In Defense of CLE Credit for Marketing
Erik Mazzone | Friday, January 29, 2010 at 7:30AM I've got a burr in my saddle.
A hitch in my giddy-up.
And some other cowboy metaphors that a native New Yorker like myself has no business ever saying out loud.
As I was paging through Google Reader, I came across this post from the Wall Street Journal Law Blog: Struggling Lawyers Turning to . . . Lives of Crime. The article picks up on an item from the Fresno Bee about the economic pressures of the recession driving lawyers to cheat and steal.
It's a phenomenon new to the legal profession, according to the articles. It's terrible, but not terribly surprising: lawyers have lost clients, lost money in the stock market and lost value in their homes, and that is a powerful combination of bad stuff to endure. Add in the burden of crushing and non-dischargable student loan debt and you can readily see how lawyers could slip into making bad choices.
What's causing the bee in my bonnet (not the most masculine metaphor I could have chosen; maybe I should go back to talking like a cowboy) is that all this happens against a backdrop in which lawyers in many states (including mine) still can not receive CLE credit for learning marketing and business development.
In the law, we have a bit of loathing for the entire concept of marketing. We are supposed to be a learned profession, above the fray of commerce. To teach lawyers how to effectively engage in commerce is often seen as ignoble and base. We refer to it as "rain making" to put some comfortable distance between us and the guy who sells ShamWow.
(Sidebar: if you are selling stuff through dubious infomercials, you may want to reconsider naming your product something with the word "sham" in it...)
Whether we call it rain-making or marketing, the fact is that lawyers in private practice find themselves in an increasingly competitve environment, wondering why their phones are not ringing and not entirely sure what to do about it. The answer, as every businessperson engaged in commerce knows, is to market one's product or services. To engage in a systematic campaign to let potential clients know who you are, like you and trust you, as the always insightful John Jantsch might say.
It's not a wacky concept dreamed up by greedy consultants with dollar signs for pupils. Marketing is a cornerstone of how successful businesses become and remain successful. Private law practice is no exception.
To be sure, there is some small percentage of lawyers who are born marketers. They spring from law school, diplomas in hand with a widely-read blog, a burgeoning rolodex (or LinkedIn profile, more likely) and an unerring idea of how to promote their firms.
And then there are the rest of us. Myself included; I, like many lawyers, am a reluctant marketer. Self-promotion does not come naturally and I feel embarrassed about "tooting my own horn", as my grandmother used call it.
Most lawyers need help learning how to effectively market, and the de facto place we turn to for learning (once we leave law school) is continuing legal education. CLE is the way most lawyers stay abreast of important changes in the law; changes that affect their practices and the way they serve clients. Yet in many jurisdictions a lawyer can not receive CLE credit for learning marketing.
Sure, we lawyers can self-educate ourselves as marketers, and I know some lawyers doing exactly that. Their bookshelves heave with the latest titles and best thinkers from Amazon or their local bookstore. They talk about the latest books from Seth Godin and which social media outlet is providing the greatest ROI. They are, however, in the minority.
The dividing line between which subjects we, as a profession, think are worthy of our time and attention and which are not is the line that separates which subjects qualify for CLE credit and which don't. In North Carolina for example, already overburdened lawyers are required to take 12 hours of continuing education each year; for many lawyers, this is all the time they can or will devote to substantive learning in a year. They will take courses in ethics, substance abuse, and their substantive area of practice. They will not be permitted to receive one credit for learning how to find clients who need their services.
The simple fact is, if they can't get CLE credit for it, some percentage of lawyers (in my anecdotal experience, a large percentage) are not going to learn it. It's not that they don't want the information or don't need it; it's just that there are only so many hours and dollars to spend in a year, and practicing law and spending 12 hours a year to maintain a law license leaves little time for other pursuits.
My purpose here is not to bash the CLE regulatory bodies. They have a raft of pressures of their own and they work hard to try to do a good job for lawyers, the profession, and the public. Not an easy triple-play, to be sure. But in a profession that prefers change to be evolutionary, not revolutionary, it is worth noting that some scientists believe that evolution is not a smooth continuum, but rather a jagged line filled with long plateaus and sudden jumps where big things happen. Fish grow legs. Humans stand upright. Marketing gets CLE credit.
It is time for one of those sudden jumps.
When lawyers begin to resort to cheating and stealing, everybody suffers: lawyers, the profession and the public. Allowing CLE credit for marketing content, alone, is not a panacea to fix this problem, but it is an important step in the right direction. It is a step that is worth taking now, before the next article about lawyers cheating and stealing is in your home town.
Reader Comments (8)
Great article Erik. I couldn't agree more with this article.
Thanks, Damon!
How about this for a "sudden jump"? Get rid of all CLE requirements. Lawyers who want to improve their lawyering skills are going to work on it, CLE or no. Same thing for those who want to improve their marketing and business development prowess. On the other end of the spectrum, crappy lawyers will go through the motions, treating CLE as a compliance exercise and not getting anything out of it. Bottom line - CLE requirements are more of a tax on the legal profession than a solution to the problem of ensuring lawyerly competence.
Josh, I can't argue that point. We've all seen lawyers sit through CLE, read the newspaper, and then collect their credits and go home. It would be interesting to know if non-mandatory CLE states (like Massachusetts, and according to Wikipedia, 6 other jurisdictions) have any kind of quantifiable problems above and beyond states where CLE is mandatory (higher incidence of malpractice, etc). I suspect not.
Thanks for stopping by and thanks for the comment!
Erik
About 40 years ago a Supreme Court justice referred to the claim that the practice of law is not a commercial activity as sanctimonious poppycock. Thanks for continuing the battle against such silly claims.
Ford Harding
Oh, Erik, "burr in my saddle"? I'm considering starting a movement to ex-communicate you from NYC :-)
What a spot-on and very important post! I just tweeted about and immediately got a couple of RTs. This is an issue that resonates.
I'm at a CLE trade conference in Orlando right now where the spectrum of CLE professionals are represented including CLE regulators. I will attempt to start conversations about CLE credit for legal marketing courses. It simply HAS to happen! I'm blogging about the experience. Hopefully this issue makes it into my journal as an action item.
Thanks for terrific post. Cool blog, btw.
Hey Tim, thanks for the kind words! (Except for the part about keeping me out of NY...) ;)
It's an important topic and I am honored to be part of the discussion. Have fun at ACLEA -- tell Ray Ruppert from the North Carolina Bar Association I said hey (he and I are friends and coworkers).
Thanks again for stopping by and taking the time to comment!
I can see Josh's point. There are already too many lawyers and not enough jobs. Unfortunately, I think that taking away the CLE requirement would simply result in most lawyers not completing any courses because they just don't have the time. I think it's good to encourage continued education.
I definitely agree that marketing, or any form of business development, should be acceptable towards CLE credits. It's a necessary skill, and will become more necessary over the next century as legal practices continue to change. Also, it's a continuously developing field that lawyers should regularly brush up on, not just take once.