Welcome to the 50th Episode of the Geek in Review!!
American Lawyer Media Reporter, Dylan Jackson, joins us this week to discuss two of his recent articles which focused on the mental health of law firm staff, as well as the persistent caste system which still exists in the large law firm environment. Jackson talked with a number of people within law firms regarding how firms view the mental health of staffers, what firms are doing (or not doing) to address the issues, as well as how firms value their staff’s contribution to the success of the firm. While the days of having a chair tossed at you by a partner might have faded in the past couple of decades, the stress placed on staff to handle more work, and to take on much more strategic missions for the law firm has significantly increased over the past ten years. Jackson found that it is still difficult for even the most senior of staff to get a seat at the table within the law firm, and that old barriers still exist to separate lawyers from the professional staff. In the end, these professionals need to be recognized for their contribution, and they want to be treated with respect.
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Information Inspirations
The Dark Side of Personality Tests
Many law firms are conducting personality assessments on their lawyers and staff. The idea is that if we better understood each other’s personalities, we can communicate better. Author Quinisha Jackson-Wright points out in a New York Times piece a significant flaw in personality tests when other use it to “fix” the other person, rather than adapt their own behavior. It’s important that workers don’t feel like they are being “outed” by being a certain personality type. (Plus some extra reading)
KM as a SUSTAINED Innovation Practice
Ark Group’s new book, Tomorrow’s KM-Innovation, comes some of the best practices around Knowledge Management in law firms. Ranging from the diversity needed within KM, to where innovation sits, to the collaboration needed for KM projects to succeed, this book covers it. While the US firms are still trying to define KM, it seems that firms outside the US have a clear vision.
What is your Law Firm’s Purpose?
Bruce MacEwan at Adam Smith, Esq., builds upon the recent announcement by The Business Roundtable that corporations should no longer view maximizing shareholder profits as the sole guiding principle for its existence. How should this effect law firms? When partners ask the question “What is your Law Firm’s Purpose?” of course, compensation is high up there… but what else is its purpose? MacEwan hopes that the answer is much more than the usual response of “it depends.”
Looking to Code?
Marlene discovered a fun (and free) place to learn some of the basics of coding. Free Code Camp has a number of options ranging from how to survive a tech conference, to even building your own version of a Flappy Bird game.
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Greg Lambert: So author, Quenisha Jackson-Wright felt that her. I just hit puberty.
[00:00:11] Marlene Gebauer: Wait a minute. Welcome to The Geek in Review, the podcast designed to cover the legal information profession with a slant toward technology and management. I’m Marlene Gebauer.
[00:00:31] Greg Lambert: And I’m Greg Lambert.
[00:00:32] Marlene Gebauer: Greg, we turned 50 this week.
[00:00:34] Greg Lambert: I don’t know about you, I turned 50 a couple of years ago. Oh, wait, you mean episodes? Hey, Marlene, yes, we are at episode 50 this week. And in a way, we’re kind of revisiting the discussion we had all the way back in our first episode when we talked with Zena Applebaum on her non-life at a law firm. So today we have American Lawyer Media reporter Dylan Jackson with us to discuss a couple of his recent articles on the mental health and the treatment of staff within a law firm. That would be those in the law firm who may not be practicing law, but who are making a difference in differentiating the law firm. Dylan has interviewed a number of people at different firms, and he finds that they want to be treated with respect and have some type of seat at the table, which allows them to bring value to their firms. So it’s a fascinating article, and it was a great discussion.
[00:01:26] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, I think that that full circle thing was perhaps intentional. And I got to say that our discussion with Dylan was really great, although I honestly feel there was still a lot left to dissect.
[00:01:42] Greg Lambert: Oh yeah, we could have gone on for another 40 minutes. We’d like to thank everyone who has joined us on this journey to 50 episodes, including all of our wonderful guests, and of course, you, the listeners of the Geek & Review. So thank you all.
