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THE 1995 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SURVEY

[Note:  The following excerpts provide an executive summary of the Report on the the 1995 Professional Development Survey of Large Law Offices in the Greater Washington/Baltimore Area, a joint research project of the Washington-Area Professional Development Administrators and The Capital CLE Calendar. The 73-page survey report detailing these and other findings is available for $50 ($25 to WAPDA members).]

1.  INTRODUCTION: Background and Purpose of the Survey

The survey on which this paper reports was a research collaboration between the Washington-Area Professional Development Administrators (WAPDA), an association of law office training and development administrators and continuing legal education and training providers, and The Capital CLE Calendar, a continuing legal education and professional development journal. It was designed to serve a variety of purposes:

• to provide an area-wide view of what local law offices are currently doing to support and strengthen the professional competence of the lawyers they employ;
• to provide those responsible for law office professional development programs with the benefit of their colleagues' experience;
• to alert potential members to the existence and resources of WAPDA; and
• to establish a benchmark against which individual law offices can measure their professional development programs, and from which area-wide progress can be tracked in the future.

The survey questionnaire was forwarded in June 1995 to 121 large law offices -- private, government, and corporate -- in Washington, Baltimore, and their Virginia and Maryland suburbs.... It requested:

• a summary profile of the organization (Section I);
• what in-house developmental activities and resources the office organizes for its lawyers, what outside resources the office draws upon, and what significant changes in the professional development program have taken place or are anticipated (Section II); and
• who administers professional development and CLE activities for the office, and what information and other resources would be most useful to them (Section III).

The collection of survey responses concluded in the last week of August 1995.

[Survey Report, p. 1]

2.  A "TYPICAL" PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

The survey respondents share much common ground in their professional development practices and perspectives. Based on their responses, the "typical" professional development program in a large Washington or Baltimore law office has the following characteristics:

Formal Instruction and Coaching

• Formal instruction is predominantly delivered in the form of Educational seminars/group discussions, which are offered at least monthly. These are supplemented at least twice a year by Group skills training workshops, and at least once a year by Private skills coaching (either stand-alone or in conjunction with group workshops). (pp. 9-10, B1)

• The following practical, legal, and business topics appear on the office's formal in-house training agenda at least once a year: Computer skills, Substantive law, Business/ industry/technical/other nonlegal professional knowledge, Litigation skills, and Client/customer relations (pp. 16-17, B2-B4). If the office has 100 lawyers or more, Substantive law will probably be addressed more often than once a year (p. 19).

• Topics which probably will not appear on the agenda are Teambuilding/teamwork, Management/supervision skills, and Diversity/race/gender issues (pp. 16-17, B3-B4), unless the office is in a government agency (p. 18).

• New lawyers can expect some amount of Formal orientation and training, anywhere from under 10 to over 100 hours (pp. 25-26, B5), and two Formal performance appraisals in their first year with the organization. After the first year, they can expect to be evaluated annually (pp. 10, B2).

• If the office is the local office of a law firm based in a mandatory CLE jurisdiction which awards CLE credit for in-house training, there may be greater emphasis on formal, group instructional activities (p. 15) and on topics eligible for credit, including especially Substantive law, Research skills, Litigation skills, Ethics/professional responsibility, and Business/industry/technical/other nonlegal professional knowledge (pp. 23-24). There may also be somewhat lower emphasis -- either by the organization, by the lawyers themselves, or both -- on informal and self-directed learning activities and external learning resources (pp. 33, 39).

Informal and Self-Directed Learning Resources

• If the office is a private law firm, and especially if it is a firm with over 100 lawyers, Small cases with high learning value (including pro bono cases) and a Formal mentoring program are available, and the level of participation by the lawyers in both of them can be characterized as "moderate" or better. (pp. 28-30)

• Self-directed learning resources (manuals, tapes, computer-based training, etc.) are also available, but the lawyers make little use of them. (pp. 27-28, B6)

• Individual development plans, Recommended reading lists, and Practice-area skills lists or developmental milestones are probably not available, but may be under consideration. (pp. 27-28, B5-B6)

External Resources for Professional Development

• If the office is a private law firm, CLE seminars and workshops are the most useful outside learning resource available to the lawyers. If it is in a federal agency, courses offered by the Legal Education Institute of the Department of Justice may play a comparable role. (p. 35)

• Industry/trade meetings, Legal periodicals, Industry/trade periodicals, Bar meetings and activities, and On-line services (bulletin boards, data bases, discussion groups, etc.) are somewhat less, but still "moderately," useful. (pp. 34, B6-B7)

Changes in the Program

• The office's professional development program has recently been expanded, and perhaps also redirected. Further expansion and/or refinements are expected in the near future. (pp. 40-41, C4-C6)

• The recent changes include increased emphasis on formal skills training, and perhaps also on individual coaching and feedback. (pp. 40, C4-C5)

• Future changes will include some nontraditional, informal, and/or individualized approaches to both group and individual development. (pp. 41, C5-C6)

Administration of Professional Development

• The professional development program, and outside CLE activities as well, are probably the responsibility of a generalist administrator with other major duties. In law offices of 100 or more lawyers, either a practicing lawyer or dedicated professional development administrator is almost equally likely to be responsible for professional development. (pp. 42-43)

• The responsible administrator is eager for a wide range of information and resources to support his or her own development of the skills and knowledge needed to plan and manage the program. (pp. 43-44, B8-B10)

Caveats and Conclusions

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