Call for comments about the ABA's legal processing outsourcing study

On May 7, 2010, NAFLP and Lisa Solomon of Legal Research and Writing Pro, responded to the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 Call for Comments regarding Legal Process Outsourcing (Domestic and International). The full response can be found here.

Of particular interest, however, is that the ABA's call for comments contains three pages of questions, none of which addresses freelance lawyers. Furthermore, there is not a single question directed to contract lawyers, those who work for legal employment agencies and legal process outsourcing companies.

I pulled up the ABA's mission statement again this morning which reads as follows:

To serve equally our members, our profession, and the public by defending liberty and delivering justice as the national representative of the legal profession.

Call my cynical if you like, but an investigation into legal outsourcing that does not even mention those lawyers who provide freelance legal services to law firms domestically, or the masses of contract lawyers that fuel fee generation for large law firms via massive document review projects, is without excuse.

Freelance lawyers, contract lawyers, stand up and tell your story. NAFLP and freelance lawyer Lisa Solomon have told them. Kimberly Alderman at "Lawyer On! The Freelance Attorney Blog" has told them ("The ABA (Unintentionally) Recognizes Freelance Lawyers as Freedom Fighters"). The Posse List, I understand, is preparing to address the issue. Now it is your turn. Tell the ABA who you are, what you do, and that if they want to act as the "national representative of the legal profession," they better take note of the entire legal profession.

Post your comments here and cc Senior Research Paralegal Natalia Vera at veran@staff.abanet.org. ABA, your comments and explanations are welcome also.

NAFLP Co-Founders Quoted in Major Legal Publications

The interest in legal freelancing is gaining momentum as reflected in major periodicals publishing articles about this segment of the legal industry. In the past week, NAFLP co-founders were each cited in articles published by the American Bar Association and the National Law Journal.

"Lawyer for Hire: Freelance Contractors Change the Marketplace", Hannah Hayes, Perspectives, Vol. 17, Number 3.

"[M]any freelance contract lawyers must fight the perception that 'they are between jobs or don't have it in them to be a "real" lawyer," [Amanda] Mineer points out. "It's about a balanced life . . ."

"Downturn May Have an Upside for Contract Attorneys", Emily Heller, National Law Journal, May 5, 2009.

"'I have more work than I know what to do with,' [Melody Kramer]
said. 'I think the market is perfectly primed for freelancing right
now.'"

The true nature of legal freelancing - setting the record straight

There are many misconceptions about legal freelancing on the internet, so much so that I am compelled, again, to explain the fundamental differences between “freelance legal professionals” and other things such as “contract attorneys.”

Freelance legal professionals are self-employed

Freelance legal professionals are their own employers, maintain their own office, pay their own taxes, arrange for their own insurance and benefits, set their own schedules, set their own fees, sets their own working conditions, and market their services directly to law firms and inhouse legal departments. Freelance legal professionals do not work directly for, nor get paid by, ultimate clients. They do not work for, nor get paid by, an employment agency. Freelance legal professionals, whether licensed attorneys themselves, or paralegals or other service providers, work on an independent contractor basis for licensed attorneys who have the relationship with the underlying, or ultimate, client.

Freelance legal professionals sometimes work on a project-by-project basis, or may have a long-standing relationship with a law firm, doing work on a long-term and ongoing basis. The key distinction between the freelancer and an employee, however, is that the freelancer is paid as a 1099-reportable independent contractor, whereas the employee is paid as a W-2-reportable employee. Other distinctions flowing out of that relationship are the level of control over how the work is done, where it is done, and whether the worker can do work for other law firms.

“Contract attorneys” are employees of agencies

The type of work that is more commonly known phrase “contract attorney” or “contract lawyer” is actually that of an employment relationship between an employment agency and the legal professional (this arrangement is also common with other legal support personnel). The employment agency contracts with law firms for the use of their (the agency’s) employees to perform work on a temporary basis. The agency bills out for the worker’s time, billing rates that are marked up from the hourly rates paid to the workers. The agencies are, as employers, responsible for withholding taxes and, at least theoretically, responsible for insurance and benefits. Agencies, pursuant to their contractual arrangements with law firms, control working schedules, work location, working conditions, fees, and marketing (in general) to law firms and inhouse legal departments. They can, and often do, cancel scheduled assignments without any cancellation fees to the contract attorneys.