[00:01:56] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, we are so grateful to all our guests, supporters, listeners, and cheerleaders. We started this project as a new way to reach out to our community and maybe reach some new people along the way. We’ve learned and grown sometimes in really unexpected ways, and hopefully so have all of you. We do Inspirations each week, but seriously, you all inspire us to give it our best and keep doing what we do. So in the words of Bartles and James, we thank you for your support.
[00:02:26] Greg Lambert: So speaking of Inspirations, let’s get things going by talking about this week’s Information Inspirations. So Marlee, my first Information Inspiration comes from the New York Times article called To Promote Inclusivity, Stay Away from Personality Assessments. So the article in the Times hits on a few topics we’ve discussed here on the Geek & Review. In the past. Author Quenisha Jackson Wright felt that her place essentially outed her as an introvert, and while everyone seemed to have really good intentions on giving everyone a Myers-Briggs assessment, the reality of the situation wasn’t very good for her. To tie into a previous Information Inspiration I had, she felt that she was an introvert being judged in an environment designed for extroverts. As you may have experienced, Marlee, if your workplace has ever done a personality assessment, the idea is so that people understand each other’s quality and that they adjust their own behavior to fit the other person’s specific personality type. But what happens in many cases is the extroverts try to fix the introverts. And Jackson Wright says that this type of behavior from her boss eventually led to a bad performance review and eventually to her leaving for other work. She had a very interesting perspective on these types of tests, and one that if you’re thinking of or already conducting these types of personality tests, be very clear that these are to help everyone find ways of communicating that works for the other person, not for you.
[00:04:07] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, Greg, this is a really tough one for me because I like personality tests, but…
[00:04:13] Greg Lambert: Let me guess. Are you an extrovert?
[00:04:15] Marlene Gebauer: No, I am not. But for the good reasons you mentioned, I like them to help me be aware of how I need to behave to support another person. I’ve found them so useful in helping me deal with people who have very different personality characteristics than mine. But I do hear what you’re saying about fixing introverts. I think there’s some good articles that are coming out about the value of introverts and promoting neurodiversity in the workforce. We’ve linked to a couple of these on the blog for people to peruse, dealing with autism and also dealing with an analysis of introverts. I feel this is a really lame wrap-up, but I guess we have to keep an open mind in terms of the differences between people and understand how those differences can be worthy in a work environment. Greg, my first inspiration is a new book that’s been put out by ARC called Tomorrow’s KM, Innovation, Best Practice, and the Future of Knowledge Management. What’s interesting about this book is that it takes a fresh look at the relationship between KM and innovation and how that’s changing KM. There are chapters devoted to the benefits of diversity in KM and increasing opportunities for those with different knowledge and backgrounds to interact. for those with different knowledge and backgrounds to interact. Does this sound familiar? Mm-hmm. There are others that explore where innovation sits in an organization, hint, KM is a critical area, and how departments need to work together for success. Still others focus on how strong KM practice is imperative to sustained innovation practice. More science, less art. One of the chapters I particularly like is how KM can create communities of practice. We discussed this quite a bit at the Arc UK conference this past June and how that can drive better communication across a firm and development of emergent KM solutions. So far, some great ideas presented and maybe an opportunity for some podcast guests.
[00:06:20] Greg Lambert: Yeah, it’s always interesting to get an outside view of the processes or, as most of these folks would say, processes because it seems like we still have a lot to learn in US firms around KM. As we say here, it’s very hard for us even to define KM. So seeing good examples from Canada, the UK, Europe, and Asia, it really helps visualize what we can do to innovate around the KM processes.
[00:06:47] Marlene Gebauer: Indeed.
[00:06:48] Greg Lambert: So Bruce McKeown over at Adam Smith Esquire talks about the business roundtable, which was led by was led by JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon and their announcement this week that American businesses should no longer be led by the mission to maximize shareholder profits. So maximizing profits is still on the list of the purpose of corporations in the US, but it no longer is supposed to have the highest priority, at least according to this roundtable. So McKeown ponders what that means for law firms. So he asked, to what extent does or should this brewing shift in mindset and focus extend over law firms? Of course, compensation is still going to be way up there, right? Of course. However, he lists a few more things to think about when it comes to the actual purpose of your firm. And so you can ask, what type of firm are you? So is your firm carnivorous or collaborative? Is it about the short term or about the long term? Is your firm about consumption or is it about investment? And does it over reward juniors or over reward seniors? So it’s very tempting to answer, it depends, but it’s also necessary for firms to really ask what their purpose is and to take a look inside of why it is that they are existing.
