In his blog post, "Why a career in computer programming sucks," Rohan Kanade makes a number of assertions about project management and the practice of law. These are set in the context of an opinion piece that advises young Americans to avoid pursuing computer programming as a career. I'm not going to discuss his main argument about computer programming as a career. Instead, I want to explore a number of supporting claims he makes, which touch upon both legal practice and project management. These raise a number of interesting points, but also contain some misconceptions that I hope to correct.
I'll address the following assertions made in Rohan's post:
- A lawyer's knowledge capital generally retains its (or even increases in) value.
- Law is prestigious.
- Lawyers get paid a lot.
- You can't outsource legal work
- Project Management is a pseudo-science that lawyers are immune from because only lawyers can manage lawyers.
1. A lawyer's knowledge capital generally retains its (or even increases in) value
Rohan contrasts computer programming, where skills and knowledge have a short shelf life, which erodes the value of experience, with the practice of law, writing:
Lawyers are still citing Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England which was completed in 1769. Now there's an example of a profession where knowledge capital deteriorates at a very slow rate.
This is mostly true in my experience. A lawyer with nearly three decades of experience once told me that a nice thing about being a lawyer is that it is one career where gray hair is an advantage. I find this to be mostly true. Younger lawyers have to work harder to gain respect and older lawyers tend to have it upon first impression, unless preceded by a poor reputation.
It is true that many firms have mandatory retirement ages and that it is harder for new lawyers of advanced age to get jobs (as opposed to older, experience lawyers making lateral moves). But this is changing and there is strong support from the ABA and other industry groups to ensure that able attorneys can continue to contribute to the profession, whatever their age.
In some aspects, however, the practice of law is experiencing radical change. The growing importance of electronic discovery is requiring that lawyers become much more familiar with technology than ever before. The law related to e-discovery is changing at lightening speed in comparison with other aspects of law practice. Technology is also putting pressure on traditional organizational models and threatening much legal work with commoditization.
Still, an attorney with 30-years experience litigating complex civil matters and a proven track record of success has a great competitive advantage that only grows with experience and is not easily eroded by the lawyer's age (barring any physical or mental infirmity). Such an attorney can outsource e-discovery and practice management to (perhaps youthful) experts in these areas with little risk to his core knowledge capital.
2. Law is prestigious
Rohan writes:
Computer programming is a low prestige profession. This is evidenced by the fact that people from affluent families rarely go into computer programming but instead will seek out the more prestigious professions such as law, finance, and medicine.
This is partly true. People from affluent families that go into law tend to do so because law for them (with their pedigree, ability to afford elite schools, and connections) can support an affluent lifestyle (but see #3 below, MOST lawyers are NOT rich). It is also a good base for building a political career.
Yet law is also one of the most reviled professions you can go into. It is one of the few areas where people will dislike you simply because of your chosen career path. It is the only job I can think of that people feel okay openly making jokes about to the faces of those holding the job joked about. Try teasing someone for being a computer programmer at the next party and see how well that goes over.
Whenever I hear about the prestige of being a lawyer, I think of John Foreman's article My Life as an Associate:
The jokes about lawyers take their toll. And the fact that nobody was ever impressed when I dropped the name of my employer at cocktail parties--those few I attended--didn't help. It seemed that only law students and their parents thought it was a big deal to work in a Wall Street megafirm. Anybody who had had the slightest contact with corporate law, from investment bankers to secretaries to dancers-cum-proofreaders, just felt sorry for us.
John Foreman, My Life as an Associate, City Journal (Winter 1997), available at http://www.city-journal.org/html/7_1_a2.html
Personally, I think prestige is a poor reason to select a career. The admiration of others is a pretty shallow pool from which to fill your life with meaning.
3. Lawyers get paid a lot
Well, some lawyers get paid a lot. The fact is that the salary of most lawyers in the United States will never be as high as that of first-year associate's salary at a top firm. Average starting salaries at small firms is 46,000 to 70,000 and mid-size firms are 53,750 to 78,750. Many of these lawyers have six-figure school loan debts. And, in this job market, experienced associates at top firms are being axed and they, much less new law graduates, are having trouble getting any job. Amir Efrati, Hard Case: Job Market Wanes for U.S. Lawyers, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 24, 2007 at A1, available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119040786780835602-search.html.
Law can be a rewarding career if you know what you are getting into. For some it pays well, but for most lawyers it is not particularly lucrative.