Work for legal employment agencies is on an assignment basis has many barriers to transition from temporary employment via agency to direct employment with the law firm. These barriers often include segregation of contract attorneys from the firm's associates and partners, and substantial payments due to the agency by a law firm wanting to “buy out” the temporary worker's contract. The temporary employee usually has no voice in negotiations over such buyouts, nor do they have any say in working conditions or pay rates.

Why do we at NAFLP care about such distinctions?

NAFLP was designed to assist professionals in the legal industry to gain and maintain the benefits of self-employment, to take control of their careers, and run financially successful businesses. “Contract” or “temporary legal professionals” have little control over their careers and have to sit and wait for their phone to ring with a job assignment. Freelancers are meanwhile out marketing their services, networking, and building successful businesses and never have to simply wait for someone else to hand them a job.

In 2005, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics compiled some interesting data regarding the differences between several types of contingent and alternative employment arrangements. They found that “fewer than 1 in 10 independent contractors said they would prefer a traditional work arrangement.” By contrast, 56 percent of workers employed by temporary help agencies wanted a traditional work arrangement. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Alternative employment arrangements and worker preferences,” originally published August 4, 2005.

Horror stories abound about the poor working conditions and career dead ends awaiting any legal professionals working for legal employment agencies. Blogs such as “Temporary Attorney: The Sweatshop Edition” explicitly solicit “horror stories” and seek “help expos[ing] the nasty sweatshops, swindling law schools, and opportunistic staffing agencies.” My Attorney Blog recently posted an article entitled “Disregard Anything Positive I’ve Ever Said About Contract Attorney Work - I’ve Finally Come To My Senses.” With such “marketing,” who would possible want to work that way?

By contrast, personal experiences of freelance legal professionals consistently reflect job satisfaction, financial success, and increased ability to have work-life balance. I have worked as a freelance attorney off and on for 16 years, sometimes full-time and sometimes in combination with my own solo law practice. I have found freelancing to offer endless opportunities and challenges and look forward to receiving projects from my law firm clients. We at NAFLP want others to enjoy the same positive experiences.

Pedigree vs quality revisited - dogs and lawyer resumes have a lot in common

I recently watched a dog show and found myself intrigued by the pomp and circumstance of the entire process. Dogs combed and brushed and primped within an inch of their lives are trotted out by very serious owners adjusting stance, tail, ears, holding snacks at just the right distance and angle to optimize the dog's profile. A judge feels up the dog from head to toe before dog and owner take a trot around the ring.

The dog looks majestic and beautiful in a very controlled trot. The owner looks a tad silly running in a suit (forgive me, all dog lovers; I have a point to make). This is when I feel very sorry for the dog. When did he last get to run with reckless abandon, chase squirrels, get muddy, be a dog? Did he ever get to? Did he ever get to exercise his dog skills? Can't you see his owner yelling "get out of that mud, Fido, we'll never get that mud out of your fur!"

Lawyers resumes are managed just like show dogs. Go to the most prestigious school (get brushed and primped). Join every possible organization to make yourself look busy and important (have your stance, tails, ears properly adjusted). Have law firms hold high enough "standards" as to who they will interview (holding dog treats almost out of reach). Don't work as a contract or temporary lawyer (don't play in the mud) because, says Gary Sedlik of the Lateral Attorney Report (www.lateralattorneyreport.com) article "To Temp or Not to Temp" (www.lateralattorneyreport.com/2009/02/to-temp-or-not-to-temp/)

The Stigma: The truth is that some firms simply will not consider hiring a lawyer if her resume reflects one or more stints as a contract lawyer. Whether this is fair or not is beside the point. Some firms and lawyers have this bias.

When did putting in an honest day's work create a stigma that would impair your ability to obtain another job? When did working on a temporary or freelance basis disqualify legal professionals for permanent positions?

