Contract lawyers get a life
- Renée Huang

Monday, January 22, 2001

Helene de Kovachich is used to burning the midnight oil.

A normal night for the Montreal lawyer consists of tucking her three kids into bed and padding back down the hall to her home office to continue work.

"It's very convenient. I'm the type of person who can do most of my work at night when everyone's sleeping," she says.

Yet even at her most relaxed moments, Ms. de Kovachich keeps her cellphone and fax machine on. As a contract lawyer, being reachable to her clients 24 hours a day, seven days a week, is a small price to pay for her flexible work hours.

One of a growing contingent of contract or temporary lawyers, Ms. de Kovachich is helping redefine the profession of law by giving up a permanent full-time career -- and many of its financial rewards -- to balance her work and personal life.

The use of contract lawyers has boomed in the United States over the past five years as law firms look for ways to contain costs and long-term commitments. Now it's making a larger impression in Canada.

It has meant, for example, that Ms. de Kovachich can spend most of the summer at her lake cottage with the kids. "I wouldn't have been able to do [that] if I were with a big firm," says the 38-year-old ex-tax litigation lawyer, who left a major Montreal firm in the late eighties to stay at home with her young family.

Later, in 1994, she started up her own conflict resolution practice with an office in downtown Montreal, as well as continuing to work from home.

Contract work has made her life more manageable, she says. "I know that it's very useful for women who have families and children because it responds to our needs. I wanted to have something that was flexible and that permitted me to act as a mother but also practise as a lawyer."

In the United States, the rise in contract lawyers has spawned an outgrowth of agencies specializing in temporary contract placement for attorneys, such as Texas-based Ad Hoc Legal Resources.

In Canada, this type of business is starting to take root. One such player is Vancouver-based PeopleQuick.com, a Web site launched two months ago by former corporate lawyer Jennifer McJannet, a new kid on the legal block.

Until recently, law firms or companies looking to hire a lawyer on a contract basis resorted mostly to word-of-mouth referrals from other lawyers, says Ms. McJannet, 30, who herself has performed contract work in drafting and revising corporate law precedents.

The PeopleQuick site aims to connect employers seeking part-time legal counsel with project lawyers who use the site to express their availability for jobs. Already, 45 lawyers with a variety of experience and expertise have signed up.

Using placement firms to find lawyers is relatively new to Canada, agrees Stacey Ball, a partner at Toronto's Ball & Alexander, who practices employment law and civil litigation. So is the hiring of temporary in-house counsel to help in companies' legal work.

However, Canadian law firms have been seeking lawyers on a part-time basis to work on one-time projects for many years, he says.

Mr. Ball, who taught employment law at University of Western Ontario for several years, found that many of his students were drawn to the idea of practising on a contract basis.

A young lawyer who doesn't want to commit to a single firm can test the waters at several firms before settling down, he says. In turn, firms don't have to worry about the prospect of severance pay because they know a contract with an attorney has a limited life.

And although contract lawyers do not hit their full earning potential, Mr. Ball says they make more than enough to get by.

But lawyers who constantly bump around on short-term contracts may send a clear message to higher-ups, says one senior partner at a large Canadian law firm.

"When you step into the contract position, you're not going to be considered as a future partner -- and for many kids going to law school, that's the golden ring worth having," said Garry Kahler, managing partner of the Vancouver office of Lang Michener Lawrence & Shaw, where Ms. McJannet worked for several years.

But Ms. McJannet maintains that the profession is changing. "In the past, it used to be based on the concept of hiring someone out of law school and keeping them on until they make partner. A lot of people are deciding this model isn't for them because it inherently involves a lot of sacrifices."

Many lawyers find it hard to strike a balance between family life and work life, she says, noting she left the profession 18 months ago in search of that delicate equilibrium.

"So many lawyers are leaving the profession, it's leaving firms with a lot of gaps to fill. It affects the way law will be practiced. It's becoming more competitive and retaining staff is becoming more and more difficult."

"It's kind of a different career path," says Mr. Kahler, 48, who has practiced for 13 years at the same firm, and over the past few years, has seen an increase in lawyers who become disillusioned with the profession and quit after practising for three to five years.

While contract lawyers can reduce overhead costs in the short term, they don't deliver the same high return a firm can expect from a longer-term investment, he says.

"You hope you save some money because you're not employing them in the down time but you do lose because you [lack] the ability to train future partners. That's the disadvantage for not hiring people who are on the [partner] track."

Ms. de Kovachich doesn't miss that. After a seven-year struggle, she now feels comfortable with the career she has carved in a profession that once made her feel inadequate for putting her kids first.

She schedules her hours around her children and doesn't miss out on important events, such as school outings, bake sales and volunteer lunch programs.

"It makes me able to live my life as a lawyer and a mummy."

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The Globe and Mail
Monday, January 22, 2001
"Contract lawyers get a life "