4. You can't outsource legal work
Rohan writes:
You don't see lawyers being outsourced. In fact, by law, only members of the bar are allowed to practice law, so it would be illegal for foreigners to do American legal work.Not true. Lawyers can delegate tasks to non-lawyers and, increasingly, are delegating much legal work to foreign lawyers. This is a fairly new trend and only a small percentage of law firms are sending work overseas, but the trend projected to continue. Not only is this permissible, but the American Bar Association has stated in a formal ethics opinion that "[t]he outsourcing trend is a salutary one for our globalization economy." ABA Comm. On Ethics and Prof'l Responsiblity, Formal Op. 08-451 (August 5, 2008), available at http://www.aapipara.org/File/ABA/ABA%20Outsourcing%20Opinion.pdf. All state and local bar associations that have issued formal opinions on off shoring legal work have basically made the same point as the ABA: "A lawyer may outsource legal or nonlegal support services provided the lawyer remains ultimately responsible for rendering competent legal services to the client." Id.
Moreover, with some states allowing foreign lawyers to sit for their bar exams by obtaining an LLM from a US law school, which is generally only a one-year program, it is not hard to imagine lawyers from common law countries with large numbers of English speakers, such as India, the Philippines, South Africa, Nigeria, etc., becoming licensed to practice in New York or California--but working from overseas.
5. Project Management is a pseudo-science that lawyers are immune from because only lawyers can manage lawyers
Rohan's argues that formal project management, at least as applied to software development, is:
more of a pseudo-science than a real profession, because despite the increasing use of formal project management methods approved by the Project Management Institute (yes they have their own institute), there is no evidence that software is getting better or that fewer software projects fail today than did ten years ago when formal project management was in its infancy.
He goes on to bemoan the fact that many experienced computer programmers are not considered qualified for project management positions because:
[the] trend is that project management is branching off into its own discipline with its own educational requirements and certification process. Thus the experienced computer programmer will usually find that employers aren't interested in having an ex-computer programmer 'manage' a project, but rather they seek someone with PMI certification and years of experience in project management.
This trend, in which people without computer programming experience manage computer programming projects, is a result of the low prestige of computer programming. People with high prestige jobs, like surgeons, would never allow themselves to be managed by non-surgeons. In a complicated medical procedure there will be a head surgeon overseeing the surgery, and not a project manager without any medical training. Lawyers have Model Rule 5.4 which makes it unethical for non-lawyers to manage lawyers.
I will also say, however, that many of the claimed benefits of formal project management are anecdotal. There just isn't a lot of research on this and most organizations do not attempt to calculate ROI on project management. Id. In the study discussed by Ms. Thomas, intangible benefits were reported more than tangible benefits with only 47% of organizations reporting tangible benefits. Moreover, "there does not appear to be any correlation between a firm's project management experience and the level of tangible benefits they were able to realize," although "intangible benefits do appear to be positively corrrelated with increases in project management maturity." Id.
As for Rohan's complaint about project managers overseeing projects in areas they are not themselves experienced with, I can understand his point, but feel it is overstated. Being an experienced programmer, engineer, lawyer, what have you, does not mean you'll be a good project manager in those areas. Also, I don't think you have to be a programmer to manage a software development project. I strongly believe, however, that having both substantive experience in the product or service being delivered and having formal project management experience and training would make you a better project manager. An experienced programmer or, for that matter, an experienced lawyer can benefit from obtaining a project management certification.
As for lawyers not being allowed to let non-lawyers manage them, this is not true and Rohan misreads Model Rule 5.4. The purpose of this rule is to prevent non-lawyers from regulating or directing the lawyers professional judgement. For example, if you pay a lawyer to do work on behalf of someone else, you can't direct the lawyer's work (you are not the lawyer's client, even though you paid for the services). Model Rules of Prof'l Conduct R. 5.4(c)[hereinafter "MRPC"]. To help protect the lawyer's independent professional judgement and better ensure that the lawyer keeps the client's interest above financial interests, the ABA and nearly all states take a paternalistic approach, prohibiting lawyers from entering into partnerships with non-lawyers "if any of the activities of the partnership consist of the practice of law," MRPC 5.4(b), and prohibiting non-lawyers from invest in law practices, holding top management positions in law practices, or otherwise directing or controling the professional judgement of lawyers. MRPC 5.4(d). The ABA Model Rule also prohibits fee sharing with a nonlawyer, with some exceptions. MRPC 5.4(a).
U.S. law firms do, however, hire professional project managers. Lawyers can obtain project management certifications, but because it is rare for lawyers to have project management experience and training, law firms often hire experienced project managers from other industries to come in and develop project management systems (e.g. Linda Klausing at Morris, Manning & Martin). While it is true that all lawyers in a firm must retain their professional independence (and this remains true even if supervised by other lawyers, see MRPC 4.2), there is nothing improper about hiring a professional project manager to work with the firm's lawyers and support staff to improve the efficiency, quality, and documentation of legal work.
This post was longer than usual, but it is not often that I find an article or blog post that discusses law and project management in the same piece. I hope some find my response informative.
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