Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Edward Chick, the chief revenue officer at NopalCyber, a managed security services provider that offers outsourced cybersecurity support while seeking to democratize enterprise-level security for law firms and organizations in other sectors.

They discussed best practices to help law firm leaders identify cyber threats, mistakes that they are making with their cybersecurity protocols, how often they should test and update their cybersecurity procedures, and where to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance cybersecurity.

Ari Kaplan: Tell us about your background and your role at NopalCyber.

Edward Chick: I have been in high-tech software and services for decades. I’ve worked with SAP, IBM and Oracle. Additionally, I have experience with smaller companies, including startups, and I have successfully helped them establish a stronger presence in the marketplace. I’m passionate about assisting customers in leveraging technology and services to enhance their operations.

Ari Kaplan: What makes NopalCyber’s method of identifying and prioritizing internal and external threats unique?

Edward Chick: Cybersecurity is sometimes not seen as important as it truly is because it operates behind the scenes. Many individuals using technology or engaged in business assume that others are managing these aspects. At NopalCyber, we have observed that a lot of complexity leads organizations and business executives to categorize it as an IT issue. Therefore, our business goal is to democratize cybersecurity, making it more accessible and bringing it to the forefront of business leaders’ awareness. We aim to collaborate with IT professionals to provide them with the support and resources necessary to achieve greater success. We serve multiple industries and possess decades of experience in the legal sector and many others. What we’ve observed is that the battle continues and is becoming more severe. The value we provide is our tech stack neutrality; we work with technologies that organizations have already invested in, often heavily. Many of these technology platforms come with built-in tools, like those from Microsoft or AWS. On average, organizations use about 30 different cybersecurity-related protection tools. These organizations may encounter thousands of alerts and alarms daily, facing a ‘needle-in-a-haystack’ challenge to identify the most critical issues. They must find ways to resolve these problems and take proactive measures to prevent them from occurring. There is enormous pressure on IT, especially in the United States. At NopalCyber, we bring both expertise in the particular industries these companies operate in, such as legal, and the resources to work with all the various technologies they are employing, thereby supplementing and strengthening their security posture.

Ari Kaplan: Which assets are most critical for law firms to protect?

Edward Chick: Absolutely everything. We begin by helping individuals become more savvy in protecting their interactions with technology, such as passwords. However, many bad actors are also targeting website applications or platforms or underlying data to gain access to something valuable. In business, there are two key areas of truth: the accounting systems and the contracts they manage. These represent formal areas of substance, with legal practitioners overseeing one-half of that. The bad actors are aware of this and see legal activities as potential targets. We’ve noticed that midsize law firms often lack sufficient protections. Insurers recognize this and the cost of cyber insurance, especially in the legal field, is quite high while coverage is actually declining, meaning you pay more for less. One of NopalCyber’s added values is our ability to strengthen these companies’ postures, which can help reduce cyber insurance costs and provide better protections from insurers. Another critical factor involves regulators. Even if a specific company is not heavily regulated by, for example, the SEC, the customers they work with may be subject to regulations. Over the past six months, we’ve seen an increasing requirement from the SEC for companies to enhance their compliance. They now have a duty to report any concerns. In the legal field, because lawyers collaborate with other firms, they engage in a community of activity related to specific matters or contracts, potentially involving participants who are heavily regulated. Naturally, insurance companies are aware of this and heighten exposure due to the regulators mandating protections that the insurance companies are then expected to cover. This creates a network of interlocking dependencies, and at NopalCyber, we can significantly assist in strengthening the postures of these companies, allowing them to achieve a more favorable cost structure from their insurers and, of course, adhere better to the regulators’ requirements.

Ari Kaplan: What mistakes are law firm leaders making with their cybersecurity protocols?

Edward Chick: They’re often taking it for granted. These are competent professionals with expertise in their field, and they reasonably assume that IT has this under control. However, the fact is that IT is under tremendous pressure; the bad guys are constantly changing their strategies and tactics. We also often notice that general counsel and legal practitioners don’t offer their assistance frequently enough. They could take a leadership position by regularly reaching out to IT and asking, “How can we help? How can I prioritize the risks associated with the particular tools I’m using? How can I provide you with more information about my business activities to give IT and your chief security officers better visibility into what’s important for the business?” We’ve seen that this leadership fosters prioritization regarding budgets, costs and awareness of regulatory exposures.

Ari Kaplan: How often should law firms test and update their cybersecurity procedures?

Edward Chick: Definitely not once a year. Companies conduct annual penetration tests on their platforms or specific applications, for example, but that’s not really good enough. We’ve seen organizations increase the frequency to quarterly or even monthly. Our position is that all these aspects should be inspected 24/7. The bad guys aren’t waiting for an annual opportunity to act. Consequently, the exposures are permanent and require full-time attention. Legal professionals can play a very helpful role in drawing attention to this issue and ensuring that they stay up to date. They are trained to follow protocols for even simple tasks, like changing passwords. It is extraordinary how people take these matters for granted, and everyone assumes that someone else will be impacted, which is simply not the reality. It’s similar to any good business practice. The teams are in alliance with the rest of the organization they support; if leadership recognizes this and provides support to the individual security teams, then everyone benefits. At NopalCyber, we offer complementary services to organizations. We can manage the entire security environment for an organization or complement and support the various teams they may have in place. We view this as a proactive security posture, enabling us to identify issues before they arise because we can see much more than an individual firm might perceive. We play a critical role in providing early warnings about things they might not be aware of from an offensive security perspective, and we can provide the necessary assistance for defense. Some organizations are uncertain about their security standing, and we help them gain clarity on their position. We conduct something called “attack surface discovery,” which produces an analysis from an outside-in perspective without any privileged access to show what an organization looks like from a potential hacker’s viewpoint. We can share those results, and when we do engage, we leverage the tools they already have while streamlining all the alerts into a single ‘pane of glass.’ With our reporting tool, Nopal360, we make this accessible on desktops and mobile devices 24/7. The best practice is to always have these protections in place, maintain awareness of potential attack sources, and act quickly and effectively. Legal professionals who understand their own personal liability as lawyers, as well as the company’s exposure from a risk management standpoint, can be immensely helpful allies in this overall strengthening of security posture.

