Lawyers Aren't Entrepreneurs: NY Times
I don't know if you had a chance to read the article "The Falling-Down Professions" in the Times on Sunday. For the most part, it was your standard I'm-a-miserable-big-firm-lawyer piece and how the legal and medical professions have lost some prestige in recent years, which doesn't affect my day-to-day life much.
What I found horribly disturbing was the premise that entrepreneurialism and autonomy can't be found in the practice of law or medicine, which I find patently untrue and a total misrepresentation of our profession.
My reaction to the article was angry enough to write a letter to Alex Williams, the journalist who wrote the article. I also copied the editor and plan to circulate it among my other journalist contacts and lawyer friends.
If you are a lawyer or doctor, please write a comment to this post describing how you are entrepreneurial and autonomous. I started the first comment to provide an example. If enough of us respond, I'll make sure the Times and Mr. Williams gets notified.
January 8, 2008
Via Federal Express
Alex Williams
The New York Times Company
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
Re: Response to “The Falling Down Professions”
Dear Mr. Williams:
I am writing in response to your article "The Falling Down Professions" published in the New York Times on Sunday, January 6, 2008, in particular, the comment that, to some lawyers, "the daily trudge serves as a constant reminder that the entrepreneur's autonomy simply can't be found in law or medicine."
I'd like to offer you an opportunity to explore a world of some of the most entrepreneurial, autonomous and competent business people I know, who also happen to be practicing lawyers.
I am a practicing corporate attorney who represents the kinds of entrepreneurs you mention in the article. I am also a former associate from a "big" New York firm, that merged into a "big" national firm, that merged into a "big" multi-national firm (I started my practice at the time of the first merger).
I am also an entrepreneur and run a business called Law Firm Incubator that provides office space and support for solo and small firm lawyers who, like me, believe it is possible to be entrepreneurial, and be autonomous, and make good money, and have quality of life, and do all this while practicing law.
In the article you mention the allure of the big reward for cashing out of the latest, greatest website. In 2007, I represented several companies who claimed they could build a social networking website that serviced college kids much better than Facebook. Before the end of the year, the management of all but one of these companies quit and got regular, unglamorous, normal-waged jobs.
Meanwhile, of all the entrepreneurial lawyers I know who started practices recently, none are out of business. The vast majority of these attorneys have thriving practices and wouldn't change anything about their chosen profession. Here are just a few of my friends:
There's Todd Duffy who is a former Greenberg Traurig associate who now runs his own boutique bankruptcy practice and gets home to see his young daughter every night before she goes to bed.
There's Paul Wilson, a former Fried Frank Lawyer who runs his own M&A practice and still makes time to sail in the regattas held every Tuesday evening in New York Harbor.
There's Yetta Kurland, one the most dynamic litigators I know with one of the biggest LGBT practices in New York, who sponsors political fundraisers and runs a successful language school, HelloWorld, in her spare time.
There's Nance Schick, an employee benefits defense lawyer who works from her home because it wastes time and money for a self-described “road warrior” to have an office. She also owns a company that makes stylish clothing and holds Day of Beauty events for people with physical limitations.
There's my law partner, Gregory Levine, who works from his home in Jackson, New Jersey most days so he can make breakfast for his three children and see them on and off the school bus. In addition to being a practicing corporate lawyer, he runs a broker dealer compliance consulting company that employs seven people and represents 60+ broker dealers.
There's my mentor and first employer, Gregory Sichenzia, who, with his small 30 lawyer firm that he founded with two friends in 1998, does more PIPE securities transactions per year than any other law firm in the country and who, in my opinion likely makes more money than most of the bankers that you mention in your article.
And then there’s the 11 lawyers who maintain offices in my Law Firm Incubator suite who love what they do, and wouldn't change a thing.
This list only scratches the surface of the amazing entrepreneurial attorneys I know, but I think you get the point.
I’m not sure whether the legal profession has any more or less prestige than it did in previous years, nor do I find this analysis relevant to my day-to-day life. For me, and I believe for most of the lawyers I mention above, prestige is not the reason we became a lawyers in the first place.
If your primary motivation for getting into a profession--whether it be law, medicine, Web, banking or consulting-- is prestige rather than doing what you are passionate about in life, no matter what the working conditions, eventually you are going to be unhappy with your choice.
What’s disconcerting about your article is that my profession has been portrayed as one where there’s no room for autonomy, entrepreneurialism or the possibility to achieve meaningful financial rewards for taking risks. That’s just not true.
For those lawyers grinding through the "daily trudge," instead of ordering luxury goods from NeimanMarcus.com on their lunch hour, if they still think they have a glimmer of passion about the law, I encourage them to visit www.RainmakerIncubator.com, a website I created to rescue these poor souls and introduce them into my world.