[00:08:10] Marlene Gebauer: Okay. So a few things. First of all, brewing shift in mindset, brilliant, brilliant. Love that. I want to steal it. Second, I really like this idea that maximizing profits is not necessarily the highest priority. So I’m thinking right now about the opioid decision against J&J that came down out of Oklahoma. And J&J was shipping millions of pills into the state of only 3 million total residents. And J&J even hired Kinsky to help them figure out how they could sell even more.
[00:08:43] Greg Lambert: Maximize those profits.
[00:08:45] Marlene Gebauer: Now I am sure profits were maximized, but should that really have been the highest priority here? You’re saying companies should not say it depends, but really, doesn’t it? Can you be both carnivorous and collaborative? I immediately think of phrases like keep your friends close and your enemies closer or the enemy of the enemy is my friend that have been applied for centuries. There’s a reason that they resonate with people. So I think some of these things really do seem to be determined by the factors in play.
[00:09:20] Greg Lambert: I think the real issue here is if you’re using the phrase, it depends to expand the answer or you’re using it depends to deflect the answer.
[00:09:30] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, exactly, exactly. For my last inspiration, Greg, I found a little gem of a site if you’re interested in coding, FreeCodeCamp.org. And they have a large variety of coding articles. So how to survive your first tech conferences, web scraping 101, learn scratch by building a flappy bird game. Okay, some are definitely more esoteric than others, but you will find something useful. The article that I read was about Python and its various applications. So peeps, check it out.
[00:10:05] Greg Lambert: Yeah, I actually got to travel to South Africa once to teach about web scraping. So it’s definitely useful.
[00:10:10] Marlene Gebauer: Aren’t you fancy?
[00:10:13] Greg Lambert: I am.
[00:10:14] Marlene Gebauer: So Greg, that wraps up our information inspirations. Today’s guest is Dylan Jackson, who is a reporter at American Lawyer Media. I think Dylan hit a nerve in a very good and necessary way with the legal industry with his recent articles on wellness and diversity in the legal industry. Dylan highlights an often overlooked group in these discussions, the legal support professionals, and how current practices are impacting them. This is a big juicy topic, so let’s jump right in.
[00:10:48] Greg Lambert: Dylan Jackson is a reporter for American Lawyer Media. He writes about how national law firms manage their talent and diversity, and he also covers Latin America for ALM. Dylan, good to have you on the Geek & Review. Thanks for bringing me on. I appreciate it. Thank you very much for coming on to speak about this very important topic.
[00:11:08] Marlene Gebauer: Thank you very much for coming on to speak about this very important topic. Dylan, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how it is that you are a lawyer?
[00:11:21] Dylan Jackson: Yeah, so last November, I got a job at the Daily Business Review, which is a subsidiary of ALM in the same way that American Lawyer is. I worked there for a couple months covering the South Florida legal community. I’m based out of here in Miami. A few months after that, my editors wanted to give me a national platform. And that’s how I came to the American Lawyer Magazine, which covers AMLaw 200 firms from more of a national scope. I cover mostly diversity and talent management. And so this kind of issue falls well within my be right because mental health is a conversation within the talent management community and within law firms and how to best utilize your workforce and your employees.
[00:12:08] Marlene Gebauer: We wanted to bring you to talk about a couple of recent articles you wrote, which focus on the administrative side of law firms, which happened to be the focus of our podcast. In one article, you talked about the mental health of law firm staff. And in the second, you talked about the caste system in law firms. And both are really great reads. What motivated you to look at mental health issues of those on the admin side of law firms?
