Jeremy W. Richter | Helping Lawyers Build a Better Practice

19 Dec

The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation in Post-War America: The Economics of Outdoor Recreation

Posted by Jeremy W. Richter | History |

Part 3, The Economics of Outdoor Recreation

The following will explore these eight variables and their relationships to one another, as well as demonstrating the data gathered by the ORRRC in the National Recreation Survey. The tables included have been derived from information and charts included in the study reports released by the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission.

By 1960 the population was spending approximately $4.4 billion annually on outdoor recreation. Based on projected economic and population growth, the ORRRC believed that by 1976 people would be spending $6.9 billion per year and $12.4 billion by the year 2000. So with all cultural and social reasons aside, the government was interested in providing more and better outdoor recreation for the populace because the financial gains involved would be tremendous. [1]

Several visible trends established themselves throughout the country. Simple activities were the most popular. In fact, driving and walking for pleasure accounted for nearly half of the population’s total annual activity. The most popular activities were those requiring the least amount of preparation or specialized equipment.

The ORRRC determined that the most successful outdoor recreation areas were those with multiple uses, especially those involving both land and water areas. Water areas became increasingly popular focal points of outdoor recreation in the post-war years. Single use areas limited the number and type of people who would be attracted. Parks that allowed for hiking and recreational walking, camping and picnicking, and various other activities tended to be highly popular. Metropolitan areas urgently needed more outdoor recreation opportunities, but little land was available in close proximity to these centers of demand. Also, money was often not available for such projects.

The ORRRC quickly realized, that before establishing how much land would be available in the future, it must ascertain how much land was currently available. A land ownership survey was taken in 1960, which determined the total land area of the United States to be 2.274 billion acres. The county and municipal governments held eighteen million acres, while the states controlled eighty-four million acres. The federal government divided its holdings of 771 million into two parts: 364 million acres in Alaska, and 407 acres in the other forty-nine states. Private ownership of land, which amounted to 1.401 billion acres, proved to be the largest portion and was divided into three sub-groups: 1.128 billion belonged to farms and ranches, 56 million in Indian reservations, and 217 million termed as other.[2]

Tables One through Six express the data compiled by the ORRRC. Only a small but relevant group of data has been included. This data was chosen because it incorporates many of the previously discussed primary factors the ORRRC’s and subsequent reports saw as affecting participation in outdoor recreation.

Table One shows the frequency of participation in outdoor recreation by the area in which one resides. The survey data was gathered in 1959 and 1960 and shows participation over the course of a year. Clearly, no part of the population has a monopoly on outdoor recreation. Those in suburban and adjacent areas tended to swim more than others. Adjacent and outlying area residents fished and hunted more than others. Nearly half of the population, regardless of location, participated in driving for pleasure with consistency. Picnicking was most popular with suburban and adjacent area occupants. Only a small percentage of the population ever endeavored to go camping, also regardless of location.

Table Two presents data showing the percent of the population that participated in particular outdoor activities according to family income. The data was collected by the ORRRC from June to August 1960. In four of the five selected activities, participation varied widely, from those with the least amount of income participating significantly less that those who have more income. Boating offered the largest amount of discrimination. Only fishing shows a participation percentage, which does not vary widely in a definitive pattern.

Tables Three and Four are related. The survey data for Table Three was collected throughout 1959, while the data for Table Four was collected from June to August 1960. The third table shows the population of the United States, twenty-five years of age and older, by its years of formal education. Table Four relays the percent of the American population participating in specific outdoor recreation activities according to their years of formal education, as well as the percent of population participating in the activities of all citizens twenty-five years and older. In every category, the population increased in percentage of population according to its level of education.

Table Five is perhaps the most interesting of the data collected by the ORRRC. This table depicts the percentage of the population engaged in particular outdoor recreations by ethnicity. The categories are created simply as white and non-white, though stricter ethnic lines might have presented data suited for even further analysis. The data for Table Five was gathered from June to August 1960. This table shows that in most categories whites had higher participation than non-whites. There were, however, a few exceptions. An almost equal percentage of whites and non-whites are shown to have participated in playing games, bicycling and fishing. And more non-whites than whites partook in pleasure walks. Activities proving to be more expensive, such as boating, sightseeing, and driving for pleasure, show a significantly higher white participation. Had the ORRRC seen fit to show family income and education along ethnic lines, one would be allowed a closer inspection of how many of each group and who were finding themselves able to participate in the selected activities.

