1 | Find a Job You Love. Make a Great Living. Change the World.

Welcome to Cause of Action! On today’s inaugural episode, Spencer is joined by veteran plaintiffs’ attorney and Stanford Law lecturer Shanin Specter. They’ll discuss how law students can land the dream job—one that makes them happy, makes the world better, and  pays off those student loans (and then some). Later, Boston College Law student Marissa Lambert shares why she’s building a career in plaintiffs’ law.  

Suggestions for topics? Questions for our guests? Email the show at Spencer@CauseOfActionPodcast.com.

Learn more about plaintiffs’ law from the National Plaintiffs’ Law Association. Additional details on the NPLA’s Linktree. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

A walk-up Melodia Kelly and Schoenberger podcast. I'm Spencer Palke, and this is Cause of Action. A show about how to build a thriving legal career and practice law that can change the world. Imagine you're a one L sitting in contracts. You finally made it. After all the studying for the LSAT, after all the personal statements and letters of recommendation and waiting, hoping, terrified about what was going to happen. And finally, you're here in law school. You're actually doing it. But today you can't focus on consideration or promissory estoppel because now you have a much larger problem. You have to get a job for the summer. It's like every single person is talking about it. Interviews with big law firms, callbacks, people are getting offers. It seems like everyone you know already has their entire lives figured out. And now you're freaking out. Partly because, what the hell? Didn't you just start law school? And you're also worried because you have loans. It's a lot of money. By the end of law school, it's going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Seems like the most obvious path is going into big law. Except you've heard so many people talking about burnout. Doesn't sound like a good life. And the other thing is that you do want to stick by your principles. You want to spend your life doing good in the world. I mean, what you wrote in your personal statements, that was true. But you do need to make money. Those loans aren't going to somehow just disappear. And with every minute you don't have an offer, it feels like your future is now completely and totally doomed. You're losing sleep. Can't focus. Even if somebody were to pay you a million dollars, you could never explain promissory estoppel. What even is promissory estoppel? All right, deep breath. This is why we created this podcast. Because in law school, you often get the standard narrative. You can go into big law or you can get a job in government or nonprofits. The implication is that you can either make money or you can do good in the world, but not both. The thing is, there is a third way, one that law schools really don't talk about. It's a path where you can make a good living and work on issues you care about. Issues like holding the police accountable or getting money for workers who've been exploited. You can fight back against polluters and social media companies and other giant corporations. This third path is plaintiff's law. And it's what I do. My name is Spencer Palke, and I'm a plaintiff's attorney in San Francisco. And frankly, I'm concerned when I talk to law students. Now, I also teach at Berkeley Law and co-direct their trial competition team. And I give talks about plaintiffs practice at law schools across the country. I meet a lot of students. And too often I hear people repeating the same standard narrative. After they graduate, it's either big law or government slash nonprofit. And you know what? They don't seem happy about that whole arrangement. The thing is, many of them have never heard of being a plaintiff's attorney. So when I talk about plaintiff's law, how I love my job, that you can make a very good living as a plaintiff's attorney, it's like a light bulb moment. So that's what this podcast is all about. We're going to show law students what it's like to work as a plaintiff's attorney, how you can earn a living that stacks up against big law, how to actually find a job, and how plaintiff's attorneys are influencing the most important social issues in America. I'm going to be talking with some of the very best attorneys in the country about what they do and how they got where they are today. That includes my first guest, Shannon Spector. Shannon has won trials against enormous companies like Boeing and Ford. He's one of the top plaintiffs attorneys in the country. Shannon also lectures at Stanford Law, Berkeley Law, and other schools, and I wanted to have him on the podcast because he's given one of the best talks for law students that I've ever heard. It's titled, How to Get a Job You'll Really Like. The advice is very practical, so we're going to talk about steps you can take right away. But Shannon also has this incredibly thoughtful way of discussing maybe the most important question: what will make you happy as a lawyer? After our conversation, I'm going to be joined by Marissa Lambert. Marissa is a 2L at Boston College Law, and we're going to be talking about her experiences grappling with a lot of these very same questions. That's all coming up next. My guest today is veteran plaintiff's attorney Shannon Specter. Throughout his career, Shannon has gone up against Ford Motor Company, Boeing, DuPont, and that's to name just a few. His cases have resulted in countless seven, eight, and nine-figure verdicts and changes in public safety policies. Shannon's a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Kerry Law School and holds an LLM from Cambridge University. He lectures at multiple schools, including Stanford Law, UC Law San Francisco, and my alma mater, Berkeley Law. On top of that, he's a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, a group of the best 100 trial lawyers in the country. Shannon Spector, welcome to the show. Well, thank you, Spencer. Good to be with you. I'm really glad you're doing this. Now, here's why. One of the reasons that I want to do this podcast just generally is that so many law students that you and I hear from aren't taught about plaintiff's law as a possible career path in school. In fact, I think it's a cause you and I have to try to address that. I want to talk about it, but let's just let's just imagine a one L who doesn't know anything about plaintiff's practice. What is plaintiff's law? How do you define that to a student who asks when they don't know?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Well, the plaintiff's practice is the representation of persons who have been wrongfully injured. And it's usually a physical injury, but it could also be an economic injury. It could be a loss of a job. But we commonly think of torts as being a physical injury. And it's such a wonderful thing to have a layperson come to you in desperate need of assistance and to be able to step forward and help that person and achieve a recovery and make their life better as well as their family's life better. I mean, let's put aside the fact that you don't have to bill for your time because we don't keep timesheets in most cases. Let's put aside the fact that nobody's forcing us to take any cases. We're not working for an insurance company or a big corporation that hands us a file and says you have to take this case. All those things are true and a wonderful part of our practice, but nothing beats the fact that somebody needs our help and we get to help them. And that's what really sticks to the ribs for we professionals. I'm just so happy to be able to help people at this point. And the practice feels very pure to me.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