[00:12:34] Dylan Jackson: These issues have been percolating for a long time, as you probably know, and other outlets and we have also been sporadically covering this issue here and there for a while now. But Doug Johnson’s death gave us a new sense of urgency. My wonderful editor, Gina, and my colleagues have been working on a year-long examination into mental health in the legal industry. And we decided that professional staff are every bit a part of that conversation. that conversation. So that’s kind of what kicked us off on this series.
[00:13:06] Greg Lambert: And can you give us just a little bit of background on who Doug Johnson is and what happened?
[00:13:11] Dylan Jackson: Yeah. So Doug Johnson was a law firm consultant, worked as an intern CMO at a couple firms for a while. About I think now a month ago, he died by suicide. And of course, being a CMO or being a consultant or working in a law firm in and of itself, you can’t kind of draw a direct line between suicide and you can’t assign blame, right? But the issues that a lot of both attorneys and professional staff face within law firms can exacerbate disease or mental health issues. And that’s kind of why we have decided to take a look at mental health within the legal community.
[00:13:52] Greg Lambert: Dylan, I know that people are talking more about depression and suicide at law firms, particularly on law firm partners. There was the article at which the widow of a law firm partner had posted that said, big law killed my husband. You just pointed out the issue with Doug Johnson. Are you seeing much in the way of reporting on depression and suicide when it comes to the operation side of the law firm?
[00:14:22] Dylan Jackson: Not really. And that’s kind of why we decided to take a look into this. This is an area that isn’t looked at as much as say, attorneys. Even in the way of studies, everyone points to the Hazleton Betty Ford study done in conjunction with the ABA, looking at the rate of depression and anxiety among attorneys. So there really isn’t that kind of data for law firm staff for the operation side. So there’s kind of a vacuum in terms of reporting and in terms of data in this realm.
[00:14:57] Marlene Gebauer: Sounds like we need to have a study done in this space, right?
[00:15:02] Dylan Jackson: Yeah. The closest thing I found in the course of my reporting is a survey that ALM did asking firms a bunch of questions about their mental health resources. a bunch of questions about their mental health resources. Only 30 firms answered. And one of the questions asked, do you extend mental health resources to law firm staff as well as your attorneys? And I think the stat was that 64% of firms do, which leaves 36% that doesn’t. So that’s really the closest thing that we have to any kind of survey that I have found looking at the state of mental health on the operation side. And even then, it kind of skirts around the direct questions.
[00:15:48] Marlene Gebauer: That’s what I was wondering. It’s like, how honest are they going to be, right?
[00:15:52] Greg Lambert: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I was wondering as I was preparing for this, if an organization like SHRM, the Society for Human Resources Managers, if they would do something like that. It’s definitely something I think that is an issue. It’s just it’s not as flashy. I don’t think it gets the attention that you get when you have someone like a big law firm partner who has mental health issues and an entire bar association that is there to help them along. So I guess in the long run, we’re saying is thanks for at least shining some light on this dark corner.
[00:16:34] Dylan Jackson: Thank you. Thank you for that.
[00:16:35] Marlene Gebauer: Based on the article about some of the instances of depression that we’re seeing in law firm staff, what kinds of demands are we seeing on law firm staff now? And that could be from secretary to the C-level. Has that changed in the past decade or so? Is that impacting this?
[00:16:55] Dylan Jackson: So these issues have sort of been around almost since the creation of law firm partnerships, right? You know, what’s different now is that client and economic realities have led to this massive influx of pricing, legal operations, and marketing staff within law firms. massive influx of pricing, legal operations and marketing staff within law firms. You know, as many have said, law firms have moved from simply a profession to a business. So now you have these firms with hundreds and hundreds of staff that they had not had in the past. In terms of the demands that they’re seeing, you know, what a lot of people tell me is that they see the same kind of pressures that a lot of attorneys have, right? They all work in the same environment, which is a law firm. And that comes with certain pressures and comes with certain deadlines that aren’t present in many other industries. Where the line of delineation is, is that there’s this added layer of strife that comes from not being considered a fee earner, being pejoratively called a non-lawyer. And what a lot of law firm staff feel is that, you know, they put up with a lot of these same demands that, you know, attorneys have, but they’re not being treated equally. And that’s all, you know, many, want, you know, just to be seen as equals within a law firm. Certain examples of things that they see is that, you know, they’ll be asked to write up a PowerPoint for a client meeting and, you know, they’ll have one mistake, one grammar error, and, you know, a partner would see that and send out a blast to all the other partners, shaming them for that error. And that kind of takes back all the work that they’ve done to kind of prove their value, which is something that a lot of professional staff feel like they have to do from the get-go. I don’t think that’s going to be changing anytime soon. If anything, because of client demands for efficiency, because of the changing market regarding alternative legal service providers, law firm staff or departments are only going to grow and grow within large law firms.
