Neil, here. When I was a teenager growing up in NYC, I frequented a place called the Table Tennis Center on 96th Street off Broadway. You didn’t wander in accidentally. You went because you knew. Street level, thick with smoke, always noisy, it featured a bunch of beaten-up tables, metal chairs and a mix of old-school hustlers playing for cash, petty criminals, competition-level players, kids like me, and the curious who almost always left having lost whatever money they had on them.
The place was owned/run by Marty Reisman, a trash-talking, expert player and hustler. But he had a soft spot for the kids. He gave us ping-pong lessons and enjoyed showing off for us playing what he referred to as “pigeons” for money, often with an extreme handicap like using a sneaker or just his elbow as a paddle.
Every so often, before there was a lot of action in the place, he’d speak with us about things other than ping-pong or money. I remember distinctly one conversation where Marty asked me what I wanted to do for a living. I said “lawyer.” He looked at me and smiled: “Now, why would a smart kid like you want to do that?” It turned out he was right.
It came to mind when, to my absolute shock, I read about a movie being made based loosely on his life starring the most bankable young movie star in the world, Timothy Chalamet. I would have sooner believed Martians were landing on earth. The movie is in theatres.
One of the things we monitor closely at Ex Judicata is trending nonlegal jobs for JDs. One that keeps crossing our screens is “Practice Group Director” or “Practice Manager.” Essentially, this is someone who assists the Practice Group Leader (PGL) in running the particular practice (litigation, capital markets, IP, etc.) at a law firm like a business unit so the PGL who is a partner can focus on client development and legal work. We have found that the role is often misunderstood.
“They’re administrative staff.” They are not.
“They tell lawyers what to do.” They do not.
“They are lawyers by training.” They do not have to be.
“It’s a cost center.” Enlightened firms view it as helping drive revenue.
For clarification, we turned to Susan Lambreth, a Co-Founding Principal at LawVision, a top legal project management, practice group management, and law firm leadership consulting firm. An attorney by background, Susan told us:
These roles are like “mini” COOs of the practice group or department. The roles have been around for 30 years and there are well over 500 people with these roles in US law firms. The responsibilities vary widely from firm to firm but can include the day-to-day operations of the group, financial management, talent management (like workload assignment), group business planning, lateral onboarding, partner progression recommendations, and more.
The department chairs and practice group leaders need business professionals who are full-time helping them so they, as the partner leaders, can maintain their busy legal practice. Much like Office Managing Partners have an office administrator and other roles supporting them, when law firms evolved from geographic management of the firm to “business unit” driven management, they needed to add professionals to help the department chairs and/or practice group leaders manage their groups.
Practice Group Professionals belongs to the category “law adjacent” jobs. Essentially positions where one maintains some connection to law without practicing law. Many former practicing lawyers love these jobs because they are deeply involved in a firm’s practices – but helping to run the business of the group and without the pressure of billable hours or making partner. These roles are also sometimes known by the more antiquated phrase, “JD Advantage” jobs. Compliance and legal recruiting are probably the two most common “law adjacent” paths.
For many, there is comfort in retaining a connection to law having spent three years of one’s life in law school. We understand. But counsel, do not be held back by the belief that if you leave law your career still has to have, at least, a tangential connection to law. It does not. Follow your passion. And always remember that your JD is a degree in complex problem-solving, a skill which is valued by pretty much every career in the universe.
Ex Judicata was in Paris over the holidays. We had the opportunity to sit down over dinner with an assortment of law firm partners, associates, and one COO of an Am Law 20 firm. The place was L’Arret, which had recently opened. The chef is Mashama Bailey, who has had one other restaurant, The Grey, in Savannah, Georgia, for 15 years. Not a common nexus from Savannah to Paris, which we thought was kind of cool.
The main takeaways? Lawyers in France are no different than lawyers in the US in the sense of so many being interested in exploring nonlegal careers. The world of work has never been more transparent in human history with sites like exjudicata.com helping to show the breadth of opportunities for non-practicing lawyers.
The difference? Désespoir or desperation. There wasn’t the same sense of panic or hitting the wall or feeling trapped that we have encountered so often among practicing lawyers on exjudicata.com. A lot of it we would chalk up to lifestyle. The pace is a lot slower in Paris than in, say, New York City. Even if one is working on global deals.
We’d love to know what you think.
The authors of The Great Escape column, Neil Handwerker and Kimberly Fine, are the founders of exjudicata.com, a platform designed to help lawyers move to nonlegal careers. They just launched a new related platform, the EXJ Community, the first ever peer-to-peer network of non-practicing lawyers.
The post Advice From ‘Marty Supreme,’ Getting A Handle On A Fast-Growing Nonlegal Career Path, And Paris Checking In appeared first on Above the Law.