Business Lawyer Incubator

In my continued attempt to crack the rotten egg that is BigLaw, I am designing a first-of-its-kind business lawyer incubator under my new fractional counsel practice, EnigmaTech Legal.  The program is anticipated to reduce EnigmaTech Legal’s rates to as low as $100/hour for certain work product (and even less for minority- and student-owned startups), without a dip in quality, while giving budding lawyers an alternative to the needlessly grueling BigLaw path, with compensation at or near BigLaw levels to boot.

Ask any lawyer who does not have BigLaw on their resume and they will tell you that BigLaw experience is all but a necessary qualification to land a solid in-house position.  The reasoning is that in-house lawyers do not particularly want to train incoming lawyers how to lawyer, so they rely on BigLaw to do that beforehand.  However, it’s a little known fact that BigLaw lawyers do not actually receive much in the way of organized training and mentorship.  Outside of periodic continuing education classes and ‘make-work’ when things are slow, BigLaw lawyers generally learn by sheer rote repetition.  And as I often tell my mentees, if you do anything for 60-80 hours/week, you’ll eventually get good at that thing whether you like it or not.

And let's not dismiss the very real possibility that AI will continue to eat away at the type of work that BigLaw uses to train new lawyers (e.g., due diligence, legal research, doc review). In my opinion, a return to the apprenticeship model is all but certain, so I'm getting a head start.

My ultimate goal with the incubator is to provide new law school grads and new lawyers with an alternative path, where they receive fair pay for their work, hyper-focused training, mentorship and networking opportunities.

Here’s how it would work:

New law school graduates and new lawyers would apply for a four-year incubator with EnigmaTech Legal.  If accepted, apprentices would work under my direct supervision until they are licensed, during which period clients will pay ~$100/hour for their work. And given my aversion to any sort of fee markup, I hope to structure it so that apprentices actually get paid that amount.

Once licensed, using the resources made available by my non-profit, AethraGroup, apprentices will be able to form their own independent practices as AethraGroup members, each embracing Aethra’s mission of fairness, transparency and efficiency. As independent practitioners, they would continue to work with me, but then as co-counsel to clients.  They could charge, say, $150/hour for their work.  In each case, as co-counsel, I would personally review all work that goes to clients (as co-counsel often does now under the traditional model) until the lawyer reaches the appropriate skill level.

Separately, as a consultant, I would mentor, coach and train those lawyers throughout the four-year term.  In exchange, they would pay consulting fees equal to a small percentage of their billables.

At any time, program participants can opt to seek in-house positions, which I am more than happy to support. In California, professional law corporations like EnigmaTech Legal PC are able to provide secondary services, such as lawyer placement services, which means that I can place program participants in-house, without their having to have worked 60- to 80-hour weeks for several years to get there.

If, however, they decide that staying independent is best after the four-year term, the consulting (and payments) will end, and they can simply continue practicing under the AethraGroup model (and hopefully take on their own apprentices).

What’s in it for me?  As many of you know, legal placement services typically charge placement fees equal to a new-hire's first-year compensation.  Coupled with the consulting fees, that should make up for any opportunity cost for time that I could have been spent servicing clients directly.

What’s in it for apprentices?  Billing $150/hour, an apprentice could work, for example, only 30 hours/week for clients and spend 10 hours/week in direct mentorship and focused training activities, and still earn over $200k/year (even after consulting fees).  That's right, just about what they would expect to earn in BigLaw. How’s that for work-life balance? And as each apprentice gains skills and experience, they can increase their rates accordingly. 

What’s in it for clients?  EnigmaTech Legal's rates are currently at least 50% less than comparable attorneys at BigLaw firms and neo-firms. The program would bring those rates down even further.

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-Damian