That's one of the first things. I remember like I was so excited to get to try cases, but then also just the first time counseling a client in a small case over the phone and helping them through that moment of uncertainty, that time of uncertainty. Like that's still, I hear it sticks to the ribs. That's a that's a good way to put it. You mentioned plaintiffs' cases involve helping people who've been injured, sometimes physically, sometimes economically. And I think what a lot of law students might not realize is that this covers just a vast array of potential harms. I mean, there are plaintiffs' attorneys representing workers who've had their wages stolen. There are civil rights plaintiffs' attorneys helping people who've been the victims of police violence. Environmental attorneys are suing on behalf of communities that have faced unthinkable pollution. I mean, the list of practice areas is really almost endless from consumer protection to antitrust to sexual harassment. But there is something that is common to us, at least in terms of our business model. It's not billable hours. How does it work?

SPEAKER_01 7:51

That's true. We are only paid if we win. We don't get paid if we lose. So we're paid contingent on the outcome of the case. We're paid a percentage of the outcome, usually around a third of the outcome. That, of course, makes us entrepreneurs, which is very exciting. And it's nice with the client relationship because you're never asking the client for any money. And if you do well for them, you're doing well for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Though, of course, if you're an associate at a plaintiff firm, you will be getting paid for your work. The contingency fee model is more a question for the overall bottom line of the firm. In other words, the ownership of the firm. But you know, as I'm now thinking back to being a young associate, I'm curious about your own journey to the plaintiff's side.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

I had no idea when I was in law school what I wanted to do with my career. When it came to March of my first year of law school, I asked my dad what he thought I should do for the summer. And he said, you should find a good lawyer to work for. And I said, we have this career office at the law school, and they have a list of good firms. And he said, No, I didn't tell you to work for a good firm. There are lots of mediocre lawyers in good firms. And in fact, there are good lawyers in mediocre firms. He said, You need to find a good lawyer to work for who will mentor you for the summer. And I said, I don't think there's a list in the career office of uh of good lawyers. This is Spencer before things like super lawyers existed, you know, these sort of these sort of rating entities of lawyers. And he said, Well, I can give you a list. So he gave me a list and I wrote a dozen letters and got three offers and took the offer from the lawyer who I thought would provide me with the best mentoring experience. He happened to be the leading plaintiff's lawyer in Philadelphia, but that was a coincidence. I went to work for him for the summer. He mentored me, he offered me a permanent position, which I eventually accepted, and that's how I became a plaintiff's lawyer. So who is that? It's a famous person, of course.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Who is that person? What was that firm you started out at?

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah. So that was James E. Beasley, and his name adorns Temple University's law school. And he was the best plaintiff's lawyer in Philadelphia in the 20th century, and a great role model for myself, my law partner, Tom Klein, and many others.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

So it's interesting. You you got your dad's advice, you followed it to a T. You got to work for, you know, as you say, the best plaintiff's law in Philadelphia in the 20th century. In your experience, how how good was your dad's advice? Perfect. It was perfect advice.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

He kept me out of the career office, which was something I didn't realize how important it was to not go to the career office. I counsel my law students: get a job on your own. Don't just accept whatever is offered to you through someone who is recruiting you. Figure out what kind of work interests you, figure out what city you want to live in, figure out who are the best employers in those cities or that place in the area of law you want to work in, and write them letters and they will respond because we lawyers don't get letters like that. They'll respond, you'll get interviews, and you'll get an offer or offers. And that's a lot better away than accepting what's shoved in front of you by the recruitment process at law schools.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