What does it say about a law firm that ranks "not working" as a superior job qualification to "working"?

Primped show dog or qualified legal professional? Which do you want to be?

The great divide between legal education and practice

Legal education in the country is very expensive. Most students emerging from law school these days are stooping under the weight of a $100K+ student loan burden. They (and their law schools) justify incurring such debt by saying that it will prepare them for a profession that will pay more than enough to cover these loan payments. Reading newspaper stories talking about $300, $500, $900/hr billable rates for lawyers, and seeing starting associate salaries advertised at well over $120K, buttresses that belief.

The fundamental problem, however, is this -- law school does not teach students to be lawyers, it teaches students to think like lawyers. This leaves them completely unprepared to actually practice their profession, making it infinitely harder to guarantee that they can pay those outrageous student loans in any meaningful period of time.

As a law student, one concern looming over our heads was the bar exam we would have to take at the conclusion of our legal education. "Are we being prepared for taking the bar exam?" we would query on more than one occasion. "No," was the answer, "you'll take a bar review course [at additional cost, of course] for that later. Law school teaches you to think like a lawyer." Another concern was the practical nuts and bolts of, say, what paperwork needs to be prepared for filing a lawsuit. The response to our queries? "You'll learn those things when you are working as an associate." The topic of how to run a law firm was probably never breached and there certainly wasn't any formal education on the subject.

In defense of my law school (not Ivy League, but a Tier 1 school), this approach has been the accepted model for law schools. Law schools churn out eager graduates with sharp legal minds, but with relatively no skills that they can convert into a meaningful, enriching career. These finely tuned legal minds are:

1. Recruited for the reputation of their law school and made to work ridiculously long hours to try to generate enough billable hours to cover artificially inflated entry salaries. These are often let go, or burn out, within a few years and a new crop of new associates take their places.
2. Become part of law firm and temp agencies' cash cow of document review, sitting in basements in front of computers with no hope of ever interacting with other lawyers, being paid a small fraction of the billable rate to the client.
3. Opt to work for themselves, working overtime to learn basic business skills while they try to generate enough income to pay their massive student loan bills.

There is a different way to approach legal education. It isn't novel or radical. It is just common sense.

Part of a lawyer's education should be practical, how to do tasks X and Y in the real world. While this part of learning a lawyer's profession used to be part of the mentoring process in law firms, it isn't anymore. A law firm's stature in the legal industry is, unfortunately, gauged by the number of billable hours they can crank out in any given year. Bigger is considered better. Training young lawyers in their profession is not directly billable time, thus dead wood that must be eliminated from the program. Those who decided to practice out on their own right after law school have an even worse situation. They are smart, they can learn, but it is a difficult financial curve to both educate yourself and bill enough hours to make your law firm stay afloat.

Another part of a lawyer's education should be in the business of law - how to run a law firm. I had the distinct pleasure some weeks ago to be invited to speak at one of our local law schools - Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Judi Sanzo, a local solo attorney, teaches a class called "Law Practice Management." I read the class syllabus with amazement. In a semester class, her students are taught about every aspect of starting and running a law firm - finances, marketing, personnel, insurance, everything. They even have mock law firms as part of the course. I daresay that her students emerge from law school with more practical business knowledge than most attorneys who have been practicing law for years.

As this new year starts and you begin working towards your business goals, look around you for sources of mentorship and education so you can bridge the gap between having a finely tuned legal mind and having a successful business as a legal professional. As you learn, share your knowledge and experience by mentoring someone less experienced than you.

What We're Working on for NAFLP in 2009

2008 was an amazing year for the National Association of Freelance Legal Professionals. Thank you to all of our members and sponsors! We are overwhelmed and blessed by the response to the Association since our opening. Our goal has always been to provide a place of support, education and benefits for the freelance legal professional. Therefore, we are working hard to provide more opportunities for education and professional development, networking and specific benefits to our members. Here are a few things we're working on for 2009.

