settle down until about 9:00.   Hubby and I watch tv for a while and begin to fall asleep on the couch around 10:30, so off to bed we go.

3:00--Youngest wakes up coughing and can't go back to sleep.  I'm "on duty" since hubby has to work the next day.  Finally get her back to sleep at 4 or so.

*****

Today, hubby is at work, youngest now has pink eye and the birthday party the eldest was supposed to go to was canceled at the last minute since the birthday girl is sick.

Another day, another juggle.

I had nothing to do with this. I swear.The Legal Satyricon

It's tournament time

  March
  madness! 
It's time for the NCAA men's basketball tournament, and I'll be pulling for three teams: the Louisville Cardinals, the Georgia Bulldogs, and the Belmont Bruins.

Louisville is my present; Georgia represents my past. But Belmont? It's an easy call. Fifteenth-seeded Belmont meets Duke in the first round, and Duke's opponents are always my third-favorite college basketball team after Louisville and Georgia.

I'm sure there are freaks who cheer for Duke, but they are all sick, evil, twisted perverts. None of them are friends of mine. Backing Duke basketball is like cheering for a law school with a $1.7 billion endowment.

There are other reasons to support Belmont. It's the alma mater of Lee Ann Womack and Trisha Yearwood. Doesn't that make you feel the love? If that's not enough, here's one more reason to cheer for Belmont. Unlike the other team from Nashville that will be playing in the tournament, Belmont doesn't have a law school.

Finally, here's a bit of MoneyLaw wisdom from Belmont alumna Sarah Cannon, probably better known by her stage name, Minnie Pearl:

Cannon . . . once aspired to a part in the new musical "Oklahoma!" when she was performing and teaching drama in the late 1940s. During a snowstorm somewhere in Kansas, only 15 people showed up for her little act, and she gave a low-energy performance.

Little did she know . . . that a talent scout was in the sparse audience, measuring her for a part in "Oklahoma!" She never got to Broadway, but she always remembered that snowy night whenever she went on stage. As Joe DiMaggio once said, there will always be somebody in the stands who is seeing you for the first and only time.