Building a Better Legal Profession

Building a Better Legal Profession is a national grassroots organization founded by students at Stanford Law School in January 2007. ["Leadership," Building a Better Legal Profession, http://www.betterlegalprofession.org/leadership.php. ] The group collects and publicizes employment data at large private law firms as a way of encouraging workplace reform at these companies. By encouraging students to "vote with their feet" and select future employers based on quality-of-life criteria rather than the prestige of the firms, Building a Better Legal Profession creates market-based incentives for workplace reform. [Vesna Jaksic, Student group grades firms on diversity, National Law Journal, October 11, 2007, http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1192093397681 ]

Law Firm Rankings and Report Cards

Using data from the National Association for Legal Career Professionals (NALP) a system of report cards and rankings of law firms has been created. BBLP uses data from six major markets in the United States to show prospective attorneys what they can expect from a potential law firm should they receive a job offer. Rankings cover an array of information that is important to future lawyers including including firms’ minimum billable hour requirements, average associate hours worked, demographic diversity, average pro bono hours, and the number of part-time attorneys. The rankings have been criticized as an essentially facile approach to complex problems.Fact|date=April 2008

Rankings and Report Cards are available for the following markets:
*Boston
*Chicago
*Manhattan
*Northern California
*Southern California
*Washington, DC

A National Coalition of Law Students

Building a Better Legal Profession has over 500 members across the countryFact|date=April 2008}, with a presence at Stanford Law School, Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, Columbia Law School and NYU Law School, among others.Fact|date=April 2008

Media Attention and National Relevancy

Garnering significant media attention in traditional media with coverage from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/us/29bar.html?em&ex=1193803200&en=67388bf4d2937143&ei=5087%0A In Students’ Eyes, Look-Alike Lawyers Don’t Make the Grade - New York Times ] ] , the Los Angeles Times [ [http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-diversity11oct11,1,661263.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=1&cset=true Lack of diversity marks L.A. law - Los Angeles Times ] ] , and The Boston Globe, BBLP has been covered in legal newspapers and journals as well including articles from Legal Times, the ABA Journal, and the National Law Journal. Legal and law interested bloggers have also made the efforts of BBLP widely known, such attention has spanned popular legal blog sites like Above the Law (blog) [ [http://www.abovethelaw.com/2007/10/atl_field_trip_the_building_a.php Abovethelaw.com ] ] to The New Republic blog [ [http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/open_university/archive/2007/10/23/perfect-information-for-law-students.aspx The New Republic | Blogs ] ] .

The group's effort has been noted for its collaborative and grassroots nature. It has been compared to the kinds of social movements described in Wikinomics:

Whether they are aware of it, [B.B.L.P. Co-President Andrew] Bruck and [Executive Board Member Davida] Brook are taking part in the social movement that is changing the face of industries across the world, and simply applying it to create more inclusive and financially supportive environments in the law profession for diverse new associates.

As Don Tapscott describes in Wikinomics, the collective knowledge, capability, and resources embodied within broad horizontal networks of participants can be mobilized to accomplish a great deal. Whether designing an airplane, assembling a motorcycle, or analyzing the human genome, the ability to integrate the talents of dispersed individuals is becoming the defining competency for managers and firms; and as we see in this case, this new mode of peer production is displacing traditional corporation hierarchies and traditions as the key engine of wealth creation in the economy. In essence, firms can no longer rely on internal capabilities to meet external needs. As a result of this Building a Better Legal Profession, a simple example of the unyielding power of horizontal collaboration, firms will be required to engage and cocreate in a dynamic fashion with everyone, or else, as these Stanford Law students are displaying. [Smoot Carter, A Modus Vivendi? Diversity, Horizontal Collaboration and the Changing Face of the Law Profession, Roosevelt Institution, http://blog.rooseveltinstitution.org/2007/10/30/a-modus-vivendi-diversity-horizontal-collaboration-and-the-changing-face-of-the-law-profession/#more-114 ]

[A Modus Vivendi? Diversity, Horizontal Collaboration and the Changing Face of the Law Profession, Smoot Carter.] http://blog.rooseveltinstitution.org/2007/10/30/a-modus-vivendi-diversity-horizontal-collaboration-and-the-changing-face-of-the-law-profession/

External links

* [http://www.betterlegalprofession.org/ "Building a Better Legal Profession" website]
* [http://refirmation.wordpress.com/ "Building a Better Legal Profession" blog]

Notes