[00:19:09] Greg Lambert: Well, I’d say the responsibilities are going to grow and grow. The headcount may not grow and grow.
[00:19:15] Marlene Gebauer: Which may lead us back into people and their suffering. Well, not to go on a tangent here,
[00:19:22] Greg Lambert: but you can almost go down department by department or role by role. Secretaries are now, in some instances, five to one, six to one. And there’s a lot of pressure on them to handle, because not only that, but six to one, well, you may have two very demanding partners that are your responsibility, and then you may have four that never come to you. And so there’s that level of stress. You’ve got, in our area with the library, you’ve got the big do more with less.
[00:20:00] Marlene Gebauer: There’s still the deadline issues in the library where you have to meet deadlines in terms of getting things to people.
[00:20:09] Greg Lambert: Yeah. Look at technology, the security issue with things like ransomware, what happened to DLA Piper a couple of years ago. I mean, just the stress there. And of course, it’s article upon article on business development and marketing and the stress that’s going on there.
[00:20:25] Marlene Gebauer: And how the market is going in terms of sort of the shrinkage of opportunities that are out there. And that’s got to be pressure on the people that are trying to make those opportunities for their firms.
[00:20:38] Dylan Jackson: Yeah. And as one marketer put it to me, they feel like they have to serve a hundred different partners. And one doesn’t know what they’re doing for the other. You know what I mean? So they have to serve a hundred partners and they’re spread so thin that they feel like they never leave work having finished anything. Right. Because, you know, they have so many competing demands. Everything is, you know, I need this yesterday, even when it sometimes isn’t. It’s really it’s really stressful for a lot of people on the outside.
[00:21:13] Marlene Gebauer: And that communication point is, I think, really an important one in terms of what we’re talking about, because people don’t have the opportunity to communicate when they are spread thin, when they’re spread across all kinds of geography. And when they’re so busy that they don’t have time to even get the communications out to people. And it just kind of reinforces the stress and maybe even like a lack of community, sort of a lack of like, okay, we’re all in the same boat type of feeling. Because people just don’t have the time to even reach out.
[00:21:47] Greg Lambert: And Dylan, you had mentioned you gave the example of the PowerPoint, which was in your article. I’m also, what was funny was watching all of the side conversations that popped up after your article came out. And I was looking at a number of instances where people were comparing war stories about some of the, shall we say, jerkish attitudes or behavior that some partners did, which included jerkish. It is now we made things like having things thrown at them or being yelled at or berated. Now, one of the things that I’m seeing and maybe it’s me living in my little niche part of the big law world being in a regional firm is, you know, most of the firms probably 20 years ago really started the either official or the unofficial no asshole rule when it came to partner behavior as mostly specifically partners because they’re people in charge. Are you seeing that behavior has changed or is it that the outlandish jerk behavior is gone? But there’s still that behavior that’s going on that maybe isn’t as obvious. You’re not having you’re not being berated in the hallway, but you’re being berated more subtly in emails.
[00:23:17] Dylan Jackson: Yeah, well, the fact that so many people have resonated with the idea of, you know, this caste system for business professionals shows that there is some subtle aggression going on toward professional staff. But when it comes to throwing staplers or flaming doors, those stories are sort of few and far between. And it really depends case by case, firm by firm, whether or not they enforce a quote unquote no asshole rule. Right. And it really depends on the partner as well. Right. Some are kinder toward professional staff, some aren’t. That kind of stuff is on a case by case basis.