Table Six, the most telling, whose data was also collected from June to August 1960, shows the percentage of the population in the forty-eight contiguous states participating in outdoor recreation by age. The table includes eleven different categories by which activities have been divided, as well as six different age groups, beginning with age twelve. The first of the vertical columns includes all age groups and shows swimming and sightseeing to be the consensus favorites. Those in the youngest category especially favor swimming. The two highest age group categories prefer the leisurely activities of pleasure walks and sightseeing. An asterisk (*) has been placed in categories in which less than 0.5 percent of the surveyed population claimed to have participated.

Table 1 – Frequency of Participation by Location[3]

Table 2 – Percent of Population Participating by Family Income [4]

Table 3 – Percent of Population (25 Years and Older) by Years of Formal Education [5]

Table 4 – Percent of Population Participating by Years of Formal Education [6]

Table 5 – Percent of Population Participating in Selected Outdoor Recreations by Ethnicity [7]

Table 6 – Percent of Population Participating in Outdoor Recreation by Age [8]

Part 1, The Role of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission

Part 2, Creation of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation

Part 3, The Economics of Outdoor Recreation

Part 4, The ORRRC Proposes a Plan

Part 5, Legacy of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation

[1] Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, A Report to the President and to the Congress by the ORRRC, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1962), 26.

[2] ORRRC, A Report to the President and to the Congress by the ORRRC, 53.

[3] ORRRC, A Report to the President and to the Congress by the ORRRC, 218.

[4] ORRRC, A Report to the President and to the Congress by the ORRRC, 215.

[5] ORRRC, A Report to the President and to the Congress by the ORRRC, 216.

[6] ORRRC, A Report to the President and to the Congress by the ORRRC, 215.

[7] ORRRC, A Report to the President and to the Congress by the ORRRC, 216.

[8] ORRRC, A Report to the President and to the Congress by the ORRRC, 214.

18 Dec

The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation in Post-War America: Creation of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation

Posted by Jeremy W. Richter | History |

Part 2, Creation of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation

The Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission delivered its final report on January 31, 1962, and dissolved itself shortly thereafter. On March 1 of the same year, President Kennedy announced the impending creation of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation (BOR), which would operate under the Department of the Interior. The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation would “serve as a focal point in the Federal Government for the many activities related to outdoor recreation.” Secretary of the Interior Steward Udall officially established the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation on April 2 and named Edward Crafts as the first director of the bureau. Crafts had worked with the Forest Service for more than thirty years, been involved in the ORRRC, and seemed a natural choice as director. [1]

Later in April, Director Crafts published his declaration of intent, which became the working philosophy of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation. In this document, Crafts recognized the immediate need for leadership in outdoor recreation at both national and local levels. He claimed that the need for outdoor recreation was serious because of the physical, social, and cultural ramifications, as well as economic impact.

The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation was not to manage any land itself but concerned itself with policy, planning, aid, and coordination. The Bureau was interested in all outdoor recreation, both urban and rural. On the federal level, the BOR would work closely with the following agencies and organizations: National Park Service; Forest Service; Housing and Home Finance Agency; Department of the Interior; Department of Agriculture; Department of the Army; Department of Health, Education and Welfare; and any other necessary government agencies.[2]

The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation would work through the states, which would serve as middlemen between the federal and local governments. The BOR headquarters was located in Washington, D.C., while six regional offices were created to work directly with the states in those regions. These regional offices were located in Seattle, WA; San Francisco, CA; Denver, CO; Ann Arbor, MI; Atlanta, GA; and Philadelphia, PA.

National surveys taken in the 1930s revealed that most people, in their free time, were reading magazines, listening to the radio, and visiting with friends and neighbors. However, many claimed that they would have preferred to be playing tennis or golf, planting gardens, and swimming or skating. Many of these changes actually began to take place by the 1940s. As the amount of leisure time for the average person increased, hobbies and personal interests increased as well. “Specialists in recreation began to speak of hobbies as the fifth freedom – along with freedom of speech and worship and freedom from want and fear.”[3]

Although several national surveys pertaining to outdoor recreation were administered prior to 1950, the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission decided to eliminate the data from that which it would analyze. The commission felt that outdoor leisure and recreational patterns prior to that date did not characterize the current population. With regard to surveys taken in the Fifties, the commission only used those surveys that isolated such aspects as family size, leisure patterns, and other dimensions that could easily be identified and catalogued.