You're you're teasing our next section there, Shane, and I love it. You've you've you've read our minds. I definitely want to break down your excellent talk you give on how to get a job you'll really like. Before I get there, I wanted to ask, I mean, so you're at a great plaintiff's firm for, I believe, 11 or so years. And then you and Tom Klein, and and I, of course, I wasn't around at the time, and I'm sure that already at that point you two are distinguished trial lawyers, but Klein Inspector did not exist. It wasn't the incredible national powerhouse it is now. It was just an idea at some point. How and why did you guys start your own shop?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Tom and I felt that we could do more if we had our own office. We were treated very well by Jim Beasley, and he was a wonderful person to work for in every important way. But we thought we could do more if we had our name on the door. So we decided to leave and we founded our firm in 1995. So quite a quite a while ago.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Okay, so this is it's already bleeding through. It kind of it's it effervesces, if that's a word, off of you. Your love for this work. And I I follow in those footsteps. And that's one of my most favorite things about you is how much you don't need to do any of this stuff. You don't have to even practice law anymore. You don't have to talk to law students across the country about this type of law, none of it. But you do it, I take it, because you love it. And you've frankly been able to do that for a long time. So let's talk about it. Now, in addition to the law that you practice, you also teach, you lecture at several law schools. I said Stanford, UC Law, uh, San Francisco, Berkeley. You also give talks uh to law schools around the country. And one of those talks, you teased about it before, is how to find a job you'll really like. I want to spend some time on this, but what was the germ of the idea of that talk? Where did where what was the idea that was the basis for it?

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Because so many law students end up going to a legal employer where they are unhappy and they leave. And while they're there, they have not developed transferable and marketable skills. So they're really stuck in a circumstance where they have to start over. And that to me is deeply unsatisfying. In fact, to me, it's a tragedy that someone would spend all the money and all the time to go through law school and to excel and end up someplace where they're unhappy. So why not have your first job be a job you like instead of a job you don't like?

SPEAKER_02 13:40

You know, one thing that I know you've talked about, I've heard you talk about, I've talked with you about it, is how students go to law school for a different reason than they start to convince themselves later on, you know, in law school. And they compromise their values and it sets them on a path that could be professionally unsatisfying. So how does that, and you mentioned it a moment ago, is it potential tragedy or a real tragedy? How does that motivate your work in this area?

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Well, part of it is how it gets to that point. They enter law school for all the right reasons. They enter law school idealistically. And what happens to many law students is that they get beaten down by the humbling process of being a first-year law student. And that causes many of them to compromise the values that they had when they entered the law school. They forget how great they are. They forget what got them there, and they feel they have to accept these offers that are being shoved at them, many of which are being shoved at them by big law. And they know that 80% of matriculants to large law firms leave in the first five years. So, in order to go to a large law firm, given those statistics, you had you'd have to be risk preferential to think that you're going to be one of those one in five who's going to stay more than five years. Yet they seem to accept these offers because they don't feel that there is something better for them. And that's why you have worked so hard, as have I and others, to expose law students to the fact that there are other alternatives to their practice, including plaintiff's work. You can make a nice living, you can do work you find truly rewarding, you can be entrepreneurial, you can make a contribution to the public good. And regrettably, those opportunities tend not to exist in large law firms.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

You were kind of getting my mindset back in that, you know, what it's like to be just starting out at law school. Because it's funny, people do seem to generally go to law school for reasons that they're motivated personally. I mean, that that they care about something. They want to have the tool of the law to effectuate that thing. And it's usually not helping some corporation fight with another one or get richer. Why do you think that the value set changes there? Is it because law school is so jarring to a 1L and you kind of feel like it's scary and different? Is it that there's so many sort of treadmills you got to get on? Well, you got to try to get, you know, you got to compete with everybody and you got to try to get the quote unquote fanciest job. Like, why is that? Why do you think that transition happens? Of I went to law school to do this, but in fact, I'm gonna do that instead.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

It's such a difficult process in terms of going to your classes and keeping up and studying for exams. It's a very competitive atmosphere. So people get worn down by that process. They know they need to get a job for the 1L summer and for the 2L summer. They know they only have two summers to have jobs and therefore only two summers to expose themselves to potential permanent employers. That creates a pressure. They see their colleagues getting offers and they start to feel that they're behind because they haven't gotten or accepted an offer for summer employment. Uh, these absurd summer clerkship salaries are dangled in front of their faces, you know, four or five thousand dollars a week, which is uh really uh coercive because they're not worth four or five thousand dollars a week. They know that, but they're trying to be convinced to come there permanently with the promise of that kind of money, even though they know that they're likely to be unhappy. And so they end up saying yes when they know they should say no. And it's deeply upsetting to me. And if they could just simply see that they have other good alternatives and lean into the process of getting a job, they'll get a job they'll like and they'll be happy. And you talk about prestige, Spencer. I say to my law students, what's really prestigious is being happy. What a crazy idea.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

You know, why don't we have happiness as our goal? Now, I love how in these talks you lay out a whole bunch of statistics uh based on surveys from lawyers. And here there are several that are striking, but here's a few. Students at tier four, four law schools, so the opposite of the tier one schools, are actually the most professionally satisfied. Here's another one. Lawyers in the public sector rank their professional happiness above lawyers at big corporate firms. And income was the factor that least contributed to happiness, as we were just talking about. What's your biggest takeaway from those surveys that you cite?

