If you’re looking forward to your flight to South Florida as much as I am (and attending DRI's Young Lawyers seminar), you’ve probably already got your stack of magazines ready.  In flipping through US Weekly, I noticed the Snickers ad campaign “Help Us Bar Hunger.”  Snickers is donating the cash equivalent of 2.5 Million meals and an additional cash donation in an amount equal to 2 meals will be made for each 8 digit or 12 digit Bar Code Number entered on www.snickers.com until June 27th.  There is a ten bar maximum per day, so don’t get too carried away.    

I often find it curious that Law Day falls on May 1st.  Growing up, May 1st was always the day the news carried pictures of over the top parades in Red Square in Moscow where the USSR would display its missiles, goose stepping soldiers and mummified Politburo.  In hindsight, that seems quite antithetical to what I now celebrate on May 1st – the rule of law that sets our country apart from all others.  Being a lawyer should be and most often is a noble profession.  Incrementally, lawyers and judges shape the rules of conduct for society.  We protect the rights of individuals who are victims of crime.  We hold the government’s feet to the fire when it seeks to deprive a person of liberty.  We work to ensure that injured persons are fairly compensated when they prove their case to a jury of their peers.  We provide the vehicles for businesses to form, grow, prosper and provide jobs.  We protect assets at death so that heirs can enjoy the fruits of their loved ones’ hard work.  So on May 1, 2012, remember the great things lawyers and judges do for society and all of us, and not the punch lines of inane lawyer jokes.

Matt is a partner with Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell in Concord, New Hampshire.  He is the DRI Immediate Past President.  He also sits on the Board of Directors for the NFJE and LCJ.

DRI Young Lawyers Committee continues its tradition of community service by spending an afternoon with Feeding South Florida.  Founded in 1981 as the Daily Bread Food Bank, Feeding South Florida has been working to reduce hunger by reducing waste.  Its mission is to feed South Florida's hungry in order to improve their lives.  The result? Feeding South Florida distributes approximately 2 million pounds of food each month to hungry South Floridians, including children and the elderly, the unemployed and the working poor, the disabled, the homeless, and victims of natural disasters, illness and violence.  

 If you spend some time looking at the statistics, you will see the number of jury trials is swiftly declining.  Many states and organizations have recognized the decline, voicing concerns about the resulting impact on the judicial system, the public and lawyers.  The Florida Bar created a special taskforce, the Special Committee to Study the Decline in Jury Trials (“Committee”), to research and analyze the trend, determine the root cause of the decline and recommend a course of action to the Florida Board of Governors to minimize the impact of this decline.  The Committee issued its final report in December 2011.  The full report is available at floridabar.org by clicking “About the Bar,” followed by “Committees” and then “Special.”

The Committee reviewed, among other published studies, Professor Marc Galanter’s article The Vanishing Trial: An Examination of Trials and Related Matters in Federal and State Courts (1 J. Empirical Legal Studies 459 (2004)).  When you view the statistics, the decline is apparent, and staggering.   For example, in 1962, 11.5% of 50,320 civil federal court dispositions were by trial.  In 2002, there were only 1.8% dispositions by trial, out of 258,876.  In Florida civil cases, 1.6% of total civil cases (155,407) were resolved by jury in 1986.  By 2009, the percentage reduced to .2%, while the number of civil cases increased to 401,463. 

According to the Committee, there are several reasons why jury trials suffered declines.  For civil cases, the rise of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms contributed markedly.  The expense of trials is always another common deterrent.  Another factor is the time it takes to bring a case to trial.  Despite the reduction in number, it was noted that jury trials have become more complex -- longer and more complicated. 

The declines have not been without negative impacts.  With fewer jury trials, fewer people participate in the judicial system as jurors.  Jury service helps educate the public about the justice system.  It is a simple way for the average citizen to play a role in governmental decision making.  If the nearly all disputes are resolved privately, via mediation or arbitration, rather than in an open courtroom, the public’s perception of the justice system will become further skewed.

The decline in jury trials also contributes to reduced funding to the court system, as the decline itself may be viewed as a reason to fund less.  This contributes to a never ending cycle of funding and less independence of the judiciary. 

