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1 Art, It was such a pleasure speaking with you over the phone. Thank you for accepting the legal community's input regarding how to assess and improve legal education for the here and now. Thanks, too, to the ABA Task Force, open to hearing the legal community's input. What thoughts I offer, below, I will assure you, will be constructive and positive with a "going forward" attitude. I hope you will see from my ideas, below, that I am absolutely passionate about this subject. I feel it is my obligation to help new attorneys, as a senior attorney who had it easy. By way of background, I have been licensed to practice law for the past 26 years. I started as a commercial litigator in Chicago at McDermott, Will and Emery, years later headed up a legal clinic for people with disabilities, and subsequently served as an arbitrator and a mediator here in Chicago. I founded Legal Launch LLC in 2010 to provide: (1) career counseling for attorneys and law students, and (2) recruiting and outplacement services for law firms and corporations. I frequently speak about job searching for lawyers at area law schools, the CBA Career Assist Committee meetings, and Make It Better Magazine Re: Work Conferences. I also speak about recruiting issues, I write a monthly column in The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, and I regularly write for its blog, Around the Water Cooler and the blog of Ms. JD. ************************************************************************ ************************************************************* I offer these thoughts as a person who works in the trenches, on both sides of the hiring desk, if you will. The Law School-to-Practice Model the Legal Profession Has Utilized Over the Years No Longer Works in Our Post-2008 World The problems I address in this involve both law schools and the wider legal community as a whole: 1. The downturn in both the hiring and training of new attorneys since 2008 in firms and companies of all sizes; 2. When there is hiring, legal employers seek only lateral candidates with experience (no time or money to train); and 3. The difficulty new attorneys have to acquire the training they need to compete for available, lateral positions. See also What New Attorneys Can Do to Help Themselves, by Nancy Mackevich Glazer, published in The CBA Record, January 2012 edition. New-Attorneys-Can-Do.html

2 Some Ideas, Some Solutions - Creative Ways for New Attorneys to Join the Competition for Available Legal Positions* 1. Initiate more incubator clinics sponsored by law schools and/or bar associations (the South Carolina model discussed in the CBA Record article, noted above). Chicago IIT Kent School of Law and the Chicago Bar Foundation have both just availed their plans to implement incubator clinics. Not only will these clinics help new attorneys receive the training they need, but also legal services will become more accessible to the community as a whole. Here's a real win-win Expand the Illinois Commission on Professionalism's Lawyer to Lawyer Mentoring Program. This extraordinary program currently and primarily provides mentoring to new lawyers about professional/ethical issues. I suggest adding more mentoring in substantive practice areas of law. (The Commission was born out of a recognition by Illinois Supreme Court Justices that lawyers were not acting in a civil manner. I am suggesting that Justice Thomas' recognition of a profession-wide problem should be taken one step further-- viewing today's legal job market and providing a means of training our new attorneys. 3. Engage the Practicing Law Institute (PLI) -- or other similar organizations that provide attorney training in substantive practice areas -- to help train new attorneys in a more expansive, far-reaching way. 4. Pay for the programs suggested in Paragraphs 1-3, above by creating a fee, a line item on the ARDC dues invoice that is sent to attorneys each year. Like the Lawyers' Assistance Program, created after recognizing a need in the legal community (finding a way the profession could provide counseling for attorneys), these funds will be earmarked for training. When lawyers pay their bar dues, they will also be required to contribute to incubator clinics, the Commission on Professionalism and/or PLI (or others) for new lawyer training. 5. Encourage "The Back Credenza Concept" within the legal community. I refer to the "back credenza" idea, as another way senior attorneys can help mentor and train new attorneys. This kind of training could arise when senior attorneys have access to new attorneys who want to learn, receive training, and provide free legal services (25-30 hours maximum) in a specific practice area of a new attorney's interest. For example, if Recent Graduate is interested in ERISA or Mergers and Acquisitions work, and she cannot easily gain experience in these practice areas at a legal non-profit, a Senior Attorney in private practice (at least 6 years out) can serve as her mentor. Senior Attorney likely has projects that he simply can't get to, can't bill, or anticipates that the issues involved are not supported in law. In cases like this, where a Senior Attorney would welcome assistance and an opportunity to mentor, he could ask Recent Graduate to help him with research, etc. so long as: Senior Attorney provides guidance;