Ari Kaplan: How can legal organizations utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to strengthen their cybersecurity?

Edward Chick: Virtually every law firm and legal practitioner worldwide is now aware of the benefits of various AI tools. I entered this space relatively early at IBM, engaging with legal applications using Watson over a decade ago, and I have seen remarkable results. Major benefits arise from leveraging AI, and the pace of advancement is accelerating; however, it also introduces certain risks. Malicious actors are using AI for hacking and exposing various cyber vulnerabilities. Moreover, employing AI often involves integrating data from large language models or utilizing third-party tools, which may require inputting sensitive information into these external systems that may not be entirely secure. Since lawyers and legal practitioners play an incredibly important role within an organization, they inadvertently raise risks associated with the use of AI, as these systems are often federated and rely on tools and data sources from outside to achieve business results, potentially exposing them to further risks. A key part of our mission at NopalCyber is to strengthen this posture and instill confidence in legal practitioners, so they can reap the benefits of these new tools while ensuring they do not create additional vulnerabilities. Our stance is to engage with these new innovations enthusiastically, embrace the benefits they offer—but with a vigilant awareness of cybersecurity realities.

Ari Kaplan: How does focusing on cybersecurity enable law firms to foster innovation?

Edward Chick: This will enable them to be more experimental and try various approaches. They should view cybersecurity exposure as a crucial aspect of engaging in innovation. Cybersecurity is essential to ensure that you’re prepared to embrace new innovations.

Ari Kaplan: How do you see cybersecurity evolving?

Edward Chick: It’s constantly changing every day, every hour, and trying to handle all this by yourself is truly challenging. The bad actors recognize that midsize firms don’t have the resources to manage this effectively. Our business value proposition is to assist those organizations in achieving a stronger security posture in a cost-effective manner that they would typically be unlikely to accomplish on their own, allowing them to focus on their core business. They should concentrate on what they excel at. Another critical aspect is engaging with their clients. It’s a good practice to initiate discussions with clients by stating that everything they’re going to do for that client incorporates cybersecurity awareness. Legal practitioners often lack knowledge about cybersecurity and don’t address it. However, if they become more informed and bring it up during their client interactions, we’ve seen that it significantly enhances engagement. It fosters trust, which is essential in the legal community. We see our role as helping organizations strengthen their relationships with customers, especially when acquiring new clients, as well as enhancing the existing portfolio of customers, some of whom they’ve served for decades. We’ve observed an engagement model where they reconnect with their clients and present the realities of cybersecurity in a way that they haven’t done before it resonates very well. This is part of a broader customer care journey and is quite powerful.

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Listen to the complete interview at Reinventing Professionals.

Ari Kaplan regularly interviews leaders in the legal industry and in the broader professional services community to share perspective, highlight transformative change and introduce new technology at his blog and on iTunes.

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

Educators and students preparing to begin a new semester can make good use of lessons about leadership and purposeful service that can be gleaned from the beautiful life of former President James Earl “Jimmy” Carter. That is especially so for law school communities for at least two reasons.

First, although lawyers are a tiny fraction of the population (0.4% nationally according to the ABA, four for every 1,000 people), they have always achieved a disproportionately large presence in public and private sector leadership roles. Accordingly, U.S. law schools are focusing on how best to prepare students for leadership roles. Carter’s life is a rich case study of the virtues of civility, collaboration and cooperation that the ABA has identified as hallmarks of professionalism.

Second, with the privileges of our honorable profession come public responsibilities. We can use our knowledge and skills to do well, but we a requirement of our law licenses is to strive to do good, as well, through pro bono work and other selfless service. Carter’s relentless determination to make the world better for others is a shining beacon for aspiring lawyers to follow.

Amid a constant barrage of disturbing news, even the gloomiest short days and long dark nights of this new year are brightened by remembering Carter.

Understandably and appropriately, people everywhere are discussing the lessons of Carter’s life. He deserves recognition for being a good and decent man committed to unwavering public service to his country and people all over the world. Perhaps he will be remembered most and longest for what he taught us about how to work and live.

In retrospect, the restless striving that helped clear his improbable untrod path—from the farmland of a small town in Georgia to commanding a nuclear submarine, from the statehouse in Georgia as a contrarian anti-segregation governor to the White House, followed by four decades as the most stubbornly impactful humanitarian on the planet—was driven by hard work, perseverance in the face of setbacks, strength of character, and virtue grounded in the universal code of conduct that he drew from his faith. These are qualities that serve any law student and lawyer well.

