October 2002

Dick Manning: Laying a Foundation for New Lawyers

For Dick Manning, law was an obvious choice. "I was very active in public speaking in high school, and won a number of medals and awards," he says. "I knew I wanted to be either a doctor or lawyer. I started looking at how long it takes and how much it costs, and thought, 'Well let's go for lawyer.'… The oratory skills I practiced in high school really helped. We were always dealing with subjects related to major legislative issues. It was a natural fit. I couldn't do any of that if I became a doctor. … My stepmother worked for two very well-known trial lawyers in the 1930s. One of them, Charles P. Moriarty, was my godfather. My dad was a funeral director, so he knew a lot of professional people. A lot of lawyers were part of a broad social circle, and I think they influenced me."

That influence is evident in his focus as WSBA president. Manning was impressed by the behavior of the lawyers he observed as a kid. He believes the legal profession can attain that level of professionalism again, and that it starts in law school. He has formed the Professional Development Committee, which will review the processes of the education, admission and orientation of new lawyers in Washington, and make recommendations to the Board of Governors. The committee will consider the feasibility of apprenticeships, modification of law school curricula, and law school/WSBA relations.

"Professional development involves a lot of things. We're the only country in the western world that doesn't give new lawyers or law students some sort of apprenticeship," Manning says.

"As many hiring partners will tell you, lawyers come out of law school equipped with smarts, but they're ill-prepared in most instances to do what lawyers are expected to do once they're admitted to practice. What they lack, I believe, are the skills of knowing how to communicate with clients, how to organize a practice, how to manage an office. Many of them are square pegs trying to fit into round holes. They shouldn't have been lawyers to begin with.… I don't think all the students admitted to law school have been adequately screened and oriented to the aspects of law practice that create a lot of stress for people. I think a lot of that stress also leads to what some judges complain about, and that is a lack of civility.

"All of this points to the need to address professionalism in many different ways. There's an adjunct issue for which the board has already created a task force, and that is the student-loan crisis. I see the Professional Development Committee and the Student Loan Crisis Task Force working together. There is a huge salary gap between private and public practice. The median starting salary for lawyers in private practice in Washington is $90,000. The median starting salary for government attorneys is $41,000. I suspect the other public-service positions, such as public defender or legal services, pay even less than that. We know that students coming out of Washington law schools are carrying an average student-loan debt of $70,000- $80,000. What that means is that lawyers with huge debt are forced to work for private firms who can afford to pay them the kind of salary they need to pay back student loans. A lawyer with that kind of debt cannot service an $80,000 student loan on a public-interest lawyer's salary."

Manning expects the Professional Development Committee and the Student Loan Crisis Task Force to come up with a number of recommendations and begin implementing some of them this year. He says, "I would like to see us come up with some recommendations on how to handle professionalism starting before students even finish law school. To the extent that any of them require approval by the state Supreme Court, I'd like to send them on their way."

While professional development is on the top of his list, Manning has several other things on his agenda for the year, including:

•  A change in the BOG makeup. He expects the group created to explore the possibility of adding a nonlawyer member to the BOG to wrap up their work this year. "We need to listen to what the public is saying about us," he says.

•  Expanding the drug-policy project that was started by the King County Bar Association. "The Legislature has enacted legislation that allows savings from corrections to go to education and treatment. Substance abuse cuts across so many aspects of our profession. Courts are clogged with drug cases. Public-service lawyers, defenders, domestic-violence advocates and legal services are all affected by the issue of drugs and alcohol. We need to continue working on this."

•  Revising Washington's Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC). An ethics-review task force will be working with the Oregon and Idaho state bars to revise the RPCs.

Manning recognizes that the WSBA faces some daunting tasks this year, and he believes other state bars view Washington as a trailblazer because of that. "I've been to several National Conference of Bar Presidents meetings, and the whole purpose of those meetings is information-sharing," Manning says. "I'm telling you, the state of Washington is on the cutting edge of almost everything. It's really amazing. I run into bar presidents at these meetings who are just beginning to talk about some of the things that we've already accomplished."

Dick Manning is looking forward to a year of challenges and triumphs for Washington lawyers. He wants to continue the good work begun by past presidents and is eager to lay a strong foundation for new lawyers. "I'm very proud of the profession. Jan Eric Peterson got a great movement started. We're going to build on what we're doing this year and through the years. It doesn't matter how good a PR program you have if lawyers don't upgrade their own image by how they conduct themselves. Otherwise, we're beating an empty drum."