[00:23:57] Greg Lambert: Yeah, and usually the bigger the bigger the book of business, the bigger latitude that they have.
[00:24:02] Dylan Jackson: What I’ve heard is that if you’re a rainmaker, it’s going to be much more unlikely for you to be, you know, really taken to task for something that you’ve done. And that goes across the board for treatment toward all kinds of employees and colleagues within a law firm.
[00:24:20] Marlene Gebauer: We were hitting upon the folks that may not have good social graces or social skills or personal interaction skills and how firms are approaching that problem, which is very serious. But I want to shift gears a little bit and inquire, is there a core business model flaw in law firms? So as you know, is this sort of a greater flaw than just particular individuals? Lawyers are educated to think like lawyers. They work alongside other lawyers. They’re mentored by lawyers. The work they do, at least in big law, is for other lawyers and they’re self-regulated by lawyers. So are we doing a little too much navel gazing that we can’t see the overall value that those outside the practice of law bring to the firm? Are we not bringing them into the fold or considering them?
[00:25:13] Dylan Jackson: So I spoke to a legal consultant, Ron Friedman, about this in my second story on the CAAT system. And he said that for the top, top white shoe firms, there isn’t really an imperative to kind of change up their business model. Right. They are often the firms and often the attorneys that can handle work that no other firm or attorney can. And so there isn’t really this kind of bottom line incentive to kind of change to bring in more unity and multidisciplinary ideas within law firms. But where this can show, you know, where a more collaborative approach can show the most teeth is in a more middle market firm where the different differentiation between work isn’t as acute. And, you know, people tell me all the time, we report it all the time, even when we’re not reporting about professional staff. Ever since the Great Recession, the client expectations, how much they’ll pay, how much they’ll put up with, and kind of the tenor of the overall competitiveness within the legal industry has changed. And so that’s one of the reasons that we’re seeing more and more professional staff within law firms. With those mid-market firms where they try to, you know, where the work is less differentiated, they have to stand out more themselves. And what a lot of people say is that by working closer with your staff, by instituting more agile, multidisciplinary teams, there’s going to be this differentiation that they can make between firms. You know, the easiest example and the one I’ve used often, right, is the work that Hush Blackwell’s team did, their legal operations team led by Kevin Bielowski, right? They won an award for their work with their client with Monsanto, reducing active litigation by 53%. Now, that sort of stuff is what a lot of clients are looking for. And if a firm can kind of bring a team to the forefront like that. And by the way, their CEO, Paul Iberla, he is not, he doesn’t have a JD either. You know, if you can kind of bring this multidisciplinary approach to increase efficiency with your clients, then you will, in the end, over years and years, eke out an advantage over firms that don’t. And that means you have to treat law firm staff and your professional business colleagues with respect and give them the space to kind of air out their ideas and help you work with your clients.
[00:27:56] Greg Lambert: I want to expand just a bit on Marlene’s topic of lawyers evaluating lawyers in this caste system that you point out between the lawyers who are practicing and the rest of the law firm who are not necessarily fee earners or at least directly practicing. So when we talk about exclusivity, corporate legal departments are stressing diversity from their outside counsel. So even surveys, including your own ALM surveys, focus almost or entirely on lawyer diversity. And they pay little to no attention on staffing diversity. So on the surface, these surveys that come out sound and look very altruistic. And they act to highlight the importance of the diversity of the lawyers in a law firm. However, the metric is centered solely on, again, that diversity of the lawyers. Does this myopic view of diversity contribute to the caste system that we see in law firms?
[00:29:01] Dylan Jackson: You know, I couldn’t tell you the reason why many, including us, don’t keep great stats on staff diversity. And again, I do know that I found it near impossible to find stats about, let’s say, parental leave policies or mental health programs for law firm business professionals. And that, to many, kind of is another example of this sort of two- tiered system, right? You know, we have all these studies on diversity, on mental health, on parental leave for these attorneys. And this is something I found frustrating myself when I’m reporting out on this. You know, it’s hard to find data on any of those issues, including diversity on the law firm staff side. Many see that as yet another example of this sort of two-tiered system where professional staff are seen as, you know, an afterthought to their attorney counterparts.