New Fresh Upgraded Website allowing immediate Access to Member Benefits including recorded teleclasses, the NAFLP forum, etc.

Teleseminars:

• How to Market Yourself as a Freelance Legal Professional


• How to Use Economic Downturns as Marketing Opportunities


• Personal Coaching for Legal Freelancers


• Financial Planning for the Self-Employed


• How to Develop Flat-Fee Service Packages for Law Firms

Sponsors and Member Benefits:

• Complete marketing packages for freelancers (website and print materials)


• Discounts to various stores for your office needs


• Retirement Solutions


• Insurance (Health, Auto, Malpractice), and


• Gym memberships

We would love to hear your ideas for member benefits, teleclasses you'd like to hear, or other resources we can provide. Please never hesitate to contact us!

Amanda L. Mineer - amanda@naflp.org
Melody Kramer - melody@naflp.org

A definitive textbook on contract and freelance lawyering

The concept of contract lawyering is foreign to many in the legal profession, but it doesn’t have to be anymore. In the most comprehensive book I have found to date on contract lawyering, "The Complete Guide to Contract Lawyering, What Every Lawyer and Law Firm Needs to Know About Temporary Legal Services" by Deborah Arron and Deborah Guyol, you can get a solid understanding of this segment of the legal industry.

The “Complete Guide” begins with a short history lesson about the structural development of the legal profession in the last century, and how the trends of “the megafirm and the billable hour, advances in technology, and individual lawyers' rejection of the existing law practice model" have lead to the growth of today’s market for contract legal services.

Using real life examples, the book looks at each side of the equation – what contract lawyers should know, and what hiring lawyers should know – and concludes with a section of joint concerns such as ethical issues, labor laws, and malpractice concerns.

For potential contract lawyers, exercises help the reader determine whether contract lawyering is right for them, and then talks about marketing, setting rates, finding work, and staying in business. The pros and cons of staffing agencies are also discussed.

“Contract work is not the right solution for every unhappy lawyer. But it’s not fraught with horrors either. As with most choices in life, real benefits coexist with definite disadvantages.”

Likewise for law firms, the book separates myth from reality, and then walks through the steps necessary to find and appropriately use contract lawyers to augment one’s practice. One of the featured attorneys is Trisha Mathers, a 41-year-old solo practitioner who had been working 15-hour-days and only making a moderate income. By coincidence, she got pitched by a contract attorney just when new motherhood and pneumonia were pushing her to the brink. She liked his work and soon had four contract lawyers working for her on various aspects of her work, allowing her to provide better service to her clients and earning a “very respectable living” while working an average of 30 hours a week.

I had some disagreement with the authors on terminology. Their hallmark criteria for contract work is being of a “temporary” nature, even though the book discusses both working for staffing agencies and working for yourself. For NAFLP, there is a bright-line distinction between “contracting” (working as an employee of a staffing agency) and “freelancing” (working for yourself). Even casual research shows a much higher level of job satisfaction among freelancers vs. temporary/contract workers. Despite the terminology, however, the book does give plenty of examples of lawyers making a permanent career of contract/freelance work.

I consider this book an essential textbook for anyone who wants to learn the basics of contract or freelance lawyering, or wants to enhance their freelance practice.

In fact, I was so impressed with the “Complete Guide” that I contacted the publisher to get a special rate for NAFLP members. Go directly to the publisher’s site - http://www.decisionbooks.com/ - to order this book and identify yourself as an NAFLP member, and you can get the book for $27.00 + free shipping. (NAFLP doesn’t get any money out of this; we just want you to have the opportunity to read this book.)

Upcoming NAFLP Sponsored Event

Brought to you by Legal Research and Writing Pro -

Beyond Hourly Billing:

How to Implement Flat Fee and Other Alternative Billing Arrangements
Tuesday, August 19 at 12:00 p.m. PST

There’s been a lot of buzz recently about abandoning or moving beyond billable hours, but is it possible for freelance lawyers to use alternative billing? What are the most common alternatives to hourly billing? What does "value pricing" mean? In this teleseminar, law practice management expert Allison Shields will explore these questions and more. The program will focus on which alternative billing methods are appropriate for freelance lawyers. You’ll learn how to implement those methods, even if you’re a new lawyer. You’ll learn what value billing is and how to talk about it with the lawyers who hire you. And you’ll learn the special problems encountered by freelance lawyers in using alternative billing arrangements, when it’s possible to overcome them, and how.