SPEAKER_01 18:09

That all of us, whether we're lawyers or other professionals, get the most satisfaction out of working with and helping people. Feeling that you contribute to the public good is essential to professional satisfaction. And how many lawyers are in that firm ends up being inversely related to your happiness because the more lawyers in your firm, the less chance that you're having direct contact with a person who needs you. And you're instead going to be stratified into a large team in which you, as the newest person, will get the least interesting work. That's why lawyers leave big firms.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Okay, you've you've touched on this. Your four-point plan to help law students get where they want to go. Now, the first step is deciding what area of law will make them happy. So, you know, you want to think about what you want to do before you go into actual practice. But of course, there are a lot of practice areas. You and I have a favorite. But how do you counsel a student to find in themselves what practice area they'll really love?

SPEAKER_01 19:12

By the time you get to the second semester of your first year, you've taken eight classes, you've been exposed to a lot of areas of law, and you may have had exposure before law school to some areas of law. So you have some sense of what you don't like, and you have some sense of what you like better. So in thinking about your one L summer, you ought to be able to say, hey, I like these one or two areas of law. Then you figure out who employs folks in those areas of law. I urge law students to split their summer, have two experiences that gives them more exposure to more potential permanent employers. Of course, the big firms have figured that out. And so they structure their summer clerkship program that it's so long and it starts very soon after the school year ends and very soon before the next school year begins that you can't have that second experience. That's a tip-off that you shouldn't be going to work for one of those firms. The coercion? Yeah, exactly. The coercion. If the firm really cared about you and was really interested in helping you, they would let you work there for half the summer and then go have a second experience. But they have recognized that they're cutting in half their chances of getting you permanently if they let you split your summer.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

It's funny, you know, on the question of step one, what do I really want to do? You're you're saying something pretty simple, actually. You're saying your classes in law school, they cover different topics. Trust your gut and what interests you, not what like seems popular or you know, what you're supposed to do. Like actually listen to yourself and go in that direction. I mean, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Yes, that's it, that's right. And uh, some people like criminal law and some people like tours, some people like contracts and some people like property. Well, there are areas of practice within all of those subjects. So go do it.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

All right. Point number two in your plan is deciding where you want to live. So picking an actual city, I love that advice. I gave it to my brother and sister who followed behind me and many other people. I think it's so smart to know where you want to be. Number three is something I want to dive into a little bit more, and that's to go find that summer job in that field of law, in that city. But there's an important caveat you add in your talk, which is you're not gonna find these folks, most of them, in your on-campus interviewing. Can you unpack that for us? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

If you think about on-campus interviewing, the law schools, UC Law of San Francisco, for example, Berkeley, Stanford, Pen Carrie, Drexel Klein, they have a couple of hundred legal employers that come either on campus or reach out through electronic means to law students for interviews. But they represent less than 1% of all American legal employers. That group that comes, well, they, you know, the ones that go to UC Law San Francisco, they're going across the Bay to Berkeley, they're going down the peninsula to Stanford, they're going to Santa Clara, they're going to Seattle and Portland. And Los Angeles and Denver and New York and Chicago and everywhere else. So when you limit yourself to just those folks that are doing the on-campus interviewing, you're competing unnecessarily with everybody else who's looking for a summer job. Why not reach out for the 99% of legal employers that don't come on campus? It's much easier to find a job that way. And once you start with that process, you find that you're going to end up with legal employers that are really interested in you, not just interested in recruiting some number of summer clerks who will then accept permanent employment, who they can then bill until that lawyer leaves.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

As I was relisting or re-watching actually your this talk to prepare for our interview, that 1% point really like landed on me. And you made it again here, which is that like it there, it's another example of sort of law school's forced myopia that you're like, oh, here are the on-campus, you know, interviewing firms, these must be the ones I can work at. When in fact that is just a sliver. It's what you see, because they're the ones going everywhere, but it's just a sliver. You know, it's it's funny how yet another myopia example. So the other 99%. Any quick advice on on how students find the other 99%?

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Oh my God, it's so easy. I mean, if you want to live in Spokane, Washington, and you want to do trust in the states work just apocryphally, right? Well, you just go in, you just go into Safari and and type in trust in Estates lawyer, Spokane, Washington, and a whole bunch of firm names are going to come up. And the one thing law students are great at is reading websites. Law students can distinguish a baloney website from a real website pretty quickly based upon professional accomplishments and the like. So it's a it's a 10-minute exercise to figure out who are the potential legal employers in your area of interest in your town of interest.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

And I should throw in a pitch for uh something we both care deeply about, which is the National Plaintiff's Law Association. Just it's just an example of, you know, in specific practice areas, there are organizations that are already doing that work for you.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Just a just a little pitch. Yes, there are. Exactly. That didn't exist five years ago, but so many more law students have figured out that big law is not for them. So they've been looking for alternatives and they have founded plaintiff law associations on their campuses. And this has been a fantastic way of introducing law students, not just to the idea of plaintiffs to work, but also each of them have lists of potential employers in that field in that geographical area.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

So step four, that's reaching out to these firms with a letter. And in your advice, you're specific. You say send a letter. Why?