Historians, in my opinion, are likely to agree with former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who chaffed when people described her husband as the greatest former president. She often would correct them by pointing out that he was an excellent president, as well. Actually, we got two terms of work out of Carter during his single term.

A few days after he was sworn in, Carter moved to heal old wounds. He granted complete amnesty to Vietnam draft evaders, and his daughter Amy began fourth grade in a historic Black public elementary school a few blocks from the White House. He successfully pursued the Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt (which stand to this day), the Panama Canal treaties and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II.

Working with Congress, he established the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, sought and signed legislation limiting strip mining, and created the vast Arctic Refuge while doubling the land dedicated to national parks and wildlife preserves. Carter wrestled with “stagflation;” energy crises; the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor disaster; the Nicaraguan revolution; the end of détente and the renewed Cold War over the Soviets invasion of Afghanistan, which precipitated embargoes and the boycott of the 1980 summer Olympics in Moscow; and, of course, the Iranian hostage crises and disastrous failed rescue attempt.

On Jan. 20, 1977, during Carter’s inauguration, my wife, Marla, and I somehow wormed our way into the front row of the enormous crowd lining the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route. Unabated patriotism and pride from the recent bicentennial observances bolstered the collective sense of relief and expectation for Carter’s presidency in those post-Watergate days, when the country also was still pained by the fractures of the Cold War, the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.

Suddenly, the new president’s long black bullet-proof limousine stopped right in front of us. Carter and his beloved, Rosalynn, got out and a started walking hand in hand toward the White House. He flashed his signature toothy grin and waved, and the crowd roared its delighted approval. Every single person among the thousands there felt as if Carter was waving and smiling at each of them. Now, an inaugural stroll has become an obligatory (and carefully orchestrated) ritual, like routinely recognizing special guests in the balcony seats at the State of the Union speech. In 1977, it was a spontaneous joyful brave gesture.

Carter was then, and always, an American original, an uncommon man with an innate genuine common touch. A teacher.

After Carter lost the 1980 presidential election in a landslide to former President Ronald Reagan, the Carters devoted themselves energetically to a life of service to others, including work in communities building housing for less-advantaged Americans; humanitarian and social good works at home and abroad, such as monitoring elections; and advocating for environmental protection, peace and world health causes. He even is credited with eradicating a 3-foot-long Guinea worm parasite that each year preyed on millions of people in Africa and Asia.

The Carters remained true to their humble mission, even as accolades like the Nobel Peace Prize piled up, along with unusual honors, such as having a naval ship and a fish species named after Carter. Throughout it all, he taught Sunday school deep into his 90s. Practicing what he preached, he leveraged his fame not for profit but to advocate human rights and love for his neighbors in hot spots all over the world courageously and often controversially.

On Aug. 25, 2009, news of the death of my former boss, U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, reached us on our mobile phones just before the flight attendants secured the door for a long flight home from a trip to Israel. We had been talking about Kennedy’s failing health the previous evening at dinner in the lovely gardens of the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem.

At that dinner, Carter and Rosalynn were, to our surprise, enjoying a quiet meal a few tables away. We asked the headwaiter to deliver a note thanking them for their continuing public service. Carter’s unexpected return note was extraordinarily gracious.

As we continued our dinner, we recounted the bitter Democratic Party presidential primary fight in 1980 between Carter and Kennedy. We especially recalled the awkward moment on the convention stage when, after Carter secured the nomination, he unsuccessfully tried to get Kennedy to shake hands and pose together. It must have been painfully embarrassing for the sitting president to unsuccessfully chase the iconic senator around the convention stage for a photo op of unity that never happened. But Carter tried.

Poignantly, after we landed in Philadelphia, as we walked through the concourse, the first voice we heard on an airport television, delivering a touching elegy for Kennedy, was Carter, speaking via satellite link from Israel. We cried.

The respectful attention deservedly being paid to Carter’s remarkable life and career provides us with a powerful teaching moment. Not a bad lesson for law students and lawyers from a life well lived by a great teacher.

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Nicholas W. Allard is the founding Randall C. Berg Jr. dean of the Jacksonville University College of Law in Florida and previously was the president and dean of the Brooklyn Law School in New York. Allard has worked as the chair of the ABA Standing Committee on the Law Library of Congress, as the chair of its Communications Committee, as a member of the ABA Government Relations Committee, and as a member of its Task Force on Lobbying Reform.

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ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

For far too long, legal departments have been considered the slow-moving arm of the business. This presumption is true for many reasons—chief among them the fact that the legal department’s primary role is to balance risk with opportunity. Such responsibility often requires endless hours spent analyzing massive amounts of contract data to forecast potential gains and minimize losses.

But with the advent of generative AI, many processes that slowed down the legal arm of the business can be rapidly accelerated, especially when it comes to an organization’s contract data analysis and management systems. In fact, now that our industry has a much clearer vision of what generative AI can do—and how it can improve contract management workflows—tedious routine tasks that previously took up an exorbitant amount of time can be completed in a matter of minutes. These advancements have major implications for the legal department and its impact on the rest of the organization.

As we begin 2025, three emerging trends point to a future where legal teams will have the insights they need to play an integral role in their organization’s revenue goals. Here’s a look at how these shifts will transform legal work, freeing legal leaders from redundant, time-consuming tasks to focus on big-picture strategies.

