Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T08:22:38.219Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

New Strategies for Getting Clients: Urban and Suburban Lawyers' Views

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Carroll Seron
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

A survey of a random sample of attorneys in the New York Regional Metropolitan Area reveals that they have a lukewarm attitude toward newer, more businesslike client-getting strategies—advertising, prepaid legal plans, nonprofit plans, and closed legal plans; respondents also strongly agree that these techniques have a negative impact on the public's image of the profession. Do structural factors of the profession explain attitudes toward professional practices? To find out, I examined the effect of three dimensions of the profession: organization of work, geographical location of organization, and demographic factors. The findings show both persistent intraprofessional tensions around the impact of these new practices on the image of the profession and tension between older and younger attorneys over advertising and development of legal plans. Also these analyses document a structural dimension of the legal profession not identified in earlier research: suburban practitioners are much more skeptical about the newer client-getting practices than are their urban colleagues.

Type
Change and Adaptation of Lawyers' Work: Evolving Theories
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , 1993 , pp. 399 - 419
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

It is a pleasure to thank Eliot Freidson, Marie Provine, Susan Silbey, and the anonymous reviewers for Law & Society Review for their careful and extremely helpful comments on earlier drafts. I also thank Jean Kovath for her preparation and analysis of the data and Daniel Poor for his research assistance. The research reported here was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, SES-89-10544, which I gratefully acknowledge.

References

References

Abel, Richard L. (1989) American Lawyers. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Auerbach, Jerold S. (1976) Unequal Justice. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Bailey, Thomas, & Waldinger, Roger (1991) “The Changing Ethnic/Racial Division of Labor,” in Mollenkopf & Castells 1991.Google Scholar
Blalock, Hubert M. Jr. (1960) Social Statistics. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Carlin, Jerome E. (1962) Lawyers on Their Own. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Carlin, Jerome E. (1966) Lawyers' Ethics: A Survey of the New York City Bar. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Curran, Barbara A., Rosich, Katherine J., Carson, Clara N., & Puccetti, Mark C. (1985) The Lawyer Statistical Report: A Statistical Profile of the U.S. Legal Profession in the 1980s. Chicago: American Bar Foundation.Google Scholar
Davis, Ralph D., Gupta, Ajay, Rylander, Roy G. II, & Youngblood, Sheryl (1989) “Attitude and Opinions on Marketing Legal Services: A Survey of Lawyers in Private Practice in Chicago.” 2 Georgetown J. of Legal Ethics 743.Google Scholar
Drennan, Matthew (1991) “The Decline and Rise of the New York Economy,” in Mollenkopf & Castells 1991.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc (1974) “Why the Haves Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change,” 9 Law & Society Rev. 95.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc, & Palay, Thomas M. (1990) “Why the Big Get Bigger: The Promotion-to-Partner Tournament and the Growth of Large Law Firms,” 76 Virginia Law Rev. 747.Google Scholar
Halliday, Terence C. (1987) Beyond Monopoly: Lawyers, State Crises, and Professional Empowerment. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Richard (1991) “The Geography of Employment and Residence in New York since 1950,” in Mollenkopf & Castells 1991.Google Scholar
Heinz, John P., & Laumann, Edward O. (1982) Chicago Lawyers: The Social Structure of the Bar. New York: Russell Sage Foundation; Chicago: American Bar Foundation.Google Scholar
Ladinsky, Jack (1963) “Careers of Lawyers: Law Practice and Legal Institutions,” 28 American Sociological Rev. 47.Google Scholar
Landon, Donald D. (1990) Country Lawyers: The Impact of Context on Professional Practice. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Larson, Magali Sarfatti (1977) The Rise of Professionalism. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mills, C. Wright (1951) White Collar: The American Middle Class. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Mollenkopf, John H., & Castells, Manuel, eds. (1991) The Dual City: Restructuring New York. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Nelson, Robert L., Trubek, David M., & Solomon, Rayman L. eds. (1992) Lawyers' Ideals/Lawyers' Practice. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Powell, Michael J. (1988) From Patrician to Professional Elite: The Transformation of the New York City Bar Association. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Schneyer, Theodore (1992) “Professionalism as Politics: The Making of the Modern Legal Ethics Code” in Nelson et al. 1992.Google Scholar
Seron, Carroll (1992) “Managing Entrepreneurial Legal Services: The Transformation of Small-Firm Practice” in Nelson et al. 1992.Google Scholar
Smigel, Erwin O. (1964) The Wall Street Lawyer: Professional Organization Man? New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Zussman, Robert (1985) Mechanics of the Middle Class: Work and Politics among American Engineers. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Cases Cited

Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350 (1977).Google Scholar
Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Virginia State Bar, 377 U.S. 1 (1964).Google Scholar
Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U.S. 773 (1975).Google Scholar
Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Association, 436 U.S. 447 (1978).Google Scholar
In re Primus, 436 U.S. 412 (1978).Google Scholar
In re R.M.J., 455 U.S. 191 (1982).Google Scholar
Shapero v. Kentucky Bar Association, 486 U.S. 466 (1988).Google Scholar
United Mine Workers v. Illinois State Bar Association, 389 U.S. 217 (1967).Google Scholar
United Transp. Union v. State Bar of Michigan, 401 U.S. 576 (1971).Google Scholar
Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Council, 471 U.S. 626 (1985).Google Scholar