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Law360, New York (September 29, 2009) -- Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP’s new associate training program aims to make young lawyers more client-oriented and give them valuable business skills while simultaneously freeing them from billable hours requirements in their first year, the firm has announced.
It announced the details of its revamped professional development program Tuesday, noting in a statement that the program was established to address the “paradigm shift” occurring in the legal industry.
The program stands in stark contrast to the layoffs, salary reductions and deferrals that many firms have used to address the recession’s impact.
“At a time when other large law firms have delayed or dismissed their fall 2009 incoming classes of new lawyers, we have chosen a different path,” Drinker Biddle Chairman Alfred W. Putnam Jr said. “As we announced this past May, we are bringing in 38 new associates and training them to be top-notch professionals, skilled in providing the best in service to our clients.”
The firm says it hopes the plan pays off with clients too, as many of the components of the new program will aim to boost young attorneys’ client relations confidence.
“Our clients have been very enthusiastic about this idea, and we see it as a way to redefine the relationship between clients and their law firms,” Putnam said. “We want to be in a position where we can provide value to the client in literally every decision we make and every action we take.”
The new training program, which will last six months, was established in an effort to build client-centered lawyers, the firm said.
Incoming attorneys’ time will be divided into three components: a core curriculum, practice-specific training and an apprenticeship.
The core curriculum’s coursework will occur in the first six weeks of the program and will focus on client relations and “the art of delivering high-quality service to clients at the lowest possible cost.”
It will also challenge employees to complete exercises in writing, ethics, negotiation, presentation skills, problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration, it said.
Some of the firm’s clients also will give first-year attorneys presentations outlining what they desire in their lawyers and legal services.
“It is important for our new lawyers to cover these types of topics as a group,” Drinker Biddle partner Kate Levering, who is running the firm’s training program and is responsible for its design and implementation, said. “They will be working for our clients — and with each other — for quite some time.”
After completing the core curriculum, the new lawyers will join their respective practice groups and receive customized training based on the clients they will be serving.
The firm said the apprenticeship element of the training program is a “throwback” to how lawyers were trained a few generations ago.
“These new lawyers will be spending a great deal of time with partners and other more experienced lawyers, going places where our lawyers go, and doing (and watching) what our lawyers do,” said Gregg Melinson, Drinker Biddle’s national marketing partner. “This is how many of our more senior partners were trained by the previous generation of Drinker Biddle’s lawyers. We see tremendous value in this approach for our clients and for our firm.”
But one of the most integral aims of the program is to instill first-year lawyers with a firm understanding of how they can adapt to best serve their clients.
“Our clients tell us that some of the most valuable advice and counsel comes from those lawyers who have an intimate knowledge of their clients’ businesses and their clients’ industries as a whole,” Melinson said. “This training program is a way to get that message across loud and clear, early and often.”
In addition to the training, the firm will abandon billable hours requirements for first-year attorneys.
“It seemed contradictory to us to require such a significant investment of the first-year lawyers’ time and energy while adding the further burden of a billable hour requirement,” Putnam said.
At the end of the program in spring 2010, Drinker Biddle anticipates that the new first years will “hit the ground not only running, but sprinting.”
“We will be able to offer our clients these junior lawyers, who will be in a position to provide real value, unlike many of our competitor firms who won’t even have new lawyers coming into their firms until the following fall,” Putnam said. “We think it will make a qualitative — and lasting — difference in the service we can provide to our clients.”