Click here to register, add a Silver Membership to your cart. The cost for this program is $97. NAFLP members receive 25% off ALL Legal Research & Writing Pro programs and products (the promotion code will be provided to NAFLP members directly). A recording of the program will be made available to registrants at no additional charge.

"Pedigree" vs. "Quality" - stereotypes continue to plague the legal and corporate world

Ashby Jones at the Wall Street Journal Law Blog has reported about one example of inroads that an innovative law firm has made into well-known large corporations such as Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse Group, Cisco, General Electric, Google, and Xerox. "New Comer Law Firms are Creating Niches with Blue Chip Clients"

“The legal industry isn't known for innovation. But a few upstarts have come up with a business model that challenges the tight grip big law firms hold on corporate business. This new breed of firms is landing blue-chip clients and, in the process, making money.”

The article features Axiom Global, Inc. and discusses how they charge corporate clients less by using more virtual practices, usually having their attorneys work at the client's offices, and use of a flexible staffing model. At least one of the obstacles that they are facing is equally applicable to legal freelancers - perception of quality of attorneys.

“Axiom will have to continue to persuade the change-resistant legal world that its lawyers are good. ‘I was skeptical at first,’ says Xerox's Mr. Liu. ‘I had to get over a fear that they weren't going to be as committed to the job or to the work as a permanent person.’”

Axiom's solution to this obstacle, however, smacks of the same snobbery that has caused big law firms hold on corporate business practice in the first place - "pedigree" over skill.

“Perhaps the biggest obstacle to Axiom's growth plans: a lack of lawyers who fit its bill: pedigreed and law-firm-trained lawyers ready to jump off the traditional track. 'It's our biggest hurdle right now,' says Mr. Harris [a founder of Axiom], who adds that for every 100 lawyers who apply for employment at Axiom, the company hires one."

“[I]t isn't a problem that seems to be causing Mr. Harris sleepless nights. ‘Law firms are likely to continue making lawyers unhappy for years to come,’ he says.”

This may be a shock to the corporate world, but neither "pedigree" nor big law firm experience provides any reliable indicia of quality of legal services. Freelancers, go out and show corporate America how good you are!

Contract or freelance? Choosing your identity is essential to job satisfaction

In 2005, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a job satisfaction rating of freelancers is dramatically higher than that of temporary workers. In February 2005, there were 10.3 million independent contractors. The majority of independent contractors (82 percent) preferred their work arrangement to a traditional job. In dramatic contrast, on-call workers and temporary help agency workers had only 46 and 32 percent, respectively, preferring their work arrangements. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Alternative employment arrangements and worker preferences,” originally published August 4, 2005.

The term “contract attorney” has often been used to identify any lawyer who works on a non-employee-for-the-law-firm basis. There are a large number of staffing agencies that serve as the “employer” and provide lawyers for law firms to use on a temporary basis. The same happens with paralegals, legal assistants and secretaries, interpreters and court reporters, though the appellation of “contract” is not usually applied to these other professionals.

Working for a staffing agency, however, is not the same as working as a freelancer, and confusion of the terms undermines the perception of legal freelancing as a whole.

Contract attorneys are treated as second-class citizens both in terms of law firm atmosphere, mentoring opportunities, and the perception of their resume for future jobs. The perception is that these attorneys were unable to get their first job option (assumed to be an associate position at a prestigious large law firm) and that working contract was their second choice. It is a perception of inadequacy and failure right out of the starting gate, hardly a selling point for ones competency as a legal professional.