Even prior to mid-century, agencies began to understand the value of information to be gained from surveys and acquiring data. Early in the twentieth century, the National Park Service began to record each year the number of visitors attending the parks under its jurisdiction. The NPS recorded 16.7 million visitors in 1940, 33.2 million visitors the next year, and by 1960 the number of visitors had increased to 79 million. These numbers represent both an increasing number of parks and the rising ability of Americans, both monetarily and time-wise, to visit the nation’s parks. [4]

The following numbers represent the amount of revenue raised by entrance fees at state and national parks for the years listed: 1941 – $2.362 million; 1945 – $602 thousand; 1950 – $3.842 million; 1955 – $6.786 million; and 1959 – $7.994 million. The amounts raised by the parks increased almost uniformly every year from 1941 to 1959. The major exception is the years from 1942 to 1945, when the United States was involved in World War II.[5]

Congress and President Kennedy received the ORRRC’s report on January 31, 1962. The report consisted of a primary report and twenty-seven individual study reports, including the National Recreation Survey, which polled roughly sixteen thousand people. The plan for the data was to determine the characteristics of recreation users according to activity type and according to economic and demographic characteristics. Some felt that “the national study provide[d] the only real basis for estimating change over time.” The ORRRC and later the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation used the data gathered by the surveys to implement and develop policies. [6]

Questions in the National Recreation Survey covered background, economic status, present forms of outdoor recreation in which the surveyed currently participated, what types of outdoor recreation the surveyed would like to do more of, and why the surveyed did not do more of what those surveyed wanted. Edwin Fitch and John Shanklin stated the following concerning the time before the ORRRC published its reports: “Perhaps no other activity involving so many people and so basic a part of our life has received less attention from qualified investigators and scientists.”[7]

The ORRRC used the survey to identify variables affecting outdoor recreation patterns that presented themselves in at least two of the forty-eight studies. The eight distinctive variables found were as follows: time required, age, distance required to travel, family stage, income, residence, mode of transport, and occupation.

Part 1, The Role of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission

Part 2, Creation of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation

Part 3, The Economics of Outdoor Recreation

Part 4, The ORRRC Proposes a Plan

Part 5, Legacy of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation

[1] Clayne Jensen, Outdoor Recreation in America: Trends, Problems, and Opportunities (Minneapolis: Burgess Publishing Co., 1973), 88.

[2] Jensen, 89.

[3] Karal Ann Marling, As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 55.

[4] Jensen, 61.

[5] Marion Clawson and Jack Knetsch, Economics of Outdoor Recreation, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), 320.

[6]A copy of the National Recreation Survey (September 1960), in its entirety, is attached to the end of this essay; Abbot, 447-448.

[7] Fitch and Shanklin, 76.

17 Dec

The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation in Post-War America: The Role of the ORRRC

Posted by Jeremy W. Richter | History |

Part 1, The Role of the ORRRC

President Eisenhower created the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission in early summer 1958 when he signed the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Act. The commission’s objective was to research outdoor recreation in the United States and propose methods to make it more readily accessible to the majority of people, especially those within metropolitan areas. Following the conclusion of the ORRRC’s four-year study, which included national surveys and the gathering of state and national park data, the commission suggested the creation of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, as well as the recommendations and guidelines as to how it should be run.

The purpose of this essay is to relay the most significant findings, recommendations, and guidelines issued by the commission and determine how closely the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation operated within this proposed scope. The paper will identify the following three areas in detail. First, it will observe the purpose and organization of both the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission and the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation. Second, the ORRRC reports will be discussed at length. Finally, it will discuss and compare the creation and operation of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation in light of the findings and recommendations of the ORRRC.

Following World War II, Congress began to feel increasing pressure with regard to national parks and outdoor recreation in general. Demand for more and better facilities began to increase in proportion to the population, but supply had not kept up. One of the government’s first major steps in alleviating this pressure was the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Act, officially signed by President Eisenhower on June 28, 1958. The act was designed to be applicable to the widest variety of both public and private recreational interests.

The Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Act was conceived and co-authored by Joseph Penfold and Edward Crafts, who later became the first chairman of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation. The Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission’s task was “to study, evaluate, and persuade but not to compel.” By the time the commission was dissolved in 1962, it had released twenty-seven national and regional studies, some of which will be looked at within this essay. [1]

The Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission was a bipartisan commission comprised of fifteen members. Two members from each party were chosen from the Interior and Insular Affairs Committees of both the House and the Senate. The chairman of the commission was Laurance Rockefeller, who was a private citizen appointed by the President. The four Senators involved were Clinton Anderson of New Mexico, Henry Dworshak of Idaho, Henry Jackson of Washington, and Jack Miller of Iowa. The commission’s four members from the House of Representatives were as follows: John Saylor of Pennsylvania, Gracie Pfost of Idaho, Ralph Rivers of Alaska, and John Kyle of Iowa. [2]

The other six Presidential appointees were Dr. Samuel Dana, former professor in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan; Marian Dryfoos, associate director of special activities at The New York Times; Bernard Orell, vice-president at the Weyerhaeuser Company; M. Frederick Smith, vice-president at Prudential Insurance Company of America; Chester Wilson, former state commissioner of conservation in Minnesota; and Joseph Penfold, later executive director of the Izaak Walton League of America.[3]

One of the ORRRC’s first tasks was to determine a usable definition of outdoor recreation and the bounds within which it would work. They defined outdoor recreation sites, loosely, as land and water areas of the United States and her territories that currently provided or in the future would offer opportunities for outdoor recreation, regardless of public or private ownership. However, some limitations were set and exclusions made for various reasons. One reason was that some state and local governments were afraid of too much federal government involvement in local affairs. In an attempt to quell such fears, the ORRRC encouraged state and local government participation and even asked that the governors of the states appoint contact officers for federal consultation and gathering data. Major sources of outdoor recreation excluded from the ORRRC’s research were city parks and zoos, golf courses, playgrounds, and stadiums and arenas.

According to the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Act, the commission was to have three primary objectives. First, it was to establish the wants and needs of the American people regarding outdoor recreation at the present (1958), and what those wants and needs would be in 1976 and 2000. The second objective was to determine what recreation resources were available to the country to meet those needs in 1976, in 2000, and presently. The ORRRC’s charge in this capacity was to suggest and recommend programs to the President, Congress, and the states ensuring that sufficient recreational resources would be available to the public in the future. The final objective was to recommend policies and programs that would ensure that present and future needs would be sufficiently met.

In order to gather the requisite data, the ORRRC surveyed approximately sixteen thousand people. These surveys appeared in three forms. Travel studies showed characteristics of visiting populations and hoped to determine visitors’ expenditures. On-site studies were conducted at the particular recreation sites in an effort to evaluate the experiences of those surveyed. Household surveys had the advantage of being much more in depth than the previous two and gave the individual filling out the survey more time to contemplate and answer the questions. For these reasons, household surveys were quite popular. Between 1947 and 1958, thirty-eight national surveys and forty-seven state or local surveys of some recreational interest were conducted.[4]

Part 1, The Role of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission

Part 2, Creation of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation

Part 3, The Economics of Outdoor Recreation

Part 4, The ORRRC Proposes a Plan

Part 5, Legacy of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation

[1] Edwin Fitch and John Shanklin, The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970), 60.

[2] Lary Dilsaver, “Questions of Resource Management: 1957-1963,” America’s National Park System, 2.

[3]Report to the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, “ORRRC Study Report 21, Vol. III,” The Future of Outdoor Recreation in Metropolitan Regions of the United States. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1962), iv; Fitch and Shanklin, 63.

[4] Abott Ferriss, “Applications of Recreation Surveys,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 27 (Autumn 1963), 444-445.

11 Dec

Appreciate Your Practice for What It Is and What It’s Not

Posted by Jeremy W. Richter | Practice Management |

Recently, Joanna Penn was talking on her podcast about all the different things she’s tried and revenue sources she has developed over the years as a part of her writing business. She said that every year she does an analysis of the work she enjoys and finds productive and the work she needs to either delegate or abandon. Here’s the part that stuck with me though; Penn said it’s as important for her to know what the work is that she doesn’t do, as it is to recognize what she does do.

Not twelve hours before listening to that podcast episode, I had been talking with Curt Runger of Attorney Mentors who told me he had recently retained a consultant to help him make some decisions about his law practice. He felt like he was too close to things and needed an objective, experienced set of eyes to help him evaluate his business.

I started to see a theme emerge – productive and successful people put in the work to evaluate their businesses both for what it is and what it is not. What it should be and should not. Sometimes culling out those areas of our practices that either we do not enjoy or do not do well is as important as maintaining the successful parts of our work. We cannot be all things to all people, and to attempt to do so puts undue strain on us and limits the time we have to serve our clients well.

