Going Corporate

As this year’s top law school students graduate, many of the brightest will be going off to pursue careers in big corporate law firms. What they don’t know yet is that they’d rather be working for you.

James Kwak, a Yale Law professor, noted on Baseline Scenario that “maybe 15% of students (my wild guess) come in wanting to be corporate lawyers but 75% end up at corporate law firms (first job after law school, not counting clerkships).” Kwak argues that bright, idealistic students wind up in law school because of the expectation that it will open doors for them into fields where they’ll be able to tackle big, important challenges. Three years later, these same bright students leave law school in debt, and run into the open embrace of large firms, where they’ve been recruited since their first summer after law school, by the promises of security, stability, and the belief that corporate law is what they’ve been training for.  Yet law schools train legal generalists; people deeply familiar with the principles and frameworks of the law, reasoning, and argumentation.  Law schools are in the business of training problem solvers.

And yet, when you hire a law firm on behalf of your business, these newly minted barristers are actually working for you, and you’re footing the bill for their corporate law training as they’re billed out at exorbitant hourly rates.

Stop paying to train these young, recent grads through their law firms and start hiring them to tackle your biggest problems. Give them opportunities beyond just papering deals; let them handle the business development, the operations management, the negotiations, or even product development.

What’s more, more law school graduates expecting to head into corporate law are finding the door closed when they graduate and need to apply their skills elsewhere.

Recruit right from the law schools if you have to. At the end of the day they want to tackle big challenges (the most prestigious law school students wind up serving as clerks for judges or go onto legal fellowships).  For many lawyers, Atticus Finch was their inspiration, even if they find themselves searching for tax loopholes all day.

Your business probably has what these graduates have been searching for all along: big challenges that they’ll be able to apply themselves to. Make it clear from the get-go and that they’ll be problem solvers, not cogs. They’ll be happier and your business stronger.

Or give one a try over the summer.  They’re used to hearing about their friends’ rafting trips, sky boxes and beer bashes, but few law students hear of their friend who spent the summer launching a new company.

Stop paying for young lawyers’ Corporate Law training through big law firms.  Bring them in-house and set them loose to tackle your toughest business problems.