On November 17 I’ll be giving a West LegalEdcenter seminar in New York. I suspect that although I’ll be in the densest BigLaw cluster in the land, BigLaw associates will be underrepresented at the seminar, as compared to company counsel and contracts professionals. And that’s been pretty much the case at all my U.S. seminars. (My seminars in Canada are a different matter.)
My only reason for mentioning this is that for contract language to improve, everyone’s going to have to be at the table—particularly law firms, as they set the tone.
I can think of a few straightforward reasons for the dearth of BigLaw associates, and I’ve listed them in the following poll. Whether or not you’re a BigLaw associate yourself, I invite you to pick the one or more explanations that you think make most sense. Feel free to add a not-too-scurrilous one of your own!
BigLaw associate here, and somewhat long-time off-and-on blog reader; if my calendar’s free I hope I can make it.
Former Canadian BigLaw and current in-house counsel here. In my experience at least, I am far freer to implement your ideas as an in-house counsel than I ever was as a BigLaw associate. My BigLaw firm took some pride in its precedents and would have looked most unfavourably on some lowly associate presuming to redraft them.
Honestly, it’s a question of whether the conference is worth the cost, in time and money. Many associates think it is not. Given the small number of instances in which the issues that you raise (however interesting to me and to other readers of this blog) actually have material consequence, many associates would rather spend the money to attend a conference that deals with substantive legal issues, where they can also interact with folks in their own industry.