3 Senior Attorney accepts overall responsibility for the matter and blesses Recent Graduate's legal work; Senior Attorney covers Recent Graduate with any malpractice coverage; Senior Attorney does not bill his client for Recent Graduate's work; Senior Attorney does not take advantage of Recent Graduate and agrees to limit Recent Graduate's work to hours; Recent Graduate has open access to Senior Attorney for questions, thoughts and guidance; Recent Graduate is given specific direction and understands completely her tasks and accepts responsibility for completing work expected of her; and Recent Graduate will receive a letter from Senior Attorney (1) indicating what work Recent Graduate performed, and (2) rating the quality of work performed for purposes of providing a recommendation for Recent Graduate. If applied with good intentions, this mentoring model has the potential to be a very effective training tool. 6. Consider Apprenticeship Programs - For firms/corporate law departments that no longer host Summer Associate Programs or that no longer hire attorneys directly out of law school. It's a win-win on many levels. Here's the idea: A handful of firms here in Chicago have started apprenticeship programs for new attorneys (a firm could have one apprentice). It's a set up where a new attorney would be required to bill clients for some of her time (60-70% is the common percentage). The remainder of her time would be non-billable -- doing pro bono, co-authoring legal articles, and/or attending client meetings, court proceedings or closings. The selected apprentice(s) would be paid a "partial salary" for the apprentice year. At the close of the year, the firm would decide whether to make an offer of full time employment. However controversial some may find this arrangement, as one in the trenches, I feel strongly that it is a win-win for everyone involved. The firm gets a honeymoon period with a recent graduate, gets to train him, and then has the option whether to hire. The apprentice receives coveted training, prestige and some measure of pay. This is all done in a cost-effective way, adopting the medical school-to-practice model. (No one questions the medical model.) 7. Examine the Medical Model Transitioning from School to Practice (an expansion of the Apprenticeship Program). Medical programs transition students from medical school to medical practice. Depending on the area of specialty that the doctor wants to practice, training programs can run from three to six years. Even before medical students are accepted into medical programs, they have a clear understanding of what the future holds for them; they know what they are getting into, how long their training will take, and what they will be paid during the duration of their programs. These students enter the medical profession knowing they will work hard for three or more years, depending on

4 their specialty. They also know that they will be well-trained to practice medicine after they finish their programs. As lawyers, we need to keep discussing what business model will work best for us. Following what doctors do is a viable option, pay less in salary during the internship and residency years while actively training recent grads how to provide needed services. To apply the Medical Model in law, all the Firm A s out there would need to be convinced to pay a reasonable starting salary to first year associates, perhaps $45,000 - $48,000 a year, what new doctors typically earn. Paying this salary would allow all of the Firm A s to hire nearly four times more associates. That s also four times more new associates being trained in the practice of law, all at roughly the same cost that is paid to one top associate today. Also, after investing the firm s time and effort into associate recruiting and training, the firm can quadruple its chances of retaining talent. Hypothetically, if new grads can be billed out at a reasonable rate, say $100 - $125 an hour, our cherished clients might not mind footing the bill for their training. Think of it this way: if you were ever in the hospital, did you receive a visit from the residents or the interns? You may or may not have liked their services to you, but did you ever quibble about their charges? I m guessing you did not. I m guessing that you accepted those charges as fair and reasonable, as a price of being admitted to a teaching hospital. Perhaps part of you, too, may have accepted those charges as part of something bigger, the importance of training new doctors. Also, if billing rates overall were lowered, the unmet legal needs of our communities could be better met. There is another advantage to the Medical Model. We all know that good grades in school do not necessarily transfer to the skills actually needed in the practice of law. The medical paradigm might cut out the class warfare that permeates our law school classrooms. If new attorneys start their training on a relatively level financial playing field, each can succeed on his or her own merit, earning a growing salary based on performance. Overall, the hiring and training model utilized in the medical industry could be effective in the legal profession as well. Creating internships and residencies for new lawyers would be extremely helpful for them, relieving their many pressures about their unknown futures. ************************************************************************ ********************************************** As Task Force Members, you must consider how our industry will achieve balance. In the post-2008 legal world, new lawyers training is getting lost in the shuffle. Especially for inexperienced lawyers who want to apply for available lateral positions that they are not yet qualified for, the challenge of finding threshold training is substantial. I think it

5 is more than fair to conclude that new attorneys need some help; they can t train themselves. I hope we will create a way to take care of our own. With your efforts on the ABA Task Force, I hope we will soon be able to stop cringing and retreating into our safe, comfortable, corner offices after we hear about new attorneys outstanding debt and their lack of health insurance. Perhaps the hiring freezes will thaw somewhat when our very own children and grandchildren come knocking on our own corner office doors, wanting to follow in our professional footsteps. To each of you who serve on the ABA Task Force about the future of legal education, thank you all for your contribution to this very important dialogue. Your efforts are greatly needed and very much appreciated. Please let me know if I can help any of you on the Task Force in any way. With great appreciation, Nancy M. Glazer * I am putting aside for the moment two (2) training methods we have adopted in post- 2008: (1) training received from volunteering on pro bono projects, the "Let Them Eat Cake" Model, and (2) training received from the legal technology companies and temporary staffing agencies. In addition, this will not discuss private companies that provide legal training or the newly considered undergraduate programs in law. See Nancy Mackevich Glazer, Esq. Manager, Legal Launch, LLC Ph Fax Nancy@LegalLaunch.net