5 Innovative Associate Training Programs

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5 Innovative Associate Training

Programs

By Kat Greene

Law360, Los Angeles (November 07, 2014, 3:07 PM ET) -- Faced with a new generation of associates raised in the Internet age — and with financially squeezed clients questioning every item on their legal bills — law firms are adapting their training programs by increasing

interactivity, bolstering mentorship opportunities and getting young attorneys up to speed faster with MBA-style business training.

There was a time when being an associate meant a young attorney should dive in, keep his or her head down, and clock big billable hours, Michael Rynowecer, president of BTI Consulting Group Inc., told

Law360. But now, he said, “some forward-thinking law firms are introducing the idea that there’s a client at the end of that work.” “We’re spending a lot of time ... helping associates understand their clients’ businesses so they can take that burden off the shoulders of the partners,” Rynowecer said.

Firms are also starting to recognize that millennials, their youngest attorneys, respond better to hands-on training, so they’re adding programs that require young lawyers to produce real work to solve theoretical problems for real clients, sometimes even bringing those clients in to teach the associates themselves.

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better prepare today’s associates for tomorrow’s clients:

The MBA Program for Lawyers: Proskauer Rose and Andrews Kurth Some law firms are looking to groom associates who think like their corporate counterparts, teaching them skills like reading balance sheets and understanding basic market forces — knowledge they’d gain in a master of business administration program but weren’t taught in law school.

Proskauer Rose LLP runs its first-year associates through a weeklong training program that teaches business finance and accounting in the same way first-year bankers are taught the business, Christopher

Gardephe, knowledge management officer at the firm, told Law360. "Understanding the language of business is critical even when you first jump into practice,” Gardephe said. "It’s critical for an organization like ours that serves clients who run highly sophisticated organizations." Houston-based Andrews Kurth LLP told Law360 it has for three years worked with Fullbridge Inc., a consulting firm that runs a businessminded program for attorneys, in what the firm’s Director of Attorney

Professional Development Amy Sladczyk Hancock called “a ‘ratchetedup’ on-boarding process for the entry-level attorneys.”

“Every single one of our clients expects us to intimately understand their businesses and the challenges they face trying to successfully operate in their specific industry environments,” Hancock said. “We started to collaborate with the Fullbridge program team to deliver sophisticated, intensive business skills training to our brand-new associates.”

Fullbridge presses associates to view a client’s problems not simply from a legal angle, but also from a corporate finance standpoint, said Carrie Fletcher, the consulting firm’s director of professional

programming. The program pairs associates with coaches, running young attorneys through an online teaching program that includes pop quizzes and real-world problems, with solutions delivered as live

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In one such scenario, Fullbridge presents associates with a business question: A major company wants to go into the air taxi business. Should it acquire an air taxi company, or launch its own air taxi service?

The associates then dive into questions about the company’s culture, its cash flows and what legal problems could arise in each situation,

Fletcher said. Acting as a legal team working for in-house counsel, they deliver a presentation to a mock board of coaches and firm partners, who pepper the associates with questions.

“The payoff for this program is that you’re bringing in a first-year who then hits the ground running, acting like a second- or third-year,” Fletcher said. “They start effectively building relationships earlier.” Keeping Up With the Millennials: O’Melveny & Myers

O’Melveny & Myers LLP said its associates and counsel have demanded more frequent feedback on performance as they tackle even

incremental developments on projects, something Director of Attorney Professional Development Rochelle Karr said has intensified as

millennials have begun coming on board at the firm.

“That substantive feedback in real time is the biggest thing they ask for,” Karr told Law360. “They like to know where they stand.”

Karr said O’Melveny discovered it could revamp its training program after launching so-called upward reviews with consultancy Naomi Beard & Associates. Beard interviews every attorney at every level in the firm, then compiles the feedback into actionable information the firm can use to implement change quickly — something Karr said is unique for a large law firm.

Beard said she’d noticed generational differences in the way attorneys learn, with younger attorneys seeking more interactive, skill-specific training than their predecessors received, and more guidance from their superiors.

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“The youngest generation of rising associates ... have a real

expectation that you will give them a road map and show them a path forward to success,” she said.

The Three-Month Boot Camp: Drinker Biddle & Reath

Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP doesn’t expect its associates to bill any hours for the first three months of their time at the firm. Instead, they’re paid first-year annual salaries of $140,000 to $160,000 to

spend that time in an intensive boot camp that gears them up for their time at the firm.

Launched in 2009 partly as a response to client feedback, the

program’s goal is to teach the associates to use a lawyer’s judgment paired with business sense and to adopt an understanding of the client’s business operations and needs, Scott Connolly, director of professional development, told Law360.

The firm doesn’t expect attorneys to retain that information from lectures alone. Associates are given sophisticated assignments and tasked with thinking through each problem and solving it, Connolly said. They then get direct individual feedback on their projects. After boot camp, they’re placed in apprenticeships where they observe partners before taking on hours for clients.

“It is difficult for a new associate to understand how to identify the key issues of a merger agreement or how to take a deposition without having had the chance to experience it first,” he said. “It is clear that our associates learn much more by being trained this way.”

Adapting Training to Each Lawyer’s Career Stage: Latham & Watkins

Latham & Watkins LLP distinguishes its training program by building separate curricula for attorneys at different experience levels, setting up separate training “academies” for first-, third- and fifth-year

associates, as well as for new counsel and new partners, Michael Scott Feeley, chair of the firm’s training and career enhancement committee,

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told Law360.

A first-year training program, for example, includes a series of “core curriculum” training sessions that cover “concrete skills” and teach them how to make the jump from law school to law practice, Feeley said. Other programs teach the importance of current events or managing life outside the office, he said.

Training is also geared toward different practice areas, with, for

example, a session for M&A associates featuring senior lawyers staging a mock merger for junior lawyers. Other academies teach networking and self-promotion skills.

“From an attorney standpoint, a robust in-house professional development program is a strong statement about the firm’s

commitment to our lawyers’ success,” Feeley said. “We are not only interested in seeing them succeed at the firm, but we are interested in enhancing their careers, wherever the future takes them.”

Putting Clients at the Blackboard: Dorsey & Whitney

Dorsey & Whitney LLP’s training program teaches its associates how to better serve its clients by bringing in true insiders: the clients

themselves.

Dorsey clients will teach some sessions of the firm’s “Dorsey U,” Bryn Vaaler, professional services partner, told Law360. For example, the chief intellectual property counsel for a client will sit on a panel discussing IP strategies and patent reform, presenting to attendees what problems his company has an eye on, the firm said.

Including clients in training events helps Dorsey attorneys in two ways, Vaaler said: First, it exposes the associates directly to clients, allowing them to get information straight from the horse’s mouth so they may perform more efficiently on cases. And second, it introduces them to potential future employers.

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table in a few years, Vaaler said.

“Our clients are so wonderfully willing to stand up and be part of presentations. They want to get up and be teachers, too,” he said. “That’s such a wonderful partnership.”