1. Modern-day legal teams will be more agile, allowing them to move at the new speed of business

Generative AI has ushered in a new era of contract management strategies. With the right solutions in place, legal teams can become more agile and effective, supercharging productivity in ways that were unimaginable less than two years ago. But before legal teams can take advantage of generative AI solutions that are actually useful versus just being cool, business leaders must be more thoughtful about their AI investments and implementations.

It’s imperative businesses understand and lean into effective data grounding efforts to avoid “garbage in, garbage out” scenarios often associated with the large language models powering today’s more popular generative AI platforms. Data grounding will be a key factor in generative AI’s ability to deliver accurate and high-value outputs within contract management programs. Once teams are able to prioritize their data grounding efforts, tasks that took months to accomplish will be completed in minutes. Generating first drafts, writing clauses based on playbook analysis, searching endlessly for contracts that are often kept in disparate systems—these are just a few use cases where generative AI will drive productivity across legal workflows and processes.

2. Contract data will be recognized as a business-critical asset, unlocking unrealized revenue gains and new levels of growth

Contract data is not only the key to unlocking cost-saving opportunities, it is also one of the largest sources of untapped revenue for organizations that haven’t optimized their contract management programs. From identifying revenue leakage and overspending on vendors to developing more profitable contract provisions and renewal terms, there are a multitude of ways that contract data can drive massive revenue gains. Unfortunately, most CLM platforms fail to provide high-value insights that can move the needle on their organization’s most important goals.

But the tides are turning. Effective enterprise-grade contract AI solutions are changing the game when it comes to how legal teams leverage their contract data. With full visibility into their contracts—along with tools that can automate complex data analysis—forward-thinking legal teams will be able to realize the organization’s contracts as the business-critical asset they are.

Before legal teams can maximize the value of their contract data, it’s imperative that their contract management solutions come equipped with a contract-AI knowledge engine to avoid the “garbage-in, garbage-out” challenges often associated with generative AI tools. It is also important that CLM software includes an AI-powered repository that enables legal teams to expertly organize their contracts and extract key insights from a centralized—and searchable—database. Another key component of an effective contract management platform is ensuring it is not only intuitive, but accessible to stakeholders outside of the legal department, including sales leaders, finance teams, and the procurement department.

3. Enterprise-grade contract AI will allow legal leaders to achieve outcomes that go far beyond the legal department

The introduction of enterprise-grade contract AI technology makes it possible to extend the value of contract data well beyond the legal department. With the right platforms in place, sales, procurement and finance teams will gain access to previously unavailable contract insights that get them closer to their most important goals. Legal teams can turn contract data into revenue drivers, while procurement teams can better manage vendor relationships. Sales can optimize renewal terms within customer contracts and close deals faster, while finance leaders can rely on contract data to identify cost saving opportunities, as well as find—and stop!—revenue leakage.

The reality is now that legal leaders have a more realistic view of generative AI’s capabilities and limitations, they are better positioned to implement processes that maximize the value of their contract data.

One key benefit of the modern-day legal departments will be the ability to create self-service contract management solutions that can be used by business leaders outside of the legal department, including the CFO and head of sales. And that’s the real promise of enterprise-grade contract AI: delivering unhindered access to valuable contract data to the people who can activate it and drive measurable revenue growth.

There’s no question that the future of legal work is undergoing massive shifts. Legal leaders are reconsidering how work gets done and being more intentional about how they integrate generative AI solutions into their workflows. For the teams that are able to capitalize on these shifts—finally able to take full advantage of their contract data—the sky is the limit.

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Justin Schweisberger leads sales, marketing and strategic partnerships for Pramata, a leading end-to-end contract management platform. In this role, Schweisberger sets the company’s global market positioning and forges Pramata’s relationships with some of the world’s top brands.

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Mind Your Business is a series of columns written by lawyers, legal professionals and others within the legal industry. The purpose of these columns is to offer practical guidance for attorneys on how to run their practices, provide information about the latest trends in legal technology and how it can help lawyers work more efficiently, and strategies for building a thriving business.

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Interested in contributing a column? Send a query to [email protected].

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

As we reflect on our journeys through the legal profession, one theme emerges: the power of mentorship, particularly female mentorship. The power of female mentorship cannot be overstated, as it can play a critical role in transforming a talented yet uncertain junior attorney into a highly skilled and autonomous senior attorney.

Female mentorship is also a mutually beneficial relationship that encourages growth, resilience and dedication relative to navigating the challenges of a demanding profession. While women have been graduating from law school in equal or greater numbers to men for years, there is still a gender disparity among practicing lawyers beyond the associate level, and it grows wider with seniority.

Hallmarks of mentorship

One of the key hallmarks of a successful mentor-mentee relationship is an unwavering commitment by the mentor to nurture talent, foster professional growth and provide comprehensive support to the mentee—professionally and personally. Truly successful mentor-mentee relationships are built on a foundation of inclusivity and respect—not unbalanced power.

As the ABA has noted, the higher you look in the legal profession, the greater the gender disparity. In 2021, the ABA issued a report examining the reasons behind the exodus of senior women from the legal profession.

This report examined the challenges faced by senior female attorneys. While the report examined several factors, most notable for this article is isolation and the billable hour and its negative impact on relationship building. In the post-pandemic world, it is harder than ever to connect with colleagues and teammates.

