May 2007

On Becoming Lawyers: A Dialogue with WSBA President Ellen Dial and Seattle University School of Law Dean Kellye Testy

by Ellen Conedera Dial, WSBA President

This month’s President’s Corner features a dialogue between Seattle University School of Law Dean Kellye Testy and WSBA President Ellen Dial about the challenges that face lawyers entering the profession.
 
President Ellen Dial: Dean Testy, can you share some thoughts on the challenges that law students face in entering the legal profession? Perhaps we should start with the task of finding a job!
 
Dean Kellye Testy: That is certainly students’ focus, especially this time of year as we head toward graduation! I’d be happy to talk about this very important topic. Let me start with Seattle itself and then make a few points more generally. Seattle is a very competitive job market because so many people enjoy living and working in our great city. Thus, an initial challenge is finding a way to stand out from other applicants in this competitive market and gain the entry needed to develop as a lawyer in the student’s area of interest. Students need help getting the practical experience necessary to help them stand out in the market and help them understand the kind of a practice they wish to pursue. They also need help learning networking skills that will enable them to find suitable employment in this competitive market. Because many jobs in this area are found through informal channels rather than through traditional hiring processes, networking skills are vital.

ED: There are so many excellent opportunities for employment outside of the Seattle area. How do students learn about those jobs and make themselves competitive for them?

KT: There are many excellent opportunities outside of Seattle, including in other cities in Washington, throughout the U.S. (and especially in the major legal centers such as Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, etc.), and increasingly in major cities in other countries. Like other law schools, we seek to help students locate and appreciate these opportunities in many ways. First, through an active alumni network — we have alums in all of these locations and they are of great help to our graduates who want to pursue employment in the same area. Second, through counseling and assistance from our Center for Professional Development. Third, through externship and internship programs — both domestic and international — that provide the student an outstanding learning experience while also opening future employment doors. These opportunities will naturally take more initiative from the student because most law schools are better known in their own region than in others. One of the key reasons that we, like other leading law schools, work to advance our national and international reputation is in order to assist our students with securing employment outside of our region.

ED: It seems to me that the debt burden for law students is staggering. What are the challenges that face a new lawyer in paying off that debt?

KT: Debt is certainly a burden for many graduates. Sadly, it can often constrain the students’ choices of profession, making public-interest and public-service career choices difficult. We can add to that difficulty the market and other pressures that keep salaries low in public-interest, public-service, and small/solo-firm jobs. There are some programs available to help cushion the debt burden for those students entering public-interest law (such as loan repayment assistance programs (LRAP) that law schools and the WSBA have in place, and scholarship programs, like our Scholars for Justice program and the University of Washington’s Gates’ Scholars programs, that help to reduce the amount of borrowing required to attend law school). Those LRAP and scholarship programs, however, do not yet offer assistance to enough public-interest lawyers, let alone to lawyers in small firms or solo practice who also have low starting salaries.

Beyond the market-specific pressures, students also face the challenge of transitioning from just thinking about the law to actually practicing law. One part of that challenge is trying to determine what kind of career to pursue, and thus students need experienced attorneys as advisors who are willing to take an active interest in young lawyers’ and students’ professional development. A second part is climbing the steep path from student to serving clients in practice. Students need a strong hand from their more experienced colleagues in the bar to make that climb successfully.
 
ED: Given the market pressures you note, is it still “worth it” to go to law school?
 
KT: Yes, absolutely, for a number of reasons. As I like to say, a law degree positions you to do both good and well. First, the finances. One of my faculty colleagues, a corporate law professor, has developed an earnings projection model that clearly shows that an investment in law school is a very good investment in future earnings capacity, even considering the debt obligations often required in order to obtain a legal education. Further, for a three-year investment of time, a legal education gives a student one of the broadest and most usable degrees available. There are so many careers that are furthered by having a law degree. Though many of our students go into the traditional practice of law following graduation, a very large number use their legal training to pursue careers in business, industry, non-profits, education, and the public sector. Legal education trains you to be a very good problem solver, and that is a skill that is worth its weight in gold in every arena. And finally, with a law degree you have, as former WSBA President Brooke Taylor often noted, “a license to help people.” I strongly believe in the rule of law as a pathway to a just world, and that it is an honor and privilege to be a part of the legal profession.
 
ED: Are there steps that law schools can take to bridge the gap between law school and law practice, or do you look solely to the profession for this assistance?
 
KT: Moving from student to lawyer is no easy task, and it needs to be the concern of both the legal academy and the Bar — we need to be partners in this task. Law schools aim to ease that transition in two key ways. We, for instance, have a robust skills-training program as part of our program of legal education. We seek to bridge the gap between law school and law practice by making sure that our students understand not just the theoretical and doctrinal dimensions of law — important as they are — but also have the skills necessary to put that knowledge to work. Our law clinic and other practice-based courses seek to hone the skills of writing, drafting, counseling, mediating, and interviewing, in addition to the more classical trial and appellate skills. Second, almost all law schools have a career services office as a resource for students. Ours is called the Center for Professional Development, and it provides traditional career services counseling as well as training in other professional development skills such as networking, ethics, and leadership. The Center works closely with our Access to Justice Institute to encourage our students to make a commitment to pro bono and other public-service work as part of their professional development, and with our Continuing Legal Education program to encourage students to also make a commitment to life-long learning.
 