One of the greatest impacts, however, is the effect on new lawyers.  A lawyer learns best by first-hand practice.  With less opportunity to conduct a trial, lawyers must look to other training which will always be less adequate than the real thing.  The new lawyer ends up feeling uncomfortable and unsure regarding his or her skills.  When the opportunity finally arises, the lawyer may shy away from the experience because he or she simply does not know how to try a case. 

The Committee recommended several measures, including full funding of the courts.  To reduce the impact, the Committee also suggested training and mentoring programs for young lawyers, such as certified legal intern programs or State Attorney/ Public Defender internships.  The Committee further recommended techniques to the bench to more efficiently administer judicial duties, with less cost to litigants, such as streamlining discovery and encouraging the use of expedited jury trials. 

DRI created the Jury Preservation Task Force to examine this federal and state vanishing jury trial phenomenon and report on its findings, which will be published in a future edition of For the Defense.    

Do you feel at a loss or intimidated or repulsed by the thought of using social media? Like it or not, social media sites are a new means of communication, which we cannot ignore any more than we can ignore email. The fact is social media, if used properly, can be an effective, professional, and personal tool. If you are not using these sites currently, take a few minutes to see why you should be using social media and what you can do efficiently and effectively to save time, learn more and even advance your career. 

It is no secret that law firms sometimes encounter clients that are less than enthusiastic about paying their bills. When a client balks at paying, there can be an enormous strain on the relationship, just as there can be "trickle down" stress at the firm for those attorneys who spent valuable time on the case. When a firm is unable to collect full payment in these situations, often the younger lawyers on the case are the first to suffer. They can have their time and billings cut, which can affect  not just their compensation and progress in the firm, but also their confidence and belief that their contributions are being valued.

An issue that has recently flooded the pages of the New York Times is the rapidly increasing cost of attending law school, despite the economic climate this country is currently experiencing.  Law school tuition is rising four times faster than the cost to attend an undergraduate institution, yet the amount of students attending has also increased despite the heavy debt they will incur and the tight job market they will enter after graduating.  Many people in various legal positions have contributed their opinions to the debate of whether it is necessary for law schools to take action to lower costs, and if so, how that should be accomplished.  

The first law school in the United States was established in 1784 and the school viewed its students as apprentices, not as scholars.  However, in 1878 the American Bar Association (“ABA”) was formed and began enacting limitations on law schools.  For instance, in the 1890s the ABA pushed states to limit the number of people admitted to the Bar.  In 1906, the Association of American Law Schools also contributed to the transformation of law schools by adopting a requirement that law school consist of three years of study.

Since the formation of law schools, the organization of these institutions has experienced changes.  It is less common to see militant professors, as portrayed in the 1973 movie The Paper Chase, and more common to witness professors simply asking for volunteers in class and not berating students if they did not read an assignment.  Even the length of time that a person has to go to law school has changed.  Recently, schools such as Northwestern University School of Law have begun to offer an accelerated program in which a student can complete their Juris Doctor (“J.D.”) in two years instead of three.  

Despite all these changes, though, many people in the legal field are frustrated with how much it costs to attend law school as well as the make-up of law schools.  One common complaint, as detailed in The New York Times article, “What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering,” is that law students are leaving school with no practical training, leaving firms the task of having to prepare new associates to become lawyers on the firm’s dime, or that of clients.  Many suggestions have been offered as to how to remedy this issue in a way that would train law students to become lawyers and alleviate some of the financial costs law schools and students face.  One suggestion has been to decrease the amount of credits students must take.  Another proposal has been to replace the third year of law school with an apprenticeship, which was the focus of the first law schools, instead of forcing students to engage in more coursework.

A proposition that has generated a lot of discussion is the idea of replacing full-time faculty with adjunct faculty.  Currently, the ABA requires that its accredited schools have a ratio of twenty students or less to one full-time faculty member.  A ratio of thirty students to one full-time faculty member is not in compliance with the ABA standards, but many of these full-time professors do not have practical legal experience because law schools look to hire scholars and not people who have spent years practicing law.  On the other hand, an adjunct professor is an experienced practitioner by definition.  

