The Human Side of Law

Is the legal profession unsympathetic and inauspicious? Is the terrain adversarial and unkind? Or are these nearly incorrect perceptions of a most noble profession? Empathy, Coaching, Relationship, Happiness, Emotional Intelligence, Reflective listening, Mentoring, Mindfulness, Nurturing, Growing, Mental health, Inclusion, Wellness, Connecting… are these regular lexicons in Law? Just before the pandemic, 22–27 September 2019, Seoul Japan, the venue of the 2019 IBA Annual Conference. During one of the educational sessions, two interesting polls were taken and the poll results showed a significant number of lawyers suffering from stress related illnesses, depression, burnout and struggling with unhealthy coping addictions. The second poll result which is not completely unrelated to the first was that 90% of lawyers polled do not wish their children or relatives to join the legal profession. The lawyers themselves said the profession is hard, laborious — the words, backbreaking, arduous, painstaking were used and that progression was protracted. In a covid-19 and post covid-19 world, I reason that lawyers and all stakeholders in the legal services industry should be challenged to reverse these poll results, change the narrative and usher in a new dawn into the legal services industry. How may that happen? A focus on people and technology might be a good start. I am not denoting a cursory effort, rather a deep dive with sustained commitment to give priority to people and technology. In this paper, we will address the human side of law and in a subsequent paper law and technology. The covid-19 pandemic presents an opportunity to stop, reprioritize, and consider new models for managing resources and delivering services. Legal practice is about people. The people is the business, the business is the people, they are the heart of what makes a law firm successful. And the pandemic is accelerating the people issue in law firms. Businesses built around people skills, interest and passion have a chance of long term survival than those built around profiteering. Covid-19 is awakening the altruistic side of us and challenging both people, businesses and nations to be more and to do more for humanity. If people are unwell, it takes a toll on the firm and the business also becomes unwell. If they are FIT — the right fit — the business thrives. People are in a quest for more meaning in their work. And the moral is always to put humanity before gain in all our endeavors.

“The Struggling Girl”

Kevin Carter 1994 was the Pulitzer Prize winner of the Feature Photography award for his gripping shot of a vulture waiting to feast on a starved Sudanese child. The picture, “The vulture and the little girl, also known as “The Struggling Girl” first appeared in The New York Times on 26 March 1993. It is a photograph of a frail famine-stricken boy, initially believed to be a girl, who had collapsed, with a vulture waiting nearby for her to die. Vultures eat corpses that may have decomposed so much that the meat can be noxious to other animals. They however prefer fresh meat. The child was reported to be attempting to reach a United Nations feeding center about a half mile away in Ayod, South Sudan. Though the child, Kong Nyong, survived the incident, recovered enough to resume the crawl to the UN food aid station and the vulture was chased away, Kevin Carter took his own life by carbon monoxide poisoning on July 27, 1994, at age 33, four months after winning the prize. The snapshot shot Kevin to fame but amongst other things brought him considerable pain as well because of its inhumane posture. The inhumane posture not only of the ominous bird but also of man’s inhumanity to man, which he encountered every day in his job. In seeking to draw an intersection between our humanity and our work or profession, I turn to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who wrote on Kevin Carter, “And we know a little about the cost of being traumatized that drove some to suicide, that, yes, these people were human beings operating under the most demanding of conditions.” The pandemic is focusing the debate on our humanness

Don’t sweat your assets

“Sweat, and more sweat.” I listened as an icon in the legal profession repeatedly used this word in a conversation — He went further to quote the particular verse from the Bible — “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground…” With arms akimbo, he explained that, this phrase was in fact the mantra that drove his philosophy of work and style of leadership. He continued his admonition — and showed by his many great accomplishments how it has paid off. I was TAKEN. Transposed. He had a convert. Or did he? Without taking anything off hard work, can work be fun and enjoyable? Can it be argued that the more you enjoy and find fun in your work the harder you will be willing to work? Or will I lose this argument. So I went in search of the phrase, “sweating your asset.”

“Sweating the assets” is to extract the most possible work or value out of your assets. While it might sound good in reference to machines during the industrial revolution era, sweating the asset in a knowledge economy may not be sustainable as it can lead to strain and exhaustion especially with a reductionist approach to people

I will say, “do not sweat your assets,” certainly not your people. Rather build your business around your people’s passion and prowess — so when profit or progress slows down just as it has as a result of covid-19, the passion of your people will keep the business going — fuel you on

Don’t sweat the small stuff

As a law firm, the significance of being in business is so that you harness value from the assets you have assembled. Assets are both tangible and intangible. An example of value derived from a physical asset, like a building, is rent. It is a fact that there are lawyers that have not been to their physical offices in the past four months. Focus on what matters and the results will follow. People obviously are not tangible fixed assets such as building and equipment. People are intangible assets. They are a law firm’s most valuable assets. In the industrial age, 1760–1840 the gross domestic product was largely driven by tangible asset investments that appear on balance sheets — equipment, buildings and land. This remained true well into the 1980’s. From 1980 to 1985, 88% of the increase in GDP was linked with growth in tangible assets. In today’s knowledge — or information — age, the driver of GDP growth has shifted from tangible assets to intangible ones. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), from 2000 to 2005, only 10% of GDP growth was related to tangible assets. Intangible assets drove 90% of GDP growth. Intangible assets include goodwill, brand recognition, trade names, customer lists, more importantly intellectual property and goodwill. Clients do not buy legal services, they buy ideas, they pay for perceived value, they pay for trusted advise given by humans which leads to repeat business and clients’ loyalty. Indeed, the fundamental purpose of a law firm is to sign-on and retain as many clients possible; and to satisfy client needs at a profit. Your law firm can only benefit from a strong client service culture if it has a good people culture. And a by-product of building employee loyalty is client loyalty. As Sir Richard Branson tersely said “Clients do not come first, employees come first, if you take care of your people, they will take care of the clients.”

Mind the Gaps

Is your law firm people-centric? Is the benefit of your people foremost? Are employees treated the way you treat valued clients; with dignity and attention? Or are they treated as an appendage, a disposable and dispensable balance sheet item? The way you treat your employees is your instruction to them on how to treat your clients. According to Stephen R. Covey, “Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers” To build a sustainable legal practice, put people’s well-being at the heart and center of your practice. In crisis times such as a pandemic, war, etc., the difference between sinking and surviving may well be the effective engagement of your troupes. How are your people coping with the effects of the pandemic? Not the business bottom line but the people? Have you invested adequately in their healthcare? Law firms should endeavor to make health insurance for employees at a time like this a priority. How do employees commute to work for offices that have chosen to open their physical offices for business? Is your office adhering strictly to all the safety rules during this pandemic? How are employees coping with children and other dependents? What are their fears? How are they handling debts or other financial exposures? What keeps them awake at night? Employees support programs that deals with social isolation, worry, anxiety, panic attacks, mental health issues, which are some of the possible effects of the pandemic, should be made available.

I will close with Kevin Carter’s suicide note “I’m really, really sorry. The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist. …depressed … without phone … money for rent … money for child support … money for debts … money!!! … I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain … of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners … I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky.” The argument can tilt to the far left, that he was a coward. Kevin Carter spoke often about the shocking situations he photographed, saying, “I see all this, and all I can think of is Megan,” his young daughter. At the end of the day, we are all after all Humans.