The Associate Pirate

Ben Heineman Jr. and David Wilkins have a thoughtful article on Law.com today, about associate attrition and retention.

In addition to some suggestions about training and development, they have a couple of practice pointers:

To give young lawyers real practice experience, firms can also expand their pro bono work to a broad range of clients (nonprofits need tax or housing or “corporate” advice) and have a strong pro bono director who ensures that very young lawyers spend 20 percent to 30 percent of their time actually practicing, but with supervision. (This would be a natural extension of expanded law school clinical programs, which many graduates participated in.)

Firms can also secund young associates to public sector agencies (e.g., the county prosecutor’s office), where they can be paid by the firm but get far more hands-on experience than they would as twenty-first person on a multidistrict litigation team. They can promise students that they will have a law firm job after two or three years in the public interest world and not be penalized for starting with the firm “late” (indeed, such lawyers may be ahead of their peers in certain practical respects because of that experience).

Transactional pro bono work is a particularly good idea, but surprisingly hard to find at many firms. In addition to non-profit clients, try signing up for Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (great way to get copyright experience), VITA (basic tax experience), or other volunteer lawyers’ groups in your area.

Secondment to district attorneys is actually fairly common in some cities, and firms have been expanding the practice of corporate secondment as well. Speaking as both an associate pirate and a former in-house counsel, I think secondment opportunities are a big deal for associates. Even a secondment of three or four months will make you a better lawyer, a better rain-maker, and a better potential in-house candidate.