The Lawyer Bubble

February 4, 2013
A former partner at megafirm Kirkland and Ellis burns his bridges in this scathing indictment of law schools and big law firms. Harper (Crossing Hoffa), who worked in the field for 30 years, has a lot of bones to pick with various bodies, and he begins by chastising law schools for misrepresenting the opportunities available to their heavily indebted students after graduation (some alumni have even sued their schools for “deceptive conduct”), and for privileging profit over adequately preparing their pupils for real-world practice. He dutifully lays some of the blame on students for ignoring “the persistent warnings” regarding the current state of law schools and the legal profession, but if prospective law students aren’t thoroughly discouraged by Harper’s initial volley at schools, his fusillade at the major firms should do the trick. He depicts big-firm culture as dominated by profit concerns and built on the leveraging of overworked associates. Some of his suggestions for improving the overall health of the industry are more realistic than others (he proposes, for example, that clients with clout push firms to charge less for services rendered by associates working “unproductively long hours”), and more time could be spent discussing small and midsized firms, but his insights and admonitions are consistently on point. Agent: Danielle Svetcov, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency.

March 1, 2013
An insider reports on the legal profession's impending implosion. Focusing on two vital institutions, the law schools who act as gatekeepers and "big law," the prestigious firms that set the tone, Harper (Law/Northwestern Univ.; The Partnership: A Novel, 2010, etc.), for 25 years a partner at the distinguished firm of Kirkland and Ellis, now an adjunct professor, is perfectly positioned to reflect on alarming developments that have brought the legal profession to a most unfortunate place. The lawyer bubble, he argues, as with the dot-com, real estate and financial bubbles that preceded it, cannot be blamed on the Great Recession. Rather, it's a creation of those charged with safeguarding the profession, who've abandoned any long-term vision out of greed for money, power and status. In thrall to the U.S. News and World Report's annual rankings, law schools regularly manipulate the methodology that determines the listings; deans focus on the short-term financial performance of their own institutions, encouraging an oversupply of applicants and graduating students into a job market already glutted. Similarly, big law takes its cues from the American Lawyer's list of the nation's top 100 firms, looking to maneuver for position, sacrificing long-established firm cultures in favor of immediate profit and maximum partner reward, and causing widespread dissatisfaction within the ranks. Harper describes associate labor in these firms as depressing, unfulfilling and unrelenting. Most readers will shed no tears at this sorry spectacle, but the author clearly cares deeply about the future of his beloved profession, and he reminds us of a time when a legal career was more about service, collegiality, community and shared purpose. He offers numerous suggestions that might allow the profession to cushion the consequences of the bubble about to burst, but given the pathologies he describes, their adoption appears unlikely anytime soon. Essential reading for anyone contemplating a legal career.

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April 1, 2013

Unlike law professor Brian Z. Tamanaha's Failing Law Schools, this expose is by a lawyer who has worked in the trenches. Experienced litigator Harper (Northwestern Univ. Sch. of Law; Crossing Hoffa: A Teamster's Story) has many of the same antagonists as Tamanaha--namely, U.S. News's rankings and the American Bar Association, which accredits law schools. His biggest complaints, however, are with the giant firms that have transformed law in the last 30 years. Many are organized as pyramid schemes, with junior associates working absurd hours to enable equity partners at the top to make seven-figure salaries. His chronicle of these firms is startling and depressing, particularly because of his report of the widespread dissatisfaction of many lawyers with their jobs and lives. His solutions seem impossible, as rich lawyers aren't going to spread the wealth, no law school is going to close because of the glut of lawyers, and law school professors can't teach practical skills because they have none. VERDICT Readable, well researched, and scholarly, this book will be of use to anyone thinking of going to law school.--Michael O. Eshleman, Hobbs, NM

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2013
Harper, an attorney and law-school professor, investigates the causes of what he sees as a rapid decline in the sustainability of and professionalism in the legal profession while providing novel solutions. He starts with law-school deans gleefully accepting easily awarded student loans in order to pump naive applicants into a large and expanding pool of underemployed graduates, and he decries the impact of inane law-school rankings on schools' policies, where raw numbers reign supreme despite their proven irrelevance. Harper also points to detailed statistics of (nondischargeable) student debt and the unavailability of legal jobs to display how problems in the legal profession are institutional in nature. Deans and equity partners frequently face the prisoner's dilemma: if every law school or large firm cooks the books, the first to play fair will suffer a severe disadvantage unless all others come clean as well. What surprises Harper is how such damning statistics and examples are unable to dissuade scores of undergraduates who still hope to pursue a career that, according to Harper, will likely not pay off in dollars or in job satisfaction. Anyone looking into a career in law would be well advised to read this thoroughly eye-opening warning.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)