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Yeah. So I say send a letter, and uh that begins by getting stationary, and you should take your law school's beautiful colorized seal and put it on your letterhead. After all, you're paying for it, you're entitled to do that, make up some nice stationary and send a letter to these potential employers and make the letters individualized, signal to them that you know who they are, talk about how you've been attracted to them by their professional accomplishments, and specify what one or two of those are, and ask for either an informational interview or a job interview, and send the letter both by US mail and by email. And I say that because first, we lawyers get so few physical letters that we certainly read them and we're impressed by them, and we get so few from law students that we pay attention to them. So there's a very good chance that we'll respond favorably at least to an interview. And secondly, correspondingly, because of uh of all of the uh malware and other invasions of our information technology systems in our law firms, our spam filters are such that emails from unfamiliar email addresses don't get through to us very often. So if all you're doing is sending an email to a lawyer or a law firm, it may not find its way to the right person. And this is a belt and suspenders way of getting the communication read. And then after you send the email and the letter, wait a couple of days and call and ask for that interview. And you need to make people say no to you. You know, the answer no is a it's a lot better answer than no answer. So please don't tell me, please don't tell me that you sent a letter or an email and you didn't get a reply. Of course you didn't get a reply. Of course you didn't. Call, lean into it. This is actually more important than any class you're taking. And I tell my law students, including in the class, I'm teaching you.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

And I always say, as to plaintiff's firms, the exact thing you said is so true. It's like it's a kind of a filter in its way. And I tell people this directly. I say, at a plaintiff's firm, we are busily representing our clients' interests and telling other companies and insurance companies that they owe our clients money. And most days they don't pay them, but we keep persisting. It's like we need to see the persistence to imagine you in these shoes as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Yes. And I think that's partly why this system works, because law firms' lawyers are so impressed at the law student who has the initiative to write to them.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Yep. And I just got to share one quick anecdote on writing a letter. So a student reached out to me recently. I gave, I was talking to her about her best approach to get some interviews. I gave credit to you and said, well, write a letter. It's what Shannon says. Next time I talked to her about a week later, she had like two interviews. So I just I just love it.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

And Spencer, isn't it so energizing for you to be able to contribute so deeply and meaningfully to the progress of a young person? It's the greatest.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

It it warms my trial lawyer heart completely. Um so uh a little bit of um uh numerical advice here. How many, how many letters do you envision students should be sending out? Do you have some sense of um how many they should be sending?

SPEAKER_01 27:46

If they're in the top half of their class between five and ten, if they're in the bottom half of their class between 10 and 15, if you're in the bottom half, don't include your transcript. If you're in the top half, do include your transcript. One of the beauties of my system is if you're writing to folks that don't hire summer clerks as part of a regularized process, they're gonna tend not to ask you for your transcript. So if you're in the bottom half of your class, you actually have a better chance of getting a job at one of these firms.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

All right. So a big piece of this is obviously finding work that's meaningful and personally satisfying, as we've talked about. But honestly, money is something that's on most law students' minds. Student loans are a serious obstacle for them. So how do you forge a career in law that's both meaningful and to put it right out there, also sufficiently lucrative? Or at least how do you talk to law students about this?

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Well, first of all, if you go to work for a small office, you're gonna be very valuable to them from the beginning. You're gonna learn skills that are essential to their practice, and you're likely to get raises that are a higher percentage of your initial salary than if you went to work for a big firm where you're doing a lot of scut work and not being particularly valuable to anybody. So your starting salary might be lower at one of the firms that we're talking about, but your potential for increases is much higher. And by developing transferable and marketable skills, if they're not recognizing your contribution financially, you can readily move laterally or open your own firm. And that, of course, is also economically very beneficial. We plaintiffs firms don't publish our income statistics, but the reality is that many plaintiffs firms on a per capita basis, the lawyers are making just about or more than their big firm counterparts. We just don't brag about it.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

This also struck me as I was re-watching your presentation. It's that, yes, okay, of course, the two, whatever it is now, 225, 250, whatever they pay first years out, that on its face is, oh, you know, pretty enticing. But you also point out, yeah, but you're going to get basically inflation level raises going forward, and they can't differentiate between you either. They can't really treat one different than the other, which is funny, because you sort of have easier access, if you can get to that big law firm, to the big number to start with. But then year after year of being treated the exact same as people who, in your own mind, are not performing at the same level as you are.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Right. When I went to work for Jim Beasley, he started me at a salary that was lower than I would have made if I gone to a big firm. But I was valuable to him very quickly. And he recognized that and how he paid me, and he paid me more than what I would have made if I had been in a big firm. And that's true of many plaintiffs' lawyers. It's again, it's something that we don't publish for obvious and good reason, but it's a reality of our practice. And law students need to see that so they don't feel that they just have to go to a big firm in order to make a good living and pay back their student loans. No, you can make a good living and be professionally satisfied, pay back your loans, contribute to society. You can have it all.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

It's funny, that was my experience too as an associate here at Walk Up. That, you know, I had I had years where I was ahead or well ahead of my big law counterparts because of the incentive structures that are set up here and the hustle is rewarded and that kind of thing. And then I got to become a partner and enjoy it, as opposed to, you know, much more grinding. But anyway, I'll get off my soapbox. I like your soapbox, Spencer. So you've said that smaller firms are firms where you can prove your value faster. You've touched on this, but but like contextualize that for us because a smaller firm is smaller, fewer people. How does that shake out to prove your value faster?