It is easy for us (and by us I mean me) to look around at our peers and think, real lawyers do that kind of work, not this thing I’m doing. Or my law school classmates have achieved X or been given Y recognition, but I haven’t, so I must be doing something wrong.

But the truth is that our successful is not determined by being recognized as a Super Lawyer or having seventeen different practice areas listed on your firm’s website. Your success will be determined by how you handle your business and take care of your clients. An important part of those things is doing the evaluative work to determine (and then appreciate) what your practice is and what it is not.

04 Dec

How to Feel Comfortable in Your Practice but Avoid the Dunning-Kruger Effect

Posted by Jeremy W. Richter | Practice Management |

It occurred to me one day in early October, while working on a problem no one in my firm had dealt with before, that I had just entered my seventh year of practice. And that suddenly seemed like a pretty significant amount of time. This started me on a pig trail thinking about how comfortable I am on a daily basis with my knowledge and experience levels. I was also curious about how comfortable others with similar experience levels were with their practices, so I ran a poll on Twitter and LawyerSmack, asking this question, “For those who have been practicing 6-9 years, how do you feel on a daily basis?”

Feeling Comfortable in Your Practice

The result was about what I expected. Most of us feel like by and large, we have a pretty good handle on things but sometimes need help.

Most of my work is pretty well contained within a couple of tort-related practice areas. For the last couple of years, the bulk of my practice has been defending personal and commercial auto cases. Within that line of work, I am usually comfortable and have a good grasp of the caselaw, how to evaluate cases, and how to work up and (if the client wants) try a case. But once every month or two, I’ll run across some obscure issue that forces me either to do some legal research or reach out to others in my office to see if they’ve dealt with this same issue before.

I work for other clients who write broader general liability insurance for businesses. When they come calling, I never know whether I’m going to be dealing with allegations of negligent failure to repair a tractor, a slip-and-fall, or a fire loss caused by a faulty heater. When I get one of these calls, the first thing I do is get excited – I love the variety. The next thing is to do a quick assessment of whether this is something I can handle on my own or need to bring on one of my partners with more experience dealing with these particular issues.

That said, the prideful part of me still bucks against asking for help. It tells me I can handle it on my own. But the client-oriented part jumps in and suggests that while I could probably figure things out and even get a fair result, I can’t likely do it as effectively or efficiently managing the case by myself as I could be bringing in a partner. I’ve found that clients are far more receptive to lawyers bringing in help rather than floundering around while they sort through issues and gain a proper footing.

Avoiding the Dunning-Kruger Effect

One of the most important parts of becoming an experienced practitioner is knowing what you don’t know and having the meekness to bring in additional resources. One lawyer responded to my Twitter poll: “I know what I don’t know in my cases and have enough experience to see how it will end badly, and only more work will hedge against terrible outcomes.” If you don’t have the self-awareness to see your own weaknesses, you’re likely suffering from the Dunning-Kruger Effect, wherein underperformers assess themselves at being much better at their work than they actually are. In their paper “Unskilled and Unaware of It,” Professors Dunning and Kruger expressed the following idea: “[T]he knowledge and intelligence that are required to be good at a task are often the same qualities needed to recognize that one is not good at that task—and if one lacks such knowledge and intelligence, one remains ignorant that one is not good at that task.”

There are ways to make sure you are not falling victim to sense of false confidence. Perform objective self-analysis by having something to compare yourself against. Be receptive to feedback and constructive criticism and implement proposed changes to improve your work. Make regular, purposeful efforts to educate yourself on your practice areas and stay abreast of new developments.

You can be assured of one thing though: in the practice of law, when you start to get too confident, some jury or bizarre issue or difficult client will come along to swipe your feet out from under you to bring you back down to earth a bit.

Photo by Peter Grifoni.

27 Nov

Find a Community to Help You Grow in Your Law Practice

Posted by Jeremy W. Richter | Practice Management |

“It takes a village to raise a child.” This maxim could easily be applied to lawyers. Sure you can try to go from being a baby lawyer to a adolescent lawyer to a full grown lawyer on your own. You can try doing it without a mentor to help you grow and without a community to support you. But why would you want to?

Traditional Sources of Community for Lawyers

It used to be that you were limited by geography to finding and participating in a community. Local bar associations played a huge role in the lives of many lawyers, acting as sources of referrals and collegiality. Many have continued to serve this important function, but lawyers are not limited to traditional communities like this any more.

