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The Leadership Imperative: a Collaborative Approach to Professional Development in the Global Age of More for Less

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The Leadership Imperative: a Collaborative Approach to Professional Development in the Global Age of More for Less Stanford Law Review Volume 69 June 2017 ARTICLE The Leadership Imperative: A Collaborative Approach to Professional Development in the Global Age of More for Less Scott A. Westfahl & David B. Wilkins* Abstract. Notwithstanding the increasing importance of technology, the practice of corporate law is—and is likely to remain for the foreseeable future—a human capital business. As a result, law firms must continue to attract, develop, and retain talented lawyers. Unfortunately, the traditional approach, which divides responsibility for professional development among law schools, which are supposed to teach students to think like a lawyer; law firms, which are expected to train associates to “be” lawyers; and corporate clients, whose job it is to foot the bill, is no longer well aligned to the current realities of the marketplace. In this Article, we document the causes for this misalignment and propose a new model of professional development in which law schools, law firms, and corporate clients collaborate to train lawyers to be lifelong learners in the full range of technical, professional, and network-building skills they will need to flourish throughout their careers. We offer specific proposals for how to achieve this realignment and confront the resistance that will inevitably greet any attempt to do so. * Scott A. Westfahl is a Professor of Practice and the Faculty Director of Executive Education at Harvard Law School. David B. Wilkins is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law, Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession, and Faculty Director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. The Authors wish to thank Lisa Gluckstein and Marissa Marandola for their terrific research and editorial work on prior drafts of this Article. 1667 The Leadership Imperative 69 STAN. L. REV. 1667 (2017) Table of Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 1669 I. The Alignment of the Traditional Model ................................................................................. 1674 II. The Misalignment of the Current System ................................................................................ 1681 III. Resistances—and How to Overcome Them (or Not Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater) ............................................................................................................................... 1689 A. If It Ain’t Broke . ........................................................................................................................ 1690 B. Meeting Resistance with Opportunity ............................................................................. 1696 IV. Toward a New Model of Professional Development .......................................................... 1702 A. Law School Realignment: From Teaching Students to Think Like (Common Law) Lawyers to Developing the Leaders of Tomorrow ............... 1705 1. Leadership and professional skills ............................................................................ 1707 2. Enhancing student networks. ...................................................................................... 1713 B. From Education to Work—Without Losing the Focus on Lifelong Learning ............................................................................................................................................. 1716 1. Increasing investment in talent development.................................................... 1716 2. Putting lawyer development on par with serving clients. .......................... 1718 3. Improving the development of technical legal skills and knowledge............................................................................................................................... 1721 4. Building leaders ................................................................................................................... 1722 5. Building related professional skills. .......................................................................... 1725 6. Understanding and building networks .................................................................. 1727 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................. 1727 1668 The Leadership Imperative 69 STAN. L. REV. 1667 (2017) Introduction Since 2008, there has been a fierce debate over the future of large law firms and the market for corporate legal services generally. Did the global financial crisis usher in a new paradigm in which sophisticated in-house legal departments armed with big data and artificial intelligence will fundamentally destabilize—and eventually destroy—the traditional model of the large law firm?1 Or will 2008 end up looking more like prior recessions in 2001 and 1991, which, though certainly painful, did not fundamentally alter the basic structure and functioning of the corporate legal services market?2 One can tell a similarly Janus-faced story about legal education. Notwith- standing a slew of reports about “failing law schools” caught in a vise grip of falling applications and diminished employment prospects for their graduates,3 only a handful of law schools have actually closed their doors since 2008.4 More 1. See RICHARD SUSSKIND, THE END OF LAWYERS?: RETHINKING THE NATURE OF LEGAL SERVICES 2 (2010) (arguing that because of technology “the jobs of many traditional lawyers will be substantially eroded and often eliminated”); see also RICHARD SUSSKIND, TOMORROW’S LAWYERS: AN INTRODUCTION TO YOUR FUTURE 3 (2013); William D. Henderson, From Big Law to Lean Law, 38 INT’L REV. L. & ECON. 5, 5-6 (Supp. 2014); Larry E. Ribstein, The Death of Big Law, 2010 WIS. L. REV. 749, 751-52. 2. See, e.g., Chris Johnson, Global Law Firms Face a World of Questions in 2017, AM. LAW. (Jan. 4, 2017), http://www.americanlawyer.com/id=1202776052073/Global-Law-Firms -Face-a-World-of-Questions-in-2017 (reporting based on conversations with a group of partners from top firms that “[t]he 2008 recession once again highlighted the resilience of the legal industry, and there’s an unspoken truth that change, even disruptive change, is generally good news for lawyers”); see also BENJAMIN H. BARTON, GLASS HALF FULL: THE DECLINE AND REBIRTH OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 9-10 (2015) (“[T]he lawyers who survive will be the lawyers who can demonstrate the value of their insight and services.”). 3. For the canonical text on this point, see BRIAN Z. TAMANAHA, FAILING LAW SCHOOLS, at x-xiii (2012). But there are many others. See, e.g., John O. McGinnis & Russell D. Mangas, First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the Law Schools, WALL ST. J. (Jan. 17, 2012), https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204632204577128443306853890 (arguing that state bar associations should work with undergraduate colleges to offer law majors that “entitle graduates to take the bar exam,” thus reducing the need for expensive law schools, increasing the supply of lawyers, and lowering legal fees); Martha Neil, 12 More Law Schools Sued over Reporting of Law Grad Employment and Salary Stats, A.B.A. J. (Feb. 1, 2012, 10:39 PM CST), http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/ 12_more_law_schools_sued_in_consumer-fraud_class_action_re_reported_law (reporting on lawsuits alleging that law schools had falsely advertised postgraduation employment prospects). 4. See Elizabeth Olson, Whittier Law School Says It Will Shut Down, N.Y. TIMES: DEALBOOK (Apr. 19, 2017), https://nyti.ms/2pEeNm5 (listing a handful of law school closures since the recession and reporting that Whittier Law School will be the first fully accredited school to close); see also Peter Nemerovski, Reality Check: Law School Closures Are Unlikely, DAILY CALLER (Dec. 8, 2014, 3:51 PM), http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/08/ reality-check-law-school-closures-are-unlikely (reporting that, as of December 2014, footnote continued on next page 1669 The Leadership Imperative 69 STAN. L. REV. 1667 (2017) importantly, notwithstanding the downturn in applications, few law schools have undertaken major changes to their curricula—and fewer still to their teaching methods—instead preferring to reduce enrollment while tinkering around the edges of what and how they teach.5 Christopher Columbus Langdell’s model of legal education, with its emphasis on teaching students to “think like a lawyer”6 through Socratic dialogue about appellate cases elaborating common law doctrine, is alive and well in the modern law school.7 In this Article, we do not seek to resolve these competing visions of the profession’s future. Instead, we explore the implications of these cross-currents of stability and change for a key element that will affect the future of both law firms and law schools however these competing forces are resolved: namely, the training and development of new lawyers. Notwithstanding the growing importance of technology, the practice of law is—and is likely to remain for the foreseeable future—a human capital business. As a result, law firms must find ways to recruit and retain talent and to train and deploy that talent in ways that provide value to their increasingly sophisticated corporate clients. And while rules that currently limit the ability of “nonlawyers”8 to share in the no law schools had closed since the 1980s and predicting that “fewer than five ABA- accredited law schools will close by 2020,
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