SPEAKER_01 31:29

If you go to work for a six-lawyer firm, uh the Beasley firm was a 12-lawyer firm when I went to work there. How how how large was walk-up when you started? It was about 12.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

It was 11 or 12. Yeah, it's funny.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Okay. Okay. So so if you go to work for a six-lawyer firm, just to take a number, well, you can't be the 10th person on a 10-person team because they're only six people. Right. So I had a student at Penn who came to see me after nine months at a very large firm whose name you would recognize. And he told me he had to leave the firm because he was part of a 150 lawyer team working on a matter for an international bank. And he was doing a third-level document review. This was an extraordinarily good student at Penn Law School, and he was doing work that a paralegal could do. He wasn't even doing work that a lawyer needed to do. So you don't want to be the 150th person on a 150-person team. And the ones who leave after two or three years, and that's a large percentage, you know, it's difficult because they haven't developed transferable and marketable skills. Client Inspector have hired lots of folks from big firms, but I tell them when they interview, you're not being hired based upon what you've done in the firm because you've done nothing worthwhile. You're being hired because you have good aptitude, because you've gone to a good law school, because your grades are good. But you're not being hired because of your work at the big firm because you you haven't tried a case, you haven't taken a serious deposition. Uh, you you don't have any transferable and marketable skills.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

This breaks my heart, the point you're making. We say the same thing. You know, I teach trial advocacy at Berkeley, and I have brilliant incredible students and they've done so many incredible things. But you know, sometimes I will hear back from one who's a sixth year at whatever big law firm and they're looking to move somewhere else. And I ask them, well, how many depots have you got in? How many trials? And it's like, well, I uh you know, I second chaired a depot and then I had um one that I was almost gonna go and it didn't happen. I'm like, I don't have to say, you know, to say yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

And of course, if they became public defenders or system DAs, they'd be they'd be in court immediately. And I love that, and it's great training, and you do develop transferable marketable skills, but it's economically challenging, isn't it? So while I would prefer folks go there than a big firm, it can be too challenging for some young lawyers.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Okay, we'll leave the soapbox behind for just for just a while. There'll be many more times where we'll come back to it, Shannon. Um, but one thing that we both get is lots of questions from law students. And this one, I'm just I'm curious how you tackle this question, because I I get it frequently. It's what internships or classes will help me in my practice if I want to be a plaintiff's attorney?

SPEAKER_01 34:12

First of all, pay attention in torts, learn torts, because that is plaintiff's work. Second, take evidence as soon as you possibly can, which for most law students means in the first semester of your second year, because that will give you the grounding you need to understand the rules around trying a case. Uh do try to do trial team, do try to do a clinic while you're in law school. Many states, including California, are very generous in what they permit law students to do. So in California, for example, you can try cases as a law student. Uh you can't do that in Pennsylvania, but you can do that in California. So if you do those things, that will help you prepare for a career in a trial practice.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

Well, Shannon, this has been so much fun. Each time I get to talk with you, I learn more. Uh, even when it's about things we've talked about before. I love it. Sometimes it takes me a time or two to get in my head, and I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Um, Spencer, we've been a great team together. And I love, I love your office, and I have so many friends in your office. Um the walk-up office for those who might be interested in practicing in San Francisco is the best office in Northern California. And you are one of the finest lawyers in California, in fact, across the country. And you've been a model for so many of us who care about law students. So I'm just so grateful to be able to work with you.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Well, that is flattery I don't deserve, but I'll take it. Uh I'm not gonna let you go without answering this last question, which we'd like to ask all of our guests. I think it's an interesting one. I hope you do too. If you could go back in time to law school and talk to yourself at that time, what would you tell yourself about the journey ahead?

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Trust yourself. Remember who you were before you walked through those doors. Project that self-confidence and how you approach getting a job. Don't accept mediocrity. Don't sacrifice your values.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

Well, Shannon, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a great pleasure as I knew it would be. Thank you again.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

Thank you, Spencer.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Well, that was my conversation with veteran plaintiff's attorney Shannon Specter. I just loved hearing Shannon's story, how he landed his first job, his four-point plan to help law students forge a career that will make them happy and fulfilled. Handwritten letters as well, love that. I could have spoken with Shannon for a few more hours easily. He's accomplished so much in his career, but it's also clear he cares so much about the next generation of attorneys. Speaking of which, we're going to unpack the conversation with Shannon with our own law school correspondent, Marissa Lambert. Marissa is a 2L at Boston College Law. We met during my East Coast PLA tour last fall when I got to join BC Law's PLA for breakfast. When I met Marissa, I was immediately impressed, not only by her desire to get to the plaintiff's side, but also by her hustle. She was already on her way to a premier California personal injury firm by the time we met. In our conversation, I knew right away the value her perspective could bring to a show like this. Hi, Marissa. How's it going?