Real-world mentorship

We have been mentor-mentees since 2019. Annie had just returned from her second parenting leave and was navigating the challenges of being a litigator with two children when she first began working with Tonya. Tonya, also a mother of two, had just expanded a client relationship and needed support in a new geographical region where Annie was admitted to the bar. Over the coming months, our relationship evolved from supervising attorney and midlevel associate into one of mentor-mentee.

During the pandemic, balancing work and child care became particularly challenging for working parents, and we worked late nights to accommodate the needs of our clients. For example, during emergencies with tight deadlines, such as preliminary injunction hearings, we never left one another to handle the workload alone. Instead, we would stay up and handle the task at hand, even if it meant staying up until 3 a.m.

We think that this leadership approach makes a significant difference. Knowing that someone else is in the trenches with you makes the work more bearable and motivates everyone to give their best effort. If you’re going to ask someone to take on an unenjoyable task, especially one that will require working all weekend or late into the night, it’s crucial to show that you’re willing to do it with them. It builds trust and loyalty and shows much-needed support.

Mentor-mentee relationships should be considered strategic partnerships. The more that a mentor invests in a mentee, the greater the payout is for both parties. Over the course of our mentorship, Tonya has spent countless hours counseling Annie on navigating difficult professional scenarios, such as unconscious bias and sexist comments at a previous law firm and positive professional transitions into a senior associate and a new firm.

Tonya has advocated tirelessly for Annie to have a seat at the table, including pitching client work, presenting in webinars and serving in a client-facing role. But it is not just Annie who has benefited. As Annie has become more senior, Tonya has gained a valuable first lieutenant on her team.

Evolving mentorship

We have seen firsthand how mentorship is professionally rewarding and deeply inspiring, which is why we think that others can find tremendous benefits. In a successful relationship, a mentee is given the opportunity to observe the mentor’s ability to balance their role as a top attorney and a supportive mentor.

This includes studying how a mentor treats their mentees as equals, respecting their opinions and encouraging healthy dialogue. Over time, a respectful and inclusive mentorship has the potential to have a profound impact upon a mentee.

One of the biggest challenges that we’ve faced is navigating the perceptions and expectations of others in the legal profession. Over time, we’ve encountered situations where others attempted to define our practices, identities and career trajectories based on their assumptions of us, rather than our knowledge and skill set.

It is crucial for us to believe in the value that we bring, even if it doesn’t align with someone else’s perception or fit neatly into predetermined boxes. Building a team, including mentees who understand their mentor’s leadership style, helps to create a supportive environment where everyone’s contributions are valued, and each team member has the opportunity to pursue their career goals.

An empowered mentee has learned the skills to continue the cycle by becoming a mentor to more junior attorneys. The mentee-turned-mentor will be focused on not just professional growth but also building a supportive and collaborative community within the legal practice.

Going forward, the mentorship triad will continue to thrive and grow. With each new attorney added to the mentorship, new skill sets and perspectives are gained, offering new opportunities for personal and professional growth and evolution.

Successful mentorship

Mentorship is more than teaching someone how to draft a brief or win a case. It is about empowering women to have a voice in a room where they are often outnumbered, to trust their instincts and to aspire to leadership positions.

We think that strong female mentorship can play a key role in the continued growth and equality in the legal industry. A junior female attorney benefits immensely from observing strong female leadership, recognizing their potential and evolving over time to mentor those more junior to her.

For more senior attorneys, there is an opportunity to impart legal knowledge and helpful wisdom garnered through years of practice and to learn from their more junior colleagues as they navigate the complexities of ethical dilemmas and professional challenges. Ever-evolving mentorship provides a nurturing environment for growth and development for mentors and mentees.

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Anne V. Dunne, a litigation associate in Greenberg Traurig’s Boston office, focuses her practice on commercial litigation, concentrating on financial services, class action defense, government investigations and whistleblower litigation. Tonya M. Esposito, a shareholder in Greenberg Traurig’s litigation practice, focuses on a variety of consumer issues, including financial services, antitrust and marketing and advertising.

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ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

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These law firms are tops for midlevel associate satisfaction; how were their tech ratings?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 5, 2024, 12:02 pm CDT

BigLaw’s midlevel associates have spoken. The top law firm for midlevel associate satisfaction is O’Melveny & Myers, according to results from the American Lawyer’s 2024 Midlevel Associates Survey published by Law.com.

“We’re given a lot of autonomy over our assignments, which means we can take more ownership over the final product and our schedules,” said one O’Melveny associate whose comments were published in another Law.com article. “It’s also a ‘mature’ firm, in that everyone understands, expects, and respects the fact we have lives and obligations beyond the firm.”

O’Melveny was also near the top in the 2024 Midlevel Associate Tech Survey, receiving a No. 2 ranking, according to Law.com. Indeed, the five firms on top for overall associate satisfaction also had high technology ratings.

The satisfaction and tech surveys were sent to BigLaw associates in their third, fourth and fifth years at 72 firms.

The satisfaction rankings consider 12 factors, including compensation, training and guidance, relationships with colleagues, work satisfaction, billable-hours policies and management transparency.

The top five firms on the midlevel associate satisfaction list, along with their tech rankings, are:

1. O’Melveny & Myers, ranked No. 2 for tech
2. Blank Rome, ranked No. 1 for tech
3. Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, ranked No. 3 for tech
4. McDermott Will & Emery, ranked No. 4 for tech
5. Proskauer Rose, ranked No. 20 for tech

The fifth-ranked firm for tech, Baker & Hostetler, was ranked No. 9 for overall associate satisfaction.

