www.legalpr.com/10-23-06_Texas_Lawyer_Winstead_Sechrest -
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Published on: 10/23/2006
Last Visited: 3/17/2007
"There is a direct causal relationship between our increased emphasis on training and that first salary run-up in 2000 or 2001," says Randy D. Gordon, professional development partner in Dallas-based Gardere Wynne Sewell.
New associate salaries jumped in 1999 and 2000 due to the technology boom and new firms entering the Texas market.As a result of higher salaries and the corresponding increase in billing rates, the firm decided to assign a partner the responsibility for professional development and to create a firm-wide training program.
"That's the time we created my actual position in the firm," Gordon says."At that time we institutionalized our education program."
The starting annual base pay for Gardere's 13 new associates is $135,000.
"They [associates] just have to be better, faster; that's how it is nowadays," Gordon says.
At 284-lawyer Gardere, new associates' orientation begins with a two-day program covering topics ranging from firm structure, time management, ethical relationships with clients and other counsel, anatomy of a deal and anatomy of a suit, and career planning, he says.
"Now they are lawyers for the first time and have to deal with things like attorney-client privilege," Gordon says.Second-year lawyers come in and talk about issues such as pitfalls to avoid and what to do in the new associate's first couple of days at the firm.
Following the initial two-day mandatory orientation, the new associates are offered a series of follow-up seminars which they are strongly encouraged to attend, Gordon says.These seminars are often lunch meetings that feature specific topics: contract drafting, how to form business entities, basic pleading and motion practice, and how to develop a discovery strategy, he says.
The firm also has a writing program that begins with a full-day seminar while the baby lawyers are still summer associates, another full day after they begin as new hires and a follow-up workshop in the spring, he says.
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"It's two lawyers from one firm against two lawyers from another firm, so they really take that seriously," Gordon says.
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