Legal Research

"Does Hiring the Smartest People Hinder Client Development in Law Firms?"

This post was written by Kevin O'Keefe: "Above The Law's Elie Mystal asked in a blog post this morning, 'Does Hiring Smart People Hurt Law Firms?'

Mystal picked up on an article in National Jurist by Bill Henderson, a professor at Indiana University's Maurer School of Law, who believes law firms blindly hiring lawyers from the best law schools may be hurting law firms. (article summarized in ABA Journal online)

Lawyers need to be personable, collaborative, entrepreneurial, service oriented, and interested in contributing to the collective welfare of the law firm. Being smart isn't really all it's cracked up to be when it comes to making money. Processing information quickly and logically is great fun, but it doesn't pay any bills. You need business skills to make it work in a professional legal environment.

Henderson cited a study by Marjorie Shultz and Shelton Zedeck of the University of California at Berkeley that for law students, undergraduate GPA was negatively correlated with practical judgment, ability to see the world through the eyes of others, and developing relationships.

A chief marketing officer for a large law firm confided in me this summer that he advised firm management that the firm ought to hire some law grads from second tier law schools. The reason being..."

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Source: Real Lawyers Have Blogs, 15 November 2010. Copyright © 2010, LexBlog, reproduced with permission of the author.

Full post as published by Stark County Law Library Blawg on November 16, 2010 (boomark / email).