Starting A Firm May Be the Only Escape from Biglaw Culture

Tony DiRomualdo has this interesting article, Why Corporate Culture Counts, at the Wisconsin Technology Network. (7/7/05) that discusses the relationship between corporate culture and values.  He identifies examples of companies like Southwest, where positive corporate culture boosts employee morale, giving the company a leg up on competition.  But on the other side of the scale, he uses the large law firm as an example of a corporate culture which lacks the ability to tolerate accomodation of family life.

Di Romualdo relies on this 2004 Study
by Laura Rikleen, head of a Boston Bar Association Task Force, that
describes how law firm culture subverts any hope of work family
balance:

[Rikleen’s] task force points a finger directly at the profession’s emphasis on
`total commitment’ as a basis to enter the partner ranks as the key
debilitating factor affecting the work environment, attraction and
retention of talent and work-family balance within the industry. It
found that the profession’s concept of total commitment translates to
pushing all non-work obligations aside on a regular basis as a symbol
of one’s commitment.

The task force believes that the current system not only makes
work-life balance unachievable, but will in the long run hurt law firms
because it alienates large numbers of employees and potential employees
while requiring unsustainable levels of growth in billable hours. They
describe the situation bluntly, “We are in danger of seeing law firms
evolve into institutions where only those who have no family
responsibilities — or, worse, who are willing to abandon those
responsibilities– can thrive. This is not an exaggerated perspective;
it is a description of where many think we are heading and where others
think we have already arrived.

Not surprisingly, the task force notes one example of an alternative to
the law firm death spiral:  a part-time law firm created by a former
large firm partner.  (See Report at 15). What this means, fellow
shinglers, is that we have our work cut out for us:  we hold the future
of the legal profession as well as those lawyers who don’t want to
sacrifice all for a career in our hands. Let’s lead by example.