[00:30:00] Marlene Gebauer: Does that have anything to do with sort of this lack of a visual team, you know, to clients? You know, there’s a lot of discussion now about teams and bringing, you know, legal support professionals, you know, in to meet with clients and discuss the things that they can do and how they support. But, you know, I think a lot of it is discussion and maybe not so much actual, it’s actually happening. Hopefully, someone will call in and say that I’m wrong. But, you know, do you think, you know, something like that might, you know, open this discussion a little bit further because, you know, clients would actually get to see sort of who’s their support, you know, doing legal support?
[00:30:39] Dylan Jackson: Yeah, I mean, what many have said is that a lot of this stems simply from the fact that law firm professional staff do not have a seat on the table and that providing them that seat will open the doors to all kinds of opportunities and looks that they normally don’t get. I mean, it’s the same kind of conversation that people have broadly in the diversity conversation within the legal industry, right? A lot of these issues, a lot of this lack of visibility stems from the fact that there isn’t a representative or whatever stakeholder group that they represent at the table, right? You know, it stems to reason that bringing in more business professionals into pitches, into face-to-face meeting with clients would have an effect of kind of raising the profile and making things more equitable. I mean, that’s why, for example, you know, a lot of people say that true change won’t come from just changing the culture, right? You can’t, in a lot of ways, it’s hard to singularly change the culture in the way it was hard to singularly drive diversity just by, you know, making it a moral imperative. It needs to tie in with a financial imperative and with the bottom line, like we see clients demanding diversity, right? Many think that clients demanding more efficiency is going to raise the profile of legal operations staff, of pricing staff, of marketers, of all kinds of business professionals within law firms.
[00:32:15] Greg Lambert: Yeah, well, and I think this may be one of those things that can differentiate a law firm from another law firm. I imagine clients go in and meet with three or four lawyers and look around the room and start multiplying, okay, $600 an hour times three. And very rarely do they bring in, hey, let me bring in our KM guy that has worked out this model so that we’re able to actually, you know, slash the time that we spend here, and in fact, I would take one of your three lawyers and replace them with one or two staff to come in and say, hey, here’s the backend that we’re doing just so that you understand how important your work is to us and what it is that we’re doing to make sure that we are using the right people for the right processes.
[00:33:05] Marlene Gebauer: So we tend to think of the CAST system as lawyers, you know, those practicing law and operations staff, so those on the business side that are not practicing law. You know, I wonder, could you really split it even further? There’s, you know, there’s a CAST system for legal assistants and paraprofessionals, a CAST for paralegals and law clerks and research staff, and a CAST for technologists, for business development professionals, and for chiefs. And you know, maybe that’s splitting hairs a little too finely, but most firms have different HR rules and official rules for each of these CASTs. So how do you see law firms giving these different CASTs some sort of seat at the table?
[00:33:52] Dylan Jackson: So again, I rarely see even executive level staff having seats at the table in many law firms. So to me, that doesn’t bode well for others down the line. Look, a hierarchy is always going to exist in any industry. What many who I’ve spoken to want is just to be treated kindly, to not fear that their job, to not fear for their job anytime they make even the smallest mistake, and not to So I can’t believe that’s still going on.
[00:34:25] Greg Lambert: Sorry.
[00:34:26] Dylan Jackson: It was, I know, I mean, it was something that, yeah, I mean, it was, it was that, that’s. Something that really struck me when I was reporting out the story, but it’s shocking. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Yeah, it’s really, it’s a very concrete example of this kind of system in a way that is sometimes hard to pin down, right? Like I said, a hierarchy is going to exist in any industry. And many executives themselves still don’t have a seat at the table. So, in the future, I don’t think that bodes well for people further down the line in law firms, but we’ll see, maybe it’ll change.
[00:35:09] Marlene Gebauer: It’s two steps, right? Like, you know, let’s start with treating one another with respect and acknowledging contributions.