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Great. I can't believe this is our first episode. So excited.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

I know. A little bit of preparation. Here we are. Well, I want to hear what your thoughts were on what Shannon had to say. But this is our first episode together, and it makes a lot of sense, I think, for us to talk about your journey. Tell us, how did you end up at BC Law and what inspired you to take that law school plunge?

SPEAKER_00 37:31

So I was actually on the BC wait list basically all summer. I was going to retake the LSAT. I had pulled my deposit from another law school. I just, I really wanted to go to BC. And five days before school started, I called their admissions office and I basically begged them to let me come and you know give me 10 minutes of their time. And they begrudgingly did. And I spoke to them and I'm still pinching myself that I am here.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

That's the hustle right there. I love it. I mean, this is one of those contexts where no uh should be followed up with, well, can we keep talking? Uh I love that's what you did.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Yeah, very in line with Shannon's advice, actually. You know, make them say no to you, get in contact with them. Actually, pick up the phone and call.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

Yeah, I love that. Uh heading to school, did you have a sense of what you wanted to do? What I mean, what a law career would look like for you.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

I figured I would be in litigation, but beyond that, I really had no clue. What I heard most prominently at these law school visits was, you know, 60 to 70% of our students go into big law where they pay $225,000 of salary. So in my head, I was like, well, it makes sense. I'm spending all this money on tuition. I'm gonna put in, you know, three years of hard work. And it makes sense that my reward would be a high-paying job day one out of law school. So it wasn't my plan plan, but I figured it would go that way.

SPEAKER_02 39:01

It's funny, that that's what the direction sort of suggested, I guess, right? That's that's the that's what it looked like.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

Okay, well, I'm a little bit biased. Perhaps you've noticed from uh from getting to know me, but I was of course very excited to learn about your interest in the plaintiff's practice. What was your path to the plaintiff's side?

SPEAKER_00 39:17

I think it started last summer at my 1L summer internship with the US attorney's office because I learned how easy it was to do something really meaningful and really interesting. And just having that experience really turned me towards a career that I hoped would make an impact. And I just felt like given how many opportunities I have to do something good with this degree, it felt like a shame to squash it.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

Did you know about plainest practice before you came to law school? Did you know it was a thing?

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Absolutely nothing. I thought it was the exact same thing as public interest work and what that meant to me was working for a nonprofit.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

I love that. I mean, it's like, yeah, just shining a light on a whole new thing. Uh well, I mentor law students all the time, uh, all across the country. I love doing it, but it has been just a couple years, a couple decades, since I was a law student myself. So, in your listening to the interview with Shannon, what what what struck you about it, Mirsa?

SPEAKER_00 40:16

I'm not kidding. I was like, how am I going to hack into every law school intercom system and play this podcast for all students to hear? This whole carefully crafted narrative around law school jobs just come crashing down. It was so refreshing to have Shannon talk so truthfully in a way that law students aren't normally talked to. And he's saying things that we all know, you know, about job happiness and, you know, about money not necessarily giving you job satisfaction. Like, we know all those things. There are so many parables that say that in so many different ways, but it's just a hard lesson to learn. And so I feel like listening to this episode with Shannon was, you know, even for me, who's going into plaintiff's law, it felt like it just cut through all the noise of what I've heard over the past year and a half. And I took his advice, his four-step plan, and it worked for me. So I'm living proof.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

Yeah, tell me, that's a great point. So so how did you put his four-step plan to use?

SPEAKER_00 41:21

I figured out that I wanted to live in LA. I then reached out to different attorneys in plaintiffs' areas that I wanted to work in, specifically, you know, wrongful death. I was also interested in working in the in the California fires, and came across an attorney, sent him an email. I actually had not heard about the handwritten notepiece at that point, but luckily my email made it to his inbox. And I just went from there. And that's not a route my career services office would have ever taken. And it's not an attorney I would have ever been connected with, especially being at a school in Boston. I love when Shannon said in the interview, I think you asked him, you know, how do students actually do this? And he said, It's so easy. You just get on Google. And it is. It sounds incredibly daunting, but in practice, it was not that hard.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

And then you also, I mean, leverage connections as well, I think, right? I mean, you you got through to that firm in various ways, but one of them was I think you spoke with Shannon about it, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:20

Yes, I had the luxury of meeting Shannon over the summer, and that's because I went to the AAJ convention, which I didn't know any other student going. I did not want to go. I'm so glad I I went, but I don't know if everyone knows what AAJ is, so is that not very helpful?

SPEAKER_02 42:41

Well, I don't know. What's AAJ?