More recently, practice-oriented organizations (like DRI and CLM for insurance defense lawyers) have provided additional avenues for growth, development, and community for lawyers. Conferences provide opportunities for lawyers to discuss common problems, learn methods of improving their practice, and meet new people. But aside from exchanges messages on a listserv or attending meetings a couple times a year, these interactions are often fairly limited. Most of us need something more consistent and readily available.

Maybe you have that among a group of friends who you can bounce ideas off of. But from what I’ve seen, most lawyers don’t. They’re daily or weekly interactions are constrained to the folks within their own firm. Or if they’re lucky, perhaps they have a mentor available to them.

Find Your Community of Lawyers

But technology has created new opportunities for networking and developing communities. Two years ago, I found a community in LawyerSmack that has been both helpful and a source of great entertainment. We have a group of people who are rooting for each other to succeed, are willing to share practice ideas, empathize with each other through family problems, and refer business to each other. It is a place where colleagues can become friends despite being separated by hundreds of miles. Here is an example of where the community helped out of the members who had career advice questions:

Matt: Hey guys – interview etiquette question and I’m curious what the LawyerSmack thoughts are. I’m interviewing for a public interest place that seems like it lines up perfectly with my interests and experience. The salary range they posted is below what I’m making now and well below what I want to make. I applied anyway and had a great phone interview and they want me to come in to meet with the director. I know I can’t accept the job at the range they listed. Originally I figured I’d go and if they really wanted me we can negotiate but my girlfriend thinks that it may come across really bad that I wasted their time with the entire process if I could never accept anything within the range they posted. Thoughts? Should I just cancel the interview?

For clarification, the range they posted was very small (5k difference between high and low) and I’m being paid about 10k more than the top of their range right now.

Nick: Unless there are some major long-term bridges being burned, you owe them no duty to cancel meeting. It’s their responsibility prior to bring you in to determine if you’re willing to work for that salary you’re not wasting their time they’re wasting their own time.

Walter: As someone who ran a non-profit for a bit (and have interviewed for a number of non-legal and legal positions) – a lot of times more $$ can be found if they really want you. That being said, I would expect that you are going to make a bit less than you are now. I don’t think you need to cancel the interview – if nothing else you can always say “The fit isn’t right given the salary” or something similar.

Matt: Got it. Yeah all of that makes sense. Thanks, guys. I wasn’t planning to cancel but wanted to check just in case if I was out of line.

Erica: Yeah I’d ask for more but be prepared for, “No.”

Keith: Yeah, no reason not to go. But you’ve also got to look out for yourself and your family. The work might be more satisfying, but if you can’t support yourself, that’s a no go.

Dan: It might be reasonable to think about telling them you can’t accept the job for less than $X – do they still want you to interview?

Matt: I was thinking about that. But I think it might come across as a little pretentious?

Jeremy: I agree with what had been posted. Go to the interview and give them the opportunity to tell you no.

Dan: The real question is why you applied to a job with a posted salary range well below what you would expect.

Kristen: Yeah. I think you go, and if you get an offer, take a day or two to think, call back and say – this is a perfect fit for me, I’d love to do it, I don’t think I can justify the financial cut, blah blah blah.

He just said why. He wants the job and hopes there’s wiggle room.

Dan: Eh, I expect the place will offer him a job, he’ll tell them their salary demands, and they’ll go, well, why’d you bother? We told you what we were paying,

Kristen: Maybe.

Jeremy: A posted salary range is always negotiable if they want you. I would not not respond to a posting because of salary

Walter: Agreed, @jeremy

Kristen: But maybe they call him back in 9 mos after it doesn’t work out with a new guy, too.

Matt: Yeah, I applied because it matched up perfectly with my experience, and I figured they’d be willing to negotiate a bit above what they posted for a perfect match. I’m not asking for double the salary or anything.

Kristen: I don’t think you need to justify that. It makes sense.

Craig: Oh, come on, @Dan, you know it’s more flexible than that.

Matt: It’s about teaching kids law and running mock trial programs and stuff, and I’ve been coaching mock trial and moot court since college, and I’m involved in multiple programs today as a volunteer. So I can’t imagine another candidate with that kind of experience also applying. I figure they might be willing to be flexible.

Dan: My suggestion was to simply inform them ahead of time of your salary expectations. Because they’ll offer you the job and then get whiplash

Kristen: I’ve been on interviews before with a posted range and then they’ve been like, “So what are your salary expectations?” [shrugs shoulders]
Anyway. Go and kill it. And if it doesn’t work out, no big deal.