Steptoe was in last place for overall associate satisfaction, while Covington & Burling was ranked last for tech.

One Steptoe associate complained about a failure to set expectations and provide constructive feedback. Covington associates complained that its tech is “abysmal” and “is still quite poor for a firm of its size.”

Will Drake, Steptoe’s professional development committee co-chair, told Law.com in a statement that the firm is committed to “cultivating an environment where our associates can thrive.” The firm’s recent efforts included a summer associate retreat, focus groups, one-on-one sessions and a new talent team, he told the publication.

Covington did not respond to Law.com’s request for comment. One associate said the firm attributed its poor showing to a low response rate to the survey.

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have a law school class on networking, business development or client service. Even during my time as a law firm associate, training on these professional skills was informal (at best) but mostly observational as I listened on speakerphone or sat quietly at a client lunch while the partner carried the conversations. There was no structured training in these essential business skills.

But we all know that having a professional network is essential to doing almost any job (especially when you are a general counsel). It is impossible for any one lawyer to know all areas of the law that might come across your desk.

At best, in-house lawyers are astute issue spotters. I tell clients that my expertise is “an inch deep and a mile wide.” I do not have the luxury of being expert in many areas. Surely, I have subject matter expertise in a few, but for the most part, my job as a chief legal officer is air traffic control: seeing the plane and routing it to the correct runway—to someone I know will know the answer.

After years of struggling to overcome the need to know everything, I finally relax when I say: “I’m not sure, but let me look into it and get back to you.”

So how does a busy general counsel know where to route the incoming planes? Basically, you have to know people. The “N-word”—networking—which often makes people recoil, is table stakes for any in-house role.

Networking conjures thoughts of being in a crowded cocktail party, awkwardly scanning the room for anyone we might have a remote connection with, business cards burning a hole in our pockets. But having a network or connections, as I prefer to think of it, is essential to your job as air traffic control. You have to know who to call. So how do you build a network outside those uncomfortable cocktail parties?

I used to have a playbook for that. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I had a personal rule that became an expectation for my legal team: three networking contacts each week. Not three awkward cocktail parties; rather, three touch points with clients, colleagues or others—a phone call, a coffee date or a conference. And if you attended an event, I expected folks to return with at least three business cards of people they met.

Then in 2020, I moved my family from Los Angeles, where I had spent my entire legal career, to Santa Barbara, California, where my husband and I had long yearned to land after many years wine tasting in the lovely Santa Ynez Valley.

Painfully beautiful, relaxed and yet cosmopolitan, it attracts international visitors, celebrities and even royalty. But we moved during the pandemic, and I struggled to find other professionals outside my company. Everyone wears flip-flops here—how do you spot the lawyers?

What does one do when there are no conferences, and restaurants are shut down and no one wants to meet in person for fear of catching a deadly virus? Like more than 80 million people worldwide, I listen to podcasts. They are a window into many worlds or learning and connection. After recording a podcast interview for the Portia Project with M.C. Sungaila, I was struck at how we had formed a deep connection after only a brief conversation.

This feeling stuck with me for months, and I reached out to her to ask how she had gotten started. This led to several months of research, interviewing production companies, listening to podcasts about creating a podcast, reading articles and reviews of podcast equipment, and plenty of soul searching.

In my interviews with producers, they all asked me the same question: “Why do you want to start a podcast?” This question struck me as odd—why did they care why I wanted to start a podcast? Didn’t they just want to sell me production services? Why did they care about my “why”? Well, it turns out that the “why” matters. If you’re trying to sell something, promote yourself or align with a brand, a company or anything else, the podcast should be designed intentionally.

After many months of research and reflection, I honed my “why” to three words: learn, connect and grow. First, I wanted to learn from others—about technical legal issues but also about legal operations and professional development. How could I become the best general counsel I can be?

Second, I was hungry for connection (see above). After three years of social distance, I wanted desperately to restart my “rule of three” networking approach.

Finally, I wanted growth. I’ve learned that I am someone who craves progress. By connecting with others and learning from their experience, I was sure that I would continue to grow personally and professionally. And I wanted to share this with others.

As I round the bend on the first season of The Legal Department podcast and reflect on the 20 episodes that we’ve produced, I am grateful that I was pushed to find the “why.” That’s how I know what I want the audience to get out of each show.

The Legal Department podcast is a show for lawyers who want to learn, connect and grow their career. It features conversations with legal executives, professional development experts and other thought leaders who share real world advice to help in-house lawyers level up. I hope you’ll check it out.

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Stacy Bratcher is senior vice president and chief legal officer of a health system in California. She spent most of her career as an in-house attorney and thinks that having a professional network is key to success in-house. She is the host and creator of The Legal Department podcast, which is available on Apple, Spotify or almost anywhere you find podcasts. For more information, go to LegalDepartmentPod.com.

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ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

As a law professor, one of the most rewarding parts of my job is helping students navigate their burgeoning legal careers and find positions that bring professional satisfaction and success. I am always delighted when students appear in my office with an offer in hand or a story about an amazing case that they worked on over the summer.

Correspondingly, one of the worst parts of my job is witnessing the disappointment, embarrassment and uncertainty that students face when a hoped-for offer doesn’t arrive, a job doesn’t work out, or something goes wrong at an internship or summer placement.

