Local Law Firms Don't Fear The Boom | With so many nearing retirement, will our courthouses be empty?
Photo/Courtesy
Frances Ford, Fletcher, Tilton & Whipple.
Photo/Courtesy
Frances Ford, Fletcher, Tilton & Whipple.
For many industries, it's become the $64,000 question: With so many baby boomers nearing retirement age and fewer younger people populating the region, how will the workforce be replenished?
But local law firms say they're not worried - even if many on their staff are nearing the traditional retirement age.
Legal Eagles
Representatives at local law firms acknowledge that they're always on the lookout for new talent - but they say they aren't in any mad dash to fill the pipeline. That's because law is an intellectual enterprise and, therefore, 65 isn't the magic number it is with other professions, they contend. Also, there's no shortage of new lawyers to be had, as state law schools consistently churn out skilled professionals.
"The graying of the workforce is not a strategic problem in law," noted Louis Ciavarra, managing partner with Bowditch & Dewey LLP, which employs 60 lawyers at its Worcester, Framingham and Boston offices.
He pointed out that one of the hardest working and most productive lawyers at his firm is nearing 70 years old. "There's no substitute for experience. And even if you're not as young or physically fit as you once were, you can still (practice law), and well."
Francis Ford, of Fletcher, Tilton & Whipple, agreed that just because a lawyer is 60 or older doesn't in any way mean he or she is washed up.
"Some of our more senior lawyers are our greatest strength, our greatest assets," said Ford, whose firm, with offices in Worcester and Framingham, employs roughly 40 lawyers. "We're not dodging bullets or running into burning buildings. It's a profession we can stick with."
Some larger firms - usually those comprised of 1,000 attorneys or more - do push the issue by imposing mandatory retirements, explained Walter Burke, chair of the American Bar Association's Senior Lawyers Division. In those cases, retirement age ranges anywhere from 62 to 68, he said.
However, he pointed out that the majority of lawyers work at smaller firms or practices - and therefore often stay well past what most people would consider retirement age. Because of that, the average age that attorneys bow out of the professions is all across the board, he said; some scale back in their 60s, others are still plugging on well into their 80s.
J. Robert Seder with Seder & Chandler LLP noted that many go even further. "A lot of lawyers die in the saddle, so to speak," he said.
The industry, like many others, has its fair share of boomers, which comprise more than 78 million Americans - or nearly 1/3 of the population - according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The average age of the American Bar Association's more than 400,000 members is 46.
Concurrently, the number of enrolled law students continues to steadily increase, rising from 132,464 in the 2000-2001 school year to 150,031 in the 2007-2008 school year, according to the ABA. At the same time, there are a significant amount of lawyers with experience at larger practices who are looking to downsize to smaller cities such as Worcester, according to local firms.
Therefore, to strike a balance between the seasoned and the green, area practices strive to find the best roles for their more senior lawyers - and simultaneously keep up with a steady influx of resumes.
Most older lawyers, for instance, serve as mentors to junior colleagues. Some will also perform what's known as reverse mentoring, according to Burke: Senior lawyers will coach newer lawyers on trial work and negotiations, and the younger attorneys, in turn, will teach their superiors about technology and the Internet.
Many more senior attorneys are also beginning to pursue elder law, what Burke called an "exploding" area of practice that deals with the rights and struggles of senior citizens. In other cases, they might decide to specialize or expand into higher-level scenarios - such as mergers and acquisitions - while leaving the more basic work to their subordinates.
All this makes recruitment essential. "Most firms are constantly concerned about having new, bright young lawyers coming in," said Seder, whose practice comprises roughly 15 lawyers in Worcester and Westborough.
"We're always focusing on transition," agreed Diane Power, executive director of Mirick O'Connell, with 56 attorneys in Worcester, Westborough and Boston.
Although no one at the firm is slated to retire within the next year, the ongoing goal is to create what she referred to as "backup and redundancy" for senior partners. That's achieved by immersing newer lawyers in all aspects of the day-to-day profession; from the beginning, they sit on meetings with clients and attend depositions and court dates. An associates committee also meets every month to hold briefings and informational sessions on various issues.
"We're grooming them from the early stages so that they're not all of a sudden becoming a partner," said Power, noting that at larger firms, newer lawyers don't get such exposure.
Keeping with that, local practices also try to embrace generational differences. At Mirick O'Connell, for instance, 30 percent of employees work part-time or other more flexible shifts outside the traditional 9 to 5.
"It's a different generation," said Power. "It's important for us to work with people to recruit and retain long-term lawyers and partners."
Ciavarra, meanwhile, referred to it as a game of chess: At Bowdich & Dewey, lawyers are staggered when it comes to cases and given freedom to take on more or less work during various life stages.
Overall, the firm also strives to hire people who they feel will stay long-term. To this point, they've been successful in that respect: Of their 20 capital partners, 18 have been with the firm for for most of their career, Ciavarra said.
Overall, though, the challenge for senior lawyers is figuring out when to pass things off, he said. Although "it's a mistake to think there's a mandatory age when someone can't practice law anymore," Ciavarra noted, "there's a point of knowing when to say no."
Taryn Plumb is a freelance writer based in Worcester.
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