Quality of Service Part II: The IFC Model and the Working Mom
As the economy worsens and savings disappears, the traditional one breadwinner model has accelerated its decline. This means that the option that women have had to leave the work force in favor of child-rearing is fast becoming less of an option. At the same time, it cannot be denied that the traditional Law Firm Model has been no friend to women. Relatively few women have been able to last long enough to achieve partnership, and for many who have, they have been forced to make significant personal sacrifices.
All this has been the case even though women currently comprise upwards of 50% of all law school graduating classes and make up material portions of law review staffs. But as the Mommy disconnect (or safety valve depending on how one looks at it) becomes more untenable under the pressures of a vastly changing economic environment, female talent is likely going to be searching for alternatives to the traditional male dominated law firm. The Inter Firm Collaboration Model suggests a far more flexible and potentially healthier lifestyle alternative.
In the discussion over quality, introduced in our last post, the potential role of women to remake the legal profession cannot be overlooked. This will not happen by forcing traditional law firms to become more family oriented [indeed, as economic circumstances worsen, the larger firms will become even less able to make lifestyle accommodations], but by creating more adaptable legal structures that can make it possible for women to work from home, determine their hours, and build collaborative relationships to ease the burdens of small gauge practice.
As previously described, liberating technology is already here and will likely become even more powerful as social media software platforms make it even easier for lawyers to collaborate on large projects. Indeed, the IFC Model has the potential to break the gordian knot that has plagued the second generation of women lawyers by making it possible for them to practice law in a manner that also allows them to raise a family. Working motherhood is not ideal, but the IFC Model can make the practice of law more palatable to accomplished women who otherwise would feel compelled to completely abandon their careers.
As far as the debate over quality of legal services is concerned, the upshot is that in the post depression/recession world to come, not only is the traditional law firm going to experience severe economic dislocations, as clients search for cheaper legal services alternatives, but possibly also experience a talent crisis as increasing numbers of bright, well trained, women lawyers choose to opt out of big firm life in favor of a competing practice model that is more collaborative in character, flexible in its requirements, and which can better exploit the kind of multitasking capabilities for which contemporary working women are famous.
Tags: Inter Firm Collaboration Model, law firm, law firm model, law review, law school, legal profession, lifestyle alternative, social media, women lawyers, work force, working mom, working motherhood