Sincerely,
/s/
Stephen T. Furnari
What I found horribly disturbing was the premise that entrepreneurialism and autonomy can't be found in the practice of law or medicine, which I find patently untrue and a total misrepresentation of our profession.
My reaction to the article was angry enough to write a letter to Alex Williams, the journalist who wrote the article. I also copied the editor and plan to circulate it among my other journalist contacts and lawyer friends.
If you are a lawyer or doctor, please write a comment to this post describing how you are entrepreneurial and autonomous. I started the first comment to provide an example. If enough of us respond, I'll make sure the Times and Mr. Williams gets notified.
January 8, 2008
Via Federal Express
Alex Williams
The New York Times Company
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
Re: Response to “The Falling Down Professions”
Dear Mr. Williams:
I am writing in response to your article "The Falling Down Professions" published in the New York Times on Sunday, January 6, 2008, in particular, the comment that, to some lawyers, "the daily trudge serves as a constant reminder that the entrepreneur's autonomy simply can't be found in law or medicine."
I'd like to offer you an opportunity to explore a world of some of the most entrepreneurial, autonomous and competent business people I know, who also happen to be practicing lawyers.
I am a practicing corporate attorney who represents the kinds of entrepreneurs you mention in the article. I am also a former associate from a "big" New York firm, that merged into a "big" national firm, that merged into a "big" multi-national firm (I started my practice at the time of the first merger).
I am also an entrepreneur and run a business called Law Firm Incubator that provides office space and support for solo and small firm lawyers who, like me, believe it is possible to be entrepreneurial, and be autonomous, and make good money, and have quality of life, and do all this while practicing law.
In the article you mention the allure of the big reward for cashing out of the latest, greatest website. In 2007, I represented several companies who claimed they could build a social networking website that serviced college kids much better than Facebook. Before the end of the year, the management of all but one of these companies quit and got regular, unglamorous, normal-waged jobs.
Meanwhile, of all the entrepreneurial lawyers I know who started practices recently, none are out of business. The vast majority of these attorneys have thriving practices and wouldn't change anything about their chosen profession. Here are just a few of my friends:
There's Todd Duffy who is a former Greenberg Traurig associate who now runs his own boutique bankruptcy practice and gets home to see his young daughter every night before she goes to bed.
There's Paul Wilson, a former Fried Frank Lawyer who runs his own M&A practice and still makes time to sail in the regattas held every Tuesday evening in New York Harbor.
There's Yetta Kurland, one the most dynamic litigators I know with one of the biggest LGBT practices in New York, who sponsors political fundraisers and runs a successful language school, HelloWorld, in her spare time.
There's Nance Schick, an employee benefits defense lawyer who works from her home because it wastes time and money for a self-described “road warrior” to have an office. She also owns a company that makes stylish clothing and holds Day of Beauty events for people with physical limitations.
There's my law partner, Gregory Levine, who works from his home in Jackson, New Jersey most days so he can make breakfast for his three children and see them on and off the school bus. In addition to being a practicing corporate lawyer, he runs a broker dealer compliance consulting company that employs seven people and represents 60+ broker dealers.
There's my mentor and first employer, Gregory Sichenzia, who, with his small 30 lawyer firm that he founded with two friends in 1998, does more PIPE securities transactions per year than any other law firm in the country and who, in my opinion likely makes more money than most of the bankers that you mention in your article.
And then there’s the 11 lawyers who maintain offices in my Law Firm Incubator suite who love what they do, and wouldn't change a thing.
This list only scratches the surface of the amazing entrepreneurial attorneys I know, but I think you get the point.
I’m not sure whether the legal profession has any more or less prestige than it did in previous years, nor do I find this analysis relevant to my day-to-day life. For me, and I believe for most of the lawyers I mention above, prestige is not the reason we became a lawyers in the first place.
If your primary motivation for getting into a profession--whether it be law, medicine, Web, banking or consulting-- is prestige rather than doing what you are passionate about in life, no matter what the working conditions, eventually you are going to be unhappy with your choice.
What’s disconcerting about your article is that my profession has been portrayed as one where there’s no room for autonomy, entrepreneurialism or the possibility to achieve meaningful financial rewards for taking risks. That’s just not true.
For those lawyers grinding through the "daily trudge," instead of ordering luxury goods from NeimanMarcus.com on their lunch hour, if they still think they have a glimmer of passion about the law, I encourage them to visit www.RainmakerIncubator.com, a website I created to rescue these poor souls and introduce them into my world.
Sincerely,
/s/
Stephen T. Furnari
Labels: Autonomy, Entrepreneurs, Falling Down Professions, Lawyers, NY Times
posted by LawFirmIncubator at
5:46 PM
6 Comments
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