While my students have found professional success in a wide variety of settings—large law firms, small firms, nonprofits, government agencies, courts, etc.—I have been highly troubled by the number of students who have been subjected to hiring and employment practices at small firms that I would describe as unethical at best and deceptive and exploitative at worst.

Here are just a few examples from my 11 years as a professor at law schools in three states (with superficial details changed to protect the privacy of the students involved).

  • A student who, after working for two summers at a small firm, was offered a “three-phase employment plan,” in which the firm offered to (1) pay her a (very) low salary for her first three months, (2) the same salary for the next three months on the condition that she generate an equivalent amount of revenue or pay back the difference, and then (3) stop paying her a salary from the sixth month onward but charge her a fee to use the firm’s printer. The hiring partner told her that she should plan to have developed her own book of business by that point.

  • A small firm that hired multiple summer associates with the promise that everyone would receive offers of permanent employment at the end of the summer. After putting in long hours for the next three months, every summer associate except the hiring partner’s son and a prominent potential client’s daughter were told that they would not be receiving the offers of which they had been assured.

  • A student who received an offer from a small firm that wanted him to open a branch office in another town completely on his own. The firm offered to pay him $40,000per year and give him a stack of law books that it had purchased from a recent library closure but noted that he would have to pay for his own insurance and his own subscription to online legal research service Westlaw. When the student pushed back, the firm agreed to raise the offer to $60,000 per year and promised that, eventually, he would earn back some amount of the additional revenue that he generated at a percentage to be negotiated later.

In addition to other such troubling examples, I have frequently witnessed 2Ls and 3Ls performing significant amounts of unpaid or low-paid work at small firms during the semester. These students sometimes struggle to keep up with their classes and the demands of their supervising attorneys.

Many of those students, moreover, never receive offers from those firms and are left scrambling to find other permanent employment near graduation. Meanwhile, my sense is that these firms see no problem with such outcomes and instead commend themselves for having given students an opportunity to gain experience.

In some of these situations, the attorneys involved may have been overwhelmed by hefty workloads or truly miscalculated the hiring and supervisory capacities of their small firms. They may also have been out of touch with the current legal market and reasonable compensation ranges.

In others, I think that such firms have purposely exploited law students, extracting considerable amounts of work from them while dangling the prospect of long-term employment that they know they will never be able to offer. Finding a law student to intern is indeed a cheaper option than hiring another attorney, paralegal or assistant.

I am sympathetic to the unique workload and economic challenges faced by small firms. I am also aware that such firms can—and very often do—offer law students opportunities that larger firms cannot: opportunities to perform more significant legal work earlier in their careers.

I have had scores of law students find immensely satisfying employment at small firms and even start their own. Additionally, local small firm attorneys are often some of the most supportive and engaged alums that law schools have.

But I also think that the lack of transparency surrounding small firm hiring increases the risk of unsavory employment practices—a risk that law schools, the bar and small firms themselves should work to reduce.

Unlike large firms, which typically compensate associates in a given region similarly and whose hiring and compensation practices frequently find exposure on sites like Above the Law, small firms vary enormously and are often black boxes with respect to compensation. Law students understandably struggle to determine whether an offer from a small firm is a fair one and often don’t yet have the experience to know when a term of employment is unusual or objectionable.

The common issues with large firms are well known and widely discussed: grueling hours, difficult partners and high attrition, particularly among women and people of color. I worry, however, that in our profession’s very laudable efforts to improve the workplace at big firms, small firms have largely escaped scrutiny.

Worse, the attention on big firms seems to have created a mythology in the minds of many law students that working for large firms necessarily entails high compensation in exchange for terrible hours and poor treatment, whereas small firms are their gentler, more family-friendly—though lower-paying—alternatives. Experienced members of our profession know that to be a false dichotomy, but law students may not.

To combat these issues, law schools have to offer students closer guidance in contemplating job offers from small firms. They should keep track of which firms engage in dubious employment practices and caution students away from them. Law schools also have to teach law students how to do due diligence before accepting a job. Schools should encourage students to research how other small firms in the area are compensating attorneys doing similar work, check the disciplinary history of the lawyers at the firm, and ask tactful but thoughtful questions about the firm’s finances.

State bars should take a more active role in monitoring the employment practices of small firms and whether such firms are providing adequate supervision of law student interns. State bars should also provide more CLE opportunities designed to ensure that small firm attorneys are up to date on employment laws, ethical hiring standards and current norms in compensation.

Finally, small firms have to engage in careful self-reflection before hiring law students. They should not hire law students whom they cannot adequately supervise or fairly compensate. Additionally, they should be as transparent and upfront as possible with students about the possibility of future employment.

While having law student interns is undoubtedly helpful, particularly if a firm is struggling under the weight of a daunting caseload or financial uncertainty, the risks inherent in small firm practice should not be borne by some of the most vulnerable members of our profession.

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Tracy Hresko Pearl is professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. She researches and writes in the areas of law and technology, criminal procedure and torts. Before becoming an academic, she was an associate at Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C., and a law clerk for judges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Denver.

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ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

“It’s never going to go well,” Arizona attorney Lynda C. Shely says about the prospect of representing anyone you are close to, including family members and friends. Shely, the immediate past chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, works in private practice and has advised more than 2,500 law firms around the country on legal ethics matters.

“What friends and family don’t understand is just giving them a little bit of advice creates an attorney-client relationship,” Shely says. “And a young lawyer can be sued if the advice they give is wrong.”