SPEAKER_00 42:43

My understanding is that it's a group of trial attorneys who meet over the summer, but they're from everywhere. And also my understanding is that everyone knows each other in plaintiff's law. So it almost seemed like a reunion, a really nice reunion of sorts for people who work, you know, all or all across the country.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

Uh I think it's an excellent description. I would add to it. It's the American Association for Justice. It's like our trade group on the plaintiff's side. And we have multiple conferences. The one you went to is the big summer conference last year in San Francisco. And you're right, it's like it's a lot of people. It's like a couple thousand, a few thousand people that come who do this practice. But so many of us know each other. And even though we're all from small shops and that kind of thing, we all work together so much that people get to know each other, and it's like rising tide, raises all ships kind of situation. So that's what you were thrown into, that tide.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

I really felt that. I have done all of the follow-up with a recruiter after they come to your campus and never got anywhere with that. But there was like 10 people who said, Marissa, here's my email, here's my number. If I can help you in any way, please let me know. Yeah. I ri highly recommend it. Amazing resource.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

You know, law students generally go to law school because they, you know, they have a dream of something they want to accomplish. And, you know, it's it's generally. Making the world a better place. But then, you know, oftentimes folks get to law school, and I don't know if it's like the craziness of one L year and how that kind of like jumbles your perspective on life and like reorders your people's thinking, but it gets lots of folks in a position where they may not be doing what they intended when they came to law school. They sort of lose that value structure that they had. And, you know, Shannon said, stick to your values, it will pay off. I'm just curious, what do you make of the reason people go to law school and then like why they're there later? What do you make of it?

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Yeah, you know, I don't think any law student is sitting there really weighing out, do I take the money or do I give up all of my values? You know, it's not as black and white as that. I think when it's happening, you don't even really know what's happening. And I think maybe once you're there and actually doing the work and you're no longer, you know, a summer intern getting wined and dined, you maybe see the reality of it. But at that point, it's too late.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

I wanted to ask you about another thing, money. We talked about that in a couple ways. And one part of it that I wanted to raise with you was the fact that, you know, at a smaller firm or plaintiff side shop, you might start off making a little bit less, but really in short order, you can match and eventually even outpace folks that are at a big law firm. And there's also a much larger chance that you'd make a partner at a smaller shop or a plaintiff shop. And of course, that gets you, you know, access to equity and you know, equity in the outcomes for your clients, which is good financially for you. How does that factor into your thinking?

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Yes, that goes into the long versus short-term planning and why students take jobs. I also really appreciated Shannon's idea that if you are going into big law, you are risk preferential. I think what the plaintiff's world could do a lot better is being a bit more transparent. You know, I have no idea, not only what the firm I'll be going to how they pay, but what the industry standard is for plaintiff's law. And I think a big reason why some kids are turned away from it is if it's not being reported, then it must be so bad.

SPEAKER_02 46:05

Right. Let's talk. So, first of all, I will say on this whole topic of pay transparency, the NPLA, National Plaintiff's Law Association, has done a great job in taking on this fight because for reasons that baffle me, it's hard on the plaintiff's side to get firms to share what they pay folks out of the gates. I don't get it. I'm I'm in favor of being much more transparent. Now, also on the pay transparency, it's like, you're right. People assume it must be so bad. You know, if it's not very transparent, it must be horrible. I'll tell you, it's a general matter, and I can't speak for everybody. It's better than what you're gonna see at any governmental job that you're gonna find or any nonprofit job that you're gonna find. And it does vary from firm to firm. But I mean, you're gonna be, you know, in the 75% range of what you'd make at big law out of the gates. And of course, plaintiff's firms are harder because salary is a smaller component of that relative to big law. Big law, you get a big salary and a tiny bonus. Plaintiff's law, you get a lesser salary and sometimes a very big bonus. But it is way better than people think. And, you know, at in any number of good plaintiffs' firms out there, you're making six figures to start off with.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

And also why it's important to remember what happens after that. Like you can expect to move up in your job faster than your counterparts at big law firms, and your salary increases with it. But again, it's just so hard to see six years down the line when you are broke as a law student right now.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

Yeah. And you've got loans and, you know, concerns. I yeah, completely. But if if you've got the hustle in the right place and that kind of thing, it can be even as an associate better than big lot. Now, I will say to all the folks out there who are frustrated by pay transparency issues, please continue to raise your voice. Say, hey, we need to have transparency. And as you know, more law students become plaintiff's lawyers, they, as I say to folks, they transition and they go on to the other side, they go to the hiring side, advocate internally, you know, try to change the policies from inside so you can help out those who are coming behind you.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

Well, I know as a law student it can get crazy stressful and feel like the sky is falling. But what I took from Shannon is that there's very good reason to be hopeful. It's 100% possible to not compromise your values and still have a thriving and successful career in this business. All right, Marissa, that's a wrap. Looking forward to doing this again next week.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Yeah, looking forward to the next one.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

Well, that's our show. We'll see you next week. And if you have any suggestions for topics you want to hear covered, or if you have any questions that you want to hear our guests talk about on air, send us an email. The address is Spencer at cause of actionpodcast.com. Cause of Action is hosted by me, Spencer Paulkey, joined by Marissa Lambert. Thanks so much to our guests today, Shane Inspector. Peter Arcuni is our senior producer, and our executive producer is Gabe Riven for Walk Up Melodia, Kelly and Schoenberger.