Matt: Thanks everyone! This has been really helpful.

What a Community Can Do for You

The point here isn’t how great LawyerSmack is … although it is. But rather, you need a group of people around you who can help you when you have questions. Who can disagree with you and question your ideas. Who can support you. Who you can talk about whether hotdogs are sandwiches with.

We all need support, encouragement, and entertainment. Find a community of lawyers that can help you grow. Whether it’s lawyers in your practice area who are spread across the country or a diverse group of lawyers you eat lunch with weekly. And if you can’t find a group that meets your particular needs, form one.

Photo by Newfrontiers.

20 Nov

Tracking the Value of Your Billable Hours: How Much Are You Worth to Your Firm?

Posted by Jeremy W. Richter | Practice Management |

One of the major determinants for how an associate’s year-end review is going to go is how much money she made the firm. There are other things too, like how an associate is developing client and case management skills and whether the associate is developing her own book of business. But when everything is boiled down to its rawest form, partners at most firms want to know how profitable the associate is. Since an associate’s profitability is the most important thing to her employer, she should make it a priority to know this information herself. But I recommend that she not only know the information for a year-end meeting, but monitor it throughout the year.

Keeping track of your billable hours

Most of us have a pretty good idea of what our billable requirements are. But do you know how much that translates to in actual dollars? Do you know your hourly rates? Do you know what your share of the overhead is so that you can determine how profitable you are? Does your firm allow you access to this information? Since I started practicing in 2012, I have always kept thorough track of my billable time entries on a daily, monthly, and annual basis. I’m a sucker for spreadsheets, so I created a spreadsheet that would help me keep up with my time on an ongoing basis. Only recently did I realize I was missing an important column. The money column. I was not keeping track of how much money those billable hours translated to. This is important because time entries don’t always tell the whole picture.

Monitoring the value of your billable hours

Some firms allow you to write down time for attending CLEs or marketing events. If you go to an all-day CLE, you may get to write down 7.0 hours for this day. Or if you travel to Chicago to pitch a new client or building your relationship with an existing client, you write down 18.0 hours for your travel/meeting time. Your monthly hours total will still look great. But while those are essential tasks, the hours you spend doing those tasks did not earn the firm any revenue. If you are only keeping up with your time entries, like I was, you are going to miss a vital piece of information. You don’t know how much money your cumulative time is worth. In a meeting with one of the partners at my firm, we were talking about larger goals for the futures of the firm and myself, and how billables affected those things. He recommended that rather than shooting for an hourly goal each day, I have a goal to bill a particular amount of money each day. Doing so would put me in a better position to reach my goals. Because I already had a spreadsheet for my time entries, all I had to do was add a column to my spreadsheet and plug in an easy formula that would allow me every day as I entered my time to see how much money my time entries amounted to each day. [Note: Time entries and billable rate are for illustrative purposes only and do not reflect actual events].

As you can see, this is a straightforward spreadsheet. There are only five columns. The first two identify the file number and name. The third indicates the work I performed. Column D enumerates the increments of time each task took. Column E is the new column — it shows the monetary value of each task. If you’re not proficient with Microsoft Excel, here’s what the formula looks like to derive that value: =sum([insert cell value here]*[insert hourly rate here]). Here’s the sample: =sum(d4*200).

The importance of knowing your revenue generation

Your value to your firm is directly tied to how much revenue you generate. I assure you that your firm knows how much money you’re making them. If you want to be on equal footing at your year-end meeting or if you want to advocate for a raise, you need documentation to substantiate your position. You may be like me and be at a firm that treats you well and have people around you who are interested in your well-being, but that comfort level is not a good reason to be unknowledgeable about the business side of things. If your firm has goals for you or you have goals for yourself, the best way to make sure you are moving toward accomplishing those goals is to regularly monitor your progress. Keeping track of the monetary value of your billable hours is one of the most effective ways to monitor your profitability and position yourself for success within your firm.

Photo by Andy Simmons.
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15 Nov

[Appearance] Interview on The Editing Lawyer Podcast

Posted by Jeremy W. Richter | Reading & Writing |

Ben Wright, of The Editing Lawyer, interviewed me on his podcast about episode why and how I started my blog, how I turned it into a book (Building a Better Law Practice) published by the ABA, and what my plans for future books are. Actually, this was the first time I publicly discussed future books that are in various stages of outlining, brainstorming, or are about 90% completed — you can infer from that last party that I will release my second book in 2019. You can listen to our discussion here: Episode 5 – From Blog to Book.