A friend or family member asking for legal advice can make for a complicated situation, especially because “young lawyers typically want to flex the knowledge they learned from law school or from their limited time as a lawyer,” says Khasim Lockhart, an associate at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz in New York, whose focus areas include legal ethics and professional responsibility.

The risks of giving legal advice in these situations

The possibility of inadvertently creating an attorney-client relationship is a very real risk.

“When you start giving advice about how to deal with somebody’s particular legal problem and not just giving referrals to sources of assistance, the risk is that you are going to inadvertently create a lawyer-client relationship—because the person is going to understand you are giving them assistance about their particular problem that they can rely on,” says Bruce A. Green, the Louis Stein chair at the Fordham University School of Law, where he directs the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics. Green is the current chair of the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility.

This may violate your duty of competence if it relates to something outside your realm of expertise under Model Rule 1.1 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

“As a young lawyer, you want to be helpful to anyone, especially family members, but at the same time, the biggest risk from helping family members is that a lawyer can end up dabbling,” Lockhart says. “What I mean by dabbling is a lawyer having limited involvement in a subject matter and giving a few pieces of advice based on general knowledge from law school or a random case they read while simultaneously trying to avoid fully engaging in the matter. But even five minutes of advice can be truly damaging.”

Ethical duties and the possibility of a malpractice claim

Shely says young lawyers should understand that even if they think they are giving just “a little bit of advice,” say on the sidelines of their kids’ soccer game to another parent, the lawyer would likely be required to put that contact in their firm’s database as a potential client and a potential conflict under Model Rule 1.18 and pursuant to their local rules that cover duties to prospective clients.

In addition to the risk of losing a friend after offering bad legal advice, a young lawyer could also be sued for malpractice.

“It happens all the time,” Shely says. “And that’s not a debt you want to take on along with student loans.” Even where your firm might have malpractice insurance, if you provide advice outside the scope of your job, it may not be covered.

How to respond when a friend or family member asks for legal advice

So what is a young lawyer who specializes in labor and employment law supposed to do when a family member comes to them with a criminal defense issue?

The best thing to do is be straightforward and say: “I have no experience in that area of law, but I can find someone for you,” Lockhart says. New lawyers and seasoned lawyers alike are familiar with other attorneys at their firms or through bar associations and can connect a family member or friend to one with the experience they need, he adds.

It’s OK to represent friends and family members, but do it the right way

If a young lawyer feels competent to represent someone close to them, there are no rules preventing that representation, but it must proceed the way that any other representation would.

“You have to do the full gamut of having them come into the office or doing a consultation virtually and sending an engagement letter,” Shely says.

She also recommends that lawyers who choose to represent a friend or family member make sure to carefully limit the scope of representation in a written engagement letter to just that matter and not agree to represent on appeal.

“Otherwise,” Shely says, “that friend or family member could mistakenly think you’re going to handle all of their legal matters for free!”

Lockhart also notes that although representing a friend or family member might feel a bit more relaxed and laid-back than a more formal representation, the ABA Model Rules still apply.

“You don’t want to assume you will be more favored by a family member or friend if something goes south,” he says.

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Editor’s Note: This column first appeared in the ABA Young Lawyers Division publication TYL on Oct. 13, 2023.

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Samuel Dangremond is an attorney admitted to the Connecticut, Florida and New York bars. He works as a trusts and estates associate at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle in New York City.

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Mind Your Business is a series of columns written by lawyers, legal professionals and others within the legal industry. The purpose of these columns is to offer practical guidance for attorneys on how to run their practices, provide information about the latest trends in legal technology and how it can help lawyers work more efficiently, and strategies for building a thriving business.

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Interested in contributing a column? Send a query to [email protected].

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

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Law Firms

At least 30 large law firms have announced leadership changes in the past year; is burnout to blame?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 20, 2023, 8:18 am CST

At least 30 large law firms announced leadership changes in the past year or so, corresponding to a period in which firms are focused on growth.

Law.com addressed reasons for the turnover.

“Some have suggested burnout could be to blame, or that some firms could have delayed leadership changes until after the pandemic, or that a generational transition was in order,” Law.com reports.

“Each firm’s leadership turnover is rooted in different causes, of course, but they all manifest in an era where firms have ‘never been more keenly focused on growth,’” the article reports, citing legal industry analysts.

One leader stepping down is Elliott Portnoy, the CEO at Dentons, who has announced that he plans to relinquish his post when his current term ends in November 2024. He remarked in an interview with Law.com that even one year on the job can seem like several.

“Without sounding too glib, law firm leadership feels a bit like dog years in terms of how they’re measured,” Portnoy said. “In fact, a full year is a pretty long time.”

Other firms recently announcing leadership changes include Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Boies Schiller Flexner; Proskauer Rose; Loeb & Loeb; and Norton Rose Fulbright.

Brad Karp, the chair at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, told Law.com earlier this year that he expects that extended terms for firm leaders will decline in popularity because the “burnout risk is too great and the pressures too significant.”

But Brad Hildebrandt, the chair at Hildebrandt Consulting, said he didn’t get the sense that leaders are leaving because of the overwhelming nature of the job. He knows many firm leaders who have decided to step down, he told Law.com.

With few exceptions, “all of these people are retiring or are on term limits. It wasn’t because they were tired or didn’t want to do” the job, Hildebrandt said.