Besides lacking practical experience, it is more expensive to employ full-time faculty as opposed to adjunct faculty.  About half of a law school’s budget is spent on faculty salary and benefits, and about eighty percent of that budget goes toward full-time faculty.  Alternatively, adjunct faculty make a few thousand dollars a year to teach a course.  

With the current economic climate, it is vital that changes are made among different institutions, including law schools that will keep costs down.  While no method is a guaranteed solution, staffing more adjunct faculty is something that should be considered and this type of change would need to be initiated by the ABA.  Even though modifications to the organization of law schools may make law school administrations and professors uneasy, if adjustments are not made, the make-up of the legal profession may experience unwanted changes.  The New York Times article states that, “the nature of legal work itself is evolving, and the days when corporations buy billable hours, instead of results, are numbered.”  If law students continue on the path of failing to obtain practical experience, their chances of succeeding in this dismal market will remain poor.

A 2011 Midlevel Associates Survey conducted by The American Lawyer demonstrates that although the salary gap between minority and majority associates is closing, persistent differences continue to exist.  Hispanic associates reported the highest increase in their salary from 2008 to 2011, while Asian associates reported the highest salary and billing rates as compared to both their minority and majority counterparts, despite a decrease in their average salary.  Nonetheless, minority associates continue to rate job satisfaction categories lower than their majority counterparts. 

The survey also demonstrates that firms are making an effort to retain their minority associates.  Black and Hispanic associates were the most likely to report that they had mentors – 86.5 % and 83.1%, respectively.  Notwithstanding, all minorities thought that they had a lower chance of making partner than white associates.  Only 60% of Blacks, 63.7% of Asians and 68.4% of Hispanics thought that they were headed toward promotion.  How effective are these mentoring relationships when minority associates do not believe that they will reach the upper echelons of their firms?  What is the missing link between mentoring and retention/advancement of minority associates?  Has your firm employed innovative efforts to address the issue of advancement of minority attorneys?

http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1322459168295&Survey_of_Minority_Associates_Shows_Persistent_Differences&cmp=tsm-cc-CCDDSurvey              

Jamie Oliver, a chef and a child advocate focused on ensuring kids receive proper nutrition through their school lunch programs as well as at home, has a television show, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, showing how he changes eating habits in school districts (this season he is in Los Angeles).  In each episode, he creates a visual showing the terrible foods kids are putting in their bodies.  It’s one thing to tell kids (or their parents) that fast food and processed food is bad for them, it is quite another to create a visual showing how bad it is, and creating such a powerful visual that it convinces those kids, their parents and the audience watching the show (including myself) how bad those foods are.  In a recent episode, he filled a family’s house with all the fast food they consume in a year.  Every square inch of furniture and floor was covered.  In another episode, he filled a school bus with sugar to show how much sugar the school board permitted in the kids lunch meals over a year.  It was powerful images like those that made folks change their minds and change their behavior.

When preparing for trial, we can take a page out of Jamie’s book, and think about what visuals (whether a photograph, a diagram, an animation, or some other representation) that encapsulates our theme and does so in such a powerful manner that the image we create carries through the trial, into the deliberation room and turns the jurors’ hearts and minds toward our view-point and toward our position.  Keep a file folder in your office drawer where you include pictures, images and ideas you clip from magazines and newspapers.  These images may later serve you at trial.

Being that it is Monday, my partner Craig Salner has his weekly tip for young lawyers.  This week he discusses the importance of getting involved with social networking.  You can find his post at http://csalner.wordpress.com/.

Assume everything you write or e-mail an expert will be discoverable.  Even if you can somehow keep it from being discovered, you will probably spend your time and the client’s money to keep it confidential.  With that in mind, before you send anything to an expert ask yourself whether you would have a problem with the other side seeing it.  If so, think long and hard before sending it.  Also, folks have become too casual in what they include in e-mails, and I’ve found this true with experts, particularly their staff.  So try to avoid e-mailing experts and their offices whenever possible, sticking to phone calls and faxes when possible.  And ask them not to e-mail you.  Yes, it is less convenient, but it will help ensure that the experts don’t make errant comments that become part of their permanent file (which at some point will likely have to be produced to the other side).