09 Nov

[Appearance] Panel Presentation at CLM Southeast

Posted by Jeremy W. Richter | Client Management |

Professor Jennifer Romig (of Emory University School of Law and the blog Listen Like a Lawyer), Jaymi Rodgers (of Brotherhood Mutual Insurance), and I presented a panel discussion at CLM Southeast in Atlanta on the importance of listening, communication, and collaboration in managing claims. Here is the blurb about our presentation:

Jennifer Romig (Emory University Law School) will present information on the HURIER listening framework and moderate a discussion among the other panelists about how listening and collaboration affect the attorney-client relationship, case/claim management, and achieving each party’s goals and objectives for both specific cases and overall claims handling. There will also be discussion of different types of listening and how parties can demonstrate to one another they are actively listening and incorporating the other’s ideas into their work. Finally, the panel will discuss the tension and problems that can arise between insurance professionals and outside counsel when there is a failure to listen to and collaborate with one another.

06 Nov

A System for Keeping Up with Time Entries and To-Do Lists

Posted by Jeremy W. Richter | Practice Management |

Because in our line of work, time is money, I keep close track of my billable hours. I write my time entries down after each billable event. When I hear about lawyers not writing down time for a couple of days and having to go back and recreate it, I shudder. People are generally lousy judges of how long things have taken to accomplish tasks. When lawyers go back and recreate time, they are sure to overbill clients for some tasks while underbilling clients for different tasks. Not to mention the things they’ve done and forgotten about in the last 24-48 hours. Regardless of how it turns out, someone is getting cheated out of time or money.

Have a system for documenting time entries

Since my first day of practice, I have used the same method of recording my time entries. I keep a yellow 5×8 steno pad to the right of my mouse and write down every billable task as I do it. During the week, my notepad goes with me nearly everywhere, or at least anywhere I’ll be long enough to check email, answer a phone call, or write notes down. Later I enter those time entries into an Excel spreadsheet (more on that next week). My assistant then takes those spreadsheets and drops those time entries into our billing software. While redundant, my system has the benefit of having one hard copy of my billable time in case something tragic happens to our computer systems (I have every notepad that I’ve filled out dating back to 2012, and they’re moldering in some desk drawer — I feel oddly sentimental about them), as well as two digital copies of those same time entries – one in Excel and another in the billing software. There are many effective methods of keeping track of time, and I’m not advocating that mine is the best. There are new programs that will sync Siri or Alexa to billing software and allow you to dictate your time entries directly into the software. One of my partners keeps his billing software open all day on a second monitor and types up his time entries as he goes along. My point is that regardless of what method you use to record your billable time, you need to have a system you abide by that doesn’t allow you to lose unrecorded time or force you to recreate it sometime later.

Managing your to-do lists

Because my practice involves a large volume of personal auto cases, I have a lot of cases going at once. Most of these cases involve many of the same tasks in each case with little variation. I’ve written before about the spreadsheet I use for case management purposes. I use a color-coded system to identify what tasks have yet to be done, are pending, or still need to be done. For example, if I haven’t issued discovery requests yet, I’ll have a red marker over that cell. Once the discovery requests have been filed but before I received the responses, the cell will be yellow or orange (once the responses are overdue). When the written discovery is completed, those cells will be green. But there are plenty of tasks that arise that fall outside the scope of my case management spreadsheet. For these things, I have a to-do list. And I love to-do lists, mostly because I really enjoy crossing things off to-do lists. In fact, I’ve been known to put an item on a to-do list so that moments later when I complete the task, I can have the joy of crossing it off the list. I write my to-do lists on a white 5×8 steno notepad that is the sibling of the yellow notepad for time entries. Again, this is the same method I’ve used since I started practicing. As with recording billable hours, there are many methods for making to-do lists. You can use Evernote, an app on your phone, or practice management software. As technology progresses, your options for systematically managing your to-do list will also increase. However you choose to keep up with the tasks you need to accomplish to keep your practice in order, make sure to be organized and consistent. The more consistently you implement the systems you have in place to manage your practice, the more efficient you’re going to be and the less likely you are to allow important events to fall through the cracks. Your systems can be, but do not have to be, complicated — they can be as simple as having two different color notebooks that you keep attached to your hip.

Photo by Gene Wilburn.
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