Unfortunately, this perception is not far off of reality in most instances. Contract attorneys often work the same long hours as young associates, work on repetitious and boring work, their brains on not challenged with new problem-solving opportunities, are often denied overtime pay (because they are lawyers), have neither stability of income (projects come and go and are often cancelled on short notice), benefits, nor the promise of eventual partnership. Not only that, but many contract attorneys continue to seek a “regular” job with the same prestigious law firms that they were unable to get into initially.

The key difference between contract attorney (or paralegal, etc.) and a freelancer by definition is the identity of employer. A staffing agency simply does not have the incentive to provide a contract legal professional with any benefit other than sufficient pay to get them to come to work every day that they want them to come to work. A freelancer does not wait for a phone call and then jumps when asked to work here or there on some boring project or another that will simply pay the bills. Freelancers are employed by the only people that has the freelancer’s best interests at heart – themselves.

Why Even Temporary Contract Lawyers Should Bother Joining an Organization

A consistent thread keeps surfacing in discussions on and off of this blog - why should contract lawyers bother joining an organization when they hope they won’t be doing contract work for long?

The answer is simple. Most lawyers will be contract lawyers at some point in their career. The reasons will vary. Fresh out of law school, doing contract work may be a means of paying the bills until passing the bar or while interviewing for other jobs. At other points in time, the reasons may be the desire to have a healthy work-life balance, to care for your children, or care for your aging parents. Others simply like the flexibility and control over one’s own career.

Additionally, an increasing number of law firms and corporate legal departments will be looking to contract attorneys to assist or handle special projects. Most lawyers will thus also be using contract lawyers to handle projects for them. Having an intimate knowledge about this sometimes untapped pool of contract attorney attorney talent can increase the bottom line for the law firms and their clients.

Another important reason is networking, networking, networking. Contract lawyer contacts are often the source of job referrals or information about more challenging contract work. Many lawyers currently working non-freelance jobs have reported to us that they take every opportunity to hire contact lawyers when they need additional work done.

Joining NAFLP will engage contract attorneys and other freelance legal professionals in a productive, proactive community that is coming together for mutual education and assistance about the legal outsourcing segment of the legal industry. Whether you intend to work contract forever or only until another opportunity presents itself, NAFLP will provide you with useful career tools and a supportive network.

Participate in a Salary Survey for Contract Attorneys

NAFLP has been invited to participate in collecting data for a survey by The Posse List (http://www.theposselist.com/). The purpose of the survey is to provide contract attorneys with real information on what starting salaries are for those who move into full-time positions after doing contract work.

For consistency purposes, please provide the following information:

1. Position/Job Title
2. Type of organization (e.g. law firm, non-profit, defense contractor, lobbying group)
3. Compensation - salary plus any bonus/commission
4. Location
5. # of years doing contract work
6. Years of legal experience you had before transitioning into this position (do not include contract work).

This information can be emailed to melody@naflp.org for compilation and forwarding, or directly to Kamal_A_Kamara@yahoo.com of The Posse List. If you want to provide information about others you know who made successful transitions, this is okay; so long as it is first-hand knowledge and not the "a friend of a friend" type information, but identify the information as such.

We will be posting the results when the survey has been completed.

Lemons, Lottery Tickets, and Unintentional Contract Attorneys

I have been reading with interest the complaints of contract attorneys nationwide. Washington DC and New York seem to be cities full of unhappy J.D.s in temporary attorney sweatshops grousing about this not being anyone’s dream job, being “hell on earth,” and surreptitiously looking for other jobs during lunch. (see “Attorney at Blah,” http://washingtoncitypaper.com/printerpage.php?id=34054). Of course there is also blogger Tom the Temp and his annual “Beastly Behavior Awards” and quest to “help expose the nasty sweatshops, swindling law schools, and opportunistic staffing agencies.” (see http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com/ ).

Okay, life for the attorney that invested $150,000 of borrowed money into a law school education, betting on getting a six-figure salary upon graduation, is unhappy when he or she doesn’t get the expected payoff. They bought an expensive lottery ticket and it didn’t pay off. So they sink into a deep depression, don’t know how to explain their “failure” to friends and family (much less their student loan creditors), and take any work they can get, even mindless document review through temp agencies.