[00:35:18] Greg Lambert: And you know, then maybe we can, we can move from there.
[00:35:20] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah.
[00:35:21] Dylan Jackson: I mean, you know, like I said, you know, what many people want is just to be treated kindly. You know, that question to me, you know, isn’t really about individual subcasts. It’s just about just treating people with respect.
[00:35:36] Greg Lambert: All right. Well, Dylan, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us today.
[00:35:40] Dylan Jackson: Of course, it’s my pleasure.
[00:35:41] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, thank you.
[00:35:44] Greg Lambert: Marlene, that was a great discussion. I really wanted to make sure that we steered away from making it sound like the operations members at law firms aren’t trying to say that we need to be treated as equals to equity partners. That’s just not what anyone’s saying.
[00:36:04] Marlene Gebauer: No.
[00:36:05] Greg Lambert: There is a value that’s brought to the firm by these folks. And as Dylan mentioned in a number of times, actually, staff just want to be respected for their contributions. for their contributions and not having to hit hard walls built between the lawyers and the staff at a law firm. I’m looking at you, different cafeteria.
[00:36:23] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah. I mean, like, hey, everybody’s on the same team here, right? I think listening to Dylan’s comments and his research with real legal ops people gives all of us an opportunity to really be more mindful about how we treat others, both on an ad hoc basis, but also as part of the processes we implement and the opportunities that we offer people. I personally would love to hear from listeners about what they’re doing to address this wellness issue.
[00:36:54] Greg Lambert: Yeah. Well, one of the things that we didn’t talk about, but I saw a lot of conversation after Dylan’s articles came out where people giving their war stories about having a deal. There was a number one of things being thrown at them, emails going out to degrade them. And so the one thing I did, I actually reached out to a couple of the folks that were posting that. And I asked them specifically, I said, is, you know, your examples tend to come from 10, 20, 30 years ago. Is that still something that you see going on in firms? And every single one of them said, yes, it may not be as obvious as having a chair raised at you or a stapler thrown at you or being cursed out in the hallway. I think it’s a little bit more passive aggressive than it used to be, but it’s still there.
[00:37:50] Marlene Gebauer: That’s, you know, it’s terrible to hear, but these types of discussions sort of give us an opportunity to bring this out in the open and hopefully address it in a more positive way.
[00:38:03] Greg Lambert: Yeah. Well, Marlene, to paraphrase a former university of Oklahoma football coach, Barry Switzer, we’ve run up half a hundred episodes on the scoreboard. So happy 50th episode, Marlene.
[00:38:16] Marlene Gebauer: God, it always ties back to OU, doesn’t it?
[00:38:20] Greg Lambert: Of course it does.
[00:38:21] Marlene Gebauer: But seriously, we are 50 episodes young.
[00:38:26] Greg Lambert: 50 is the new 20.
[00:38:27] Marlene Gebauer: They say you’re only as old as you feel. And I still feel like a teen. Well, from a podcasting perspective anyway.
[00:38:34] Greg Lambert: Yeah. I still act like a teenager. Does that count?
[00:38:38] Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, I suppose it does.
[00:38:41] Greg Lambert: Thanks again to ALM reporter Dylan Jackson for joining us to talk about the mental health issues and the caste system confronting the staff at law firms.
[00:38:49] Marlene Gebauer: Thanks again to all of our guests and to the listeners of The Geek in Review. Please take time to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Rate and review us as well. We love those five stars.
[00:39:03] Greg Lambert: Yes, we do.
[00:39:04] Marlene Gebauer: If you have comments or suggestions, you can reach us on Twitter at GameHourM or at Glambert, or you can call the Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeSica. Thanks, Jerry.
[00:39:23] Greg Lambert: All right, thanks, Marlene. I will talk with you later.
[00:39:25] Marlene Gebauer: All right, bye-bye. I have to go to the cause The salt of the earth on the way to rehearse At the devil’s backbone bar Hey, hey, don’t take me away I can walk home by the North Star But I failed to notice that it’s still daylight’s At the devil’s backbone bar At the devil’s backbone bar At the devil’s backbone bar