A number of years ago, I was in a discussion (almost an argument really) with another Business Law Section member about the whole issue of whether e-commerce and technology transactions were really a separate practice area or not. We ultimately agreed to disagree about the state of the practice at that time, but my ultimate point was that licensing, e-commerce and the whole cyber world would just become another aspect of practice, and the issues would just be another set of skills needed by anyone who practiced in the business and transactional area.
So, have we arrived there? I am not so sure. Those of us that practice in the area regularly are consulted by other attorneys, whether in our firms or in our informal networks. The number of substantive areas that business lawyers, as an example, need to know may have reached a saturation point and this may be one of those areas that will be delegated to the specialist role.
What are you seeing? With the current job situation, many attorneys will do their best on projects requiring knowledge or experience that are outside of current experience. That is not to say that the attorney won't work really hard to figure things out or that the person would not do a great job, but I see this coming out everywhere.
A last point. Sometimes I will be working on something with an attorney in a firm who is not doing a great job. One one occasion, I have suggested that the attorney consult with one of the others in the firm because she was an expert. (That went over like a lead balloon.) Is everyone now just keeping as much work as possible on their own desks to keep themselves busy?
Michael
Michael S. Khoury
Jaffe, Raitt, Heuer & Weiss, P. C.
248.727.1414
mkhoury@jaffelaw.com