Some still hold on to their lottery tickets, sending out resumes and frantically job searching while they waste away in law firm basements with dusty documents, hoping against hope that some law firm will rescue them from their fate, and that the weeks, months, or years of contract lawyering won’t be held against them.

Other contract attorneys try to be more optimistic. “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” is their creed and they try to see the light at the end of the tunnel (“I won’t be doing this forever”) or try to enjoy the flexibility, even though flexibility with a temp agency means you never know from day to day whether you will have work.

COME ON PEOPLE! You are bright, educated, driven individuals. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have made it through undergrad, certainly would have failed law school, never passed the bar exam, and would not have the privilege of paying annual bar dues. You can do better than allowing yourself to be treated by employers in a manner that is unacceptable. You have a voice – use it! You have feet – start walking!

You are in charge of your career future and no one has your interests at heart better than you do. Not a law firm (large or small) and not a temp agency.

Here is the thought question for the day – if you could structure your work week anyway you wanted (if it was not dictated to you by an employer), what types of work would you want to do and what compensation and benefits structure would you want? If you don’t know precisely what you want, you can never get it.

Next, we’ll discuss taking your goals for your legal career and talk about the necessary steps to making it a reality.

"Almost Impossible" Means It Is Possible for Contract Lawyers to Organize

I read with interest a February 5, 2008 post by Joe Miller of http://jdwired.com/ entitled “5 Reasons Why Forming a Contract Attorney Union Is Almost Impossible.” I’m so glad he said “almost.” He is optimistic that something can be done, and I want to respond to his legitimate points.

1. Time Consuming. It is true that a large amount of energy is required to start a new organization, developing plans of action, mailing lists, etc. The National Association of Freelance Legal Professionals is the result of years of planning and preparation, and much remains to be done. However, Amanda and I are keenly aware of the need and desire for such an organization and are committed to its success.

2. Weak Economy. Plenty of lawyers and paralegals are doing contract work without a union. They don’t need a “labor union” in the traditional sense, but rather need assistance in taking control of their own career and learning how to be financially successful and independent. No more need to be held captive by BigLaw or a temp agency. As a freelancer, you work for yourself, govern your own hours and working conditions, and determine your own pay.

3. Contract Lawyers are too Decentralized. That is a true statement now, but won’t be for long. NAFLP is designed to bring in freelancers from all over the country to share their experience and expertise with each other. Contract lawyers and paralegals need a central support system that is not bound to any particular project.

Freelancers are about to have another source of centralization too – FreelanceLaw, Inc. FreelanceLaw, a sponsoring organization of NAFLP, is beginning beta-testing of a web-based legal outsourcing network that is specially designed and tailored to the legal profession. Law firms will be able to locate and retain qualified freelancers online, and payments will be processed through FreelanceLaw so that freelancers can receive direct deposit paychecks bi-monthly for their work. Freelancers determine what work they want to do and determine their own pay rate. Queries from potential beta-testers can be directed to freelancelaw@gmail.com.

4. Most Contract Lawyers Don’t Plan to Be Doing It for Long. Contract lawyers don’t plan to be contracting for long primarily because (a) they or their peers view contracting as being a lesser lawyer; or (b) the experience is not rewarding. Neither NAFLP nor FreelanceLaw preclude members from exploring their options. They are not bound to be contract lawyers forever, however, we can provide significant expertise, insight, and information to assist along the way.

5. Who’s the Employer? This question demonstrates why a traditional union for contract attorneys would not work. The very nature of freelancing is that the freelancer is their own boss. Let us dispense with the myth that lawyers or paralegals must have an “employer.” They don’t. During my first year of law school our career placement head made a statement that I will never forget – “when you are a lawyer, you don’t need a job, you only need a client.” Truer words were never spoken. Whether that “client” is another lawyer or the actual client, you do not need to receive W-2s from a law firm to have a successful legal career.

Mr. Miller is 100% correct. A traditional union structure is not the way to organize contract attorneys. However, a voluntary association created to assist, inform, and educate freelancers and law firms alike, is a workable model.