Mark Levin Opinion Article: I Object to My CareerIdentifying Proper Fit Can Save Money and Time For

CHICAGO - Dec. 6, 2015 - PRLog -- I have a confession: I was an unhappy attorney.

I know, that’s fodder for a new generation of “Did you hear about the lawyer . . .” zingers, but let me take this in a different, serious direction.

Career satisfaction in the legal industry is extremely low and threatens to decline even more. The consequences of this pattern are wide reaching, affecting prospective and current students in law school, practicing attorneys, and law firms themselves.

The question is, How can this trend be reversed?

Before answering, let’s examine the landscape. Recent studies show that the top 400 law firms in the United States incur $9.5 billion in turnover costs annually and are burdened by an attorney attrition rate of higher than 17 percent.

Multiple national surveys show that approximately half of all lawyers would not choose to enter the law profession if they had to do it over again. Nearly six out of 10 lawyers leave law firms before their fifth year of practice.

Reasons for this widespread dissatisfaction vary, from long hours to stressful nature of the business, to the frequent tedium of the work itself, and a mountain of student debt that needs to be paid off.

As one of those who was not happy at all—so much so that I was looking for an exit even before learning that I had passed the bar exam—I couldn’t get my arms around how it could’ve reached this point.

After all, I had dedicated many years of my life and invested tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees.

How was my firm so convinced I was right for the job? Why did I believe that I genuinely wanted to be an attorney?

Thousands of attorneys start their careers in a similar way—grounded in a tradition that says law students and young lawyers are generalists and will fill whatever role is needed by their first employers. For many, this practice area becomes their career-long specialty.

Certainly doesn’t mean it’s the right, or even preferred, specialty.

Which brings us back to how to change the narrative—how to make sure that attorneys are doing—are enjoying—what they want to do, and that the law firms that hire them maximize that investment.

Let’s begin with a basic premise. Not every person aspiring to attend law school and enter the legal profession should do so.

This is not an indictment of anyone’s goals or commitment or intelligence. I can throw these stones because I was there.

Rather, it points to a severe lack of job fit.

For years, law students had no formal guidance on which practice area would be best for them. Once hired, young attorneys held onto their jobs regardless of whether they were a good fit, many times staying on longer than they preferred to pay down their student debt.

Inevitably, a cycle of employee unhappiness leading to attrition and costly recruitment and hiring ensued.

What’s needed are tools, utilizing data and predictive analytics, that can help those entering the law profession accurately determine their potential fit and likelihood of success. These tools can also be used by law schools to better vet students before they enroll.   As part of AttorneyAssessment.com we leveraged data from the world’s largest online attorney trait study in 2015 using similar analytics to those that help professional sports teams draft top talent. We now understand more about “fit” for the profession of law, individual practice areas and practice settings than any other individual or company in the world. We used the power of thousands of attorney trait profiles, instantly, to provide career guidance to law students and attorneys that has never before been available.

Using data that links attorney traits and career satisfaction by practice area and setting can improve the odds for an attorney’s successful career and more firms should be turning to this data and analytics to improve hiring practices at firms.

The legal industry is in serious trouble, as the costs of attorney recruiting and attrition are taking an ever-increasing toll on each firm’s bottom line. The nation’s largest law firms spend billions of dollars each year to recruit, train, and ultimately lose lawyers from their ranks.

It’s vital to reduce the high costs of turnover, both monetary and human, in the legal industry, so that a new history of career satisfaction for attorneys can be written.

 Chicago’s Mark Levin is a “recovering attorney” who spent nearly 20 years in the legal industry in roles ranging from full-time practice to managing the business of a law firm to coaching business development strategies for firms and attorneys. He is the co-founder of  AttorneyAssessment (DOT) com and ShouldIBeALawyer (DOT) Com.