ED: What can the practicing bar do to assist law students in making a successful professional development journey?
 
KT: Let me start by noting that there are two pieces to this issue. The first is access and the second is attainment. In other words, students need help in entering the profession and then, as new lawyers, they also need help in attaining success once there. Bar organizations, such as the Young Lawyers Division of the WSBA, are an important part of the latter, as are more experienced lawyers who are willing to serve as mentors to new attorneys, whether in the same firm/organization or otherwise.

To help with both the access and the attainment issue, students need access to lawyers and practical experience. For example, in addition to the benefits of part-time work or externships, students need projects (even short-term, discrete projects) that they can tackle to get practical experience. Our Center for Professional Development is eager to serve as a central clearing house for lawyers who can use this kind of help from students, and it would be vital to our students’ development. Second, students need to see lawyers in their “natural habitats,” so to speak. They need your time, which we, of course, understand is a precious commodity. This can be done through informational interviews for students and by participating actively in various career development programs that the law schools organize to connect our students to the bench and bar. Because students are often drawn to particular subject areas in law, it would be helpful to have the various WSBA sections more connected to the law schools. For instance, we did a “speed networking” session with the WSBA’s Litigation Section that was hugely successful. Finally, the more we can get small firms to participate in our career programs, the better. Students need to know that there are fulfilling careers outside of big-firm life, and that many jobs are available outside of the traditional on-campus interview process that takes place each fall.

ED: Networks and mentors are important to lawyers throughout their careers, in my experience. You are telling us, though, that they are especially important for lawyers who are just entering their practices. Do women and/or racial minorities face any unique challenges, either in access to the legal profession or in attainment of success within it?
 
KT: Mentors are always important, but especially for new lawyers, and yes, I do think that women and/or racial minorities have some unique mentoring needs. Let me talk both about women and also about lawyers of color separately, but in doing so acknowledge that some people obviously fit into both of these categories and will experience what is known as “compound bias.” For instance, a black woman experiences compound bias; a gay Asian man would also, though of course not in identical ways. Today, most law schools have student bodies that are roughly equal in terms of gender. Thus, I don’t believe that access to the legal profession for women is the difficult issue that it has been historically. That said, it is notable that men continue to significantly outnumber women in the partnership ranks of law firms as well as in most leadership positions in society. Though complex, I think that one reason for this state of affairs relates to the fact that women in our society still bear a disproportionate responsibility for childcare, elder care, and other responsibilities of home and family. That makes it difficult to succeed in a legal culture that often values billable hours and full-time commitment more than other measures of quality and success. Thus, firms can make a difference in the success of women by doing something that is good for all of us: giving more attention to work-life balance.

As for lawyers of color, this is even more complex, because in my judgment more significant barriers to entry and success still exist as part of the structural racism that is embedded in our culture, including our legal culture. How to make a real difference in racially diversifying the legal profession is a very urgent topic. We seek to make progress on this front by admitting, and supporting academically, a very diverse class of law students who graduate from our rigorous program with outstanding skills. Nonetheless, when the topic of the lack of diversity in firms comes up, we often hear from firms that they try to hire lawyers of color but that the pool is just not available. That does not make sense to me when I know many of our outstanding graduates of color are eager for those jobs. Moreover, though we have had a great deal of success recruiting a diverse student body, that is not true for much of legal education. There are far too few students of color admitted to law schools today, even though there are more seats available and the qualifications of those students are on the rise. This is a topic that needs far more attention than I can give it here — perhaps a future column, President Dial? Also, don’t you have some initiatives in place to work on this issue during your presidency?
 
ED: Increasing the diversity of the profession, and enhancing recruitment, retention, and advancement of diverse lawyers, is a high priority for the WSBA and for me. In a future issue of Bar News, I will write about the pipeline grant program that the Board of Governors has approved as a complement to the WSBA Leadership Institute and other programs aimed at this important goal.

I have one final question for you, Dean Testy. I remember that my first two years of practice were especially challenging, since every time the telephone rang there was a question I couldn’t answer, and every day it seemed I needed to learn a new lawyering skill. I was very glad to have the help of more experienced lawyers! If every practicing lawyer in this state were to do one thing to help a new lawyer entering practice, what would that be?

KT: What a great question. If every practicing lawyer would do the following, it would make an enormous difference: Pick up the phone and call a new lawyer. Let him or her know three things. First, that you are there for them as a resource. Second, that you, too, were very challenged, even fearful, when you first entered practice and that it is OK to feel that way — that they will be successful. And third, that being a part of the legal profession is a noble calling and that you are pleased they have joined you as a colleague in the important work that lawyers do in the service of justice.

ED: Thank you, Dean Testy, for this conversation. It has been enlightening for me and I know it will be for our readers as well. I hope that we can continue it in the future. 

Ellen Conedera Dial can be reached at 206-359-8438 or ecdial@gmail.com. If you would like to write a letter to the editor on this topic, please see the instructions on page 7.