Bakke's Law of Change
Status quo is not an option for the legal
profession or for the State Bar. Incoming State Bar President Gary L.
Bakke hopes to lead for the future, bringing lawyers together to address
consequences of economic pressures, increased competition, and combative
lawyering, both in terms of the public's perception of the profession
and lawyers' personal lives.
by Dianne Molvig
It is, perhaps, a hint of Gary Bakke's long-ago days of studying the
forces governing the universe, while he was a college physics major.
Call it Bakke's Law of Change: "When things are up in the air," he says,
"they're much easier to move." The lawyer in him adds this codicil: "The
difficult part is knowing where to put them."
Status Quo is Not an Option
The "up in the air" description aptly portrays
what's going on in the law profession today, making it ripe for change,
Bakke believes. In fact, such thinking had much to do with his decision
to run for State Bar president - an idea he cast off as "silly," he
admits, when a colleague first suggested it. After all, Bakke is a
self-described Bar "outsider." While long active in the Bar, "my
activity has been in the sections," he notes, "as opposed to the Board
of Governors." He is a former director and chair of the Law Practice
Management Section and of the Family Law Section.
After further consideration, however, Bakke felt the timing might be
right to run for the Bar's top post, which he assumed July 1. "I decided
this was a good time to try to lead in the direction I think the
profession has to go," he explains. "My philosophy is that the status
quo is not an option, for the profession or for the Bar association.
That's a theme you'll hear from me throughout the year."
Some may be surprised to hear such words coming from a man who's been
practicing law for 35 years, all of it in a small-town Wisconsin firm. A
native of Menomonie, Bakke attended the University of Wisconsin,
majoring in math as well as physics, until an inclination to pursue a
law degree led him to switch his undergraduate focus to economics. He
graduated from the U.W. Law School in 1965, intending to head to the
west coast or Minneapolis to use his law skills in a business setting.
Instead, he landed in a small private law practice in New Richmond - the
"best of both worlds," he says, because it was only 30 miles from
Minneapolis and yet a small-town environment for raising a family.
After 20 years with the same firm, Bakke partnered in 1985 with
George E. Norman and Thomas R. Schumacher to launch their own firm,
which now has attorneys working out of offices in Baldwin, Hudson, and
Menomonie, as well as New Richmond.
Legal Profession Faces Escalating Competition
From his vantage point of three-plus decades as an attorney, Bakke
sees dramatic changes in the legal profession. Contrary to what some may
believe, these transitions are not a distance off in the future. They're
already under way. And Bakke believes that most lawyers don't recognize
that yet. Lawyers in private practice, for example, feel the economic
pressures individually, as many of them now work extremely hard to earn
$30,000 or $40,000 a year. "But they don't realize that what they're
feeling is part of a sea change affecting the entire profession," Bakke
contends. "This isn't something we can fix by marketing. We have to
change what we do."
What are some of the shifts currently in motion that attorneys need
to respond to? Take, for starters, the new competition they face, which
is likely to escalate. "In my lifetime," Bakke notes, "lawyers have lost
huge areas of business. When I started practicing, I used to do 150 tax
returns a year. Lawyers don't do that any more. Real estate has never
been part of my practice, but it's been part of my firm's practice, just
as it's part of the practice of almost any firm. But lawyers basically
have lost that business to title insurance companies, abstract
companies, and realtors."
Any discussion of growing competition invariably brings up the topic
of multidisciplinary practices (MDPs), in which lawyers set up shop with
other professionals, such as certified public accountants (CPAs) and
financial planners, to offer services to clients. "Technically the issue
around multidisciplinary practice is whether lawyers can combine with
nonlawyers to provide services," Bakke says. "That's an important
debate, but it misses the real point, which is that other professionals
are going to provide those services regardless of the Bar's position on
MDP. The question is can lawyers participate.
"Right now, we have accounting firms advertising their estate
planning departments. We think that's unauthorized practice of law, but
we're never going to make that stick. The clients aren't going to put up
with lawyers defending their traditional turf."
Realtors, CPAs, and other professionals make up part of the new field
of competitors, but Bakke says most lawyers fail to recognize their
primary competition: their own clients. "Most of the things we do," he
says, "clients have the option of doing themselves. There's software
available that allows them to draft their own estate plans, or
employment agreements, or employee handbooks. Already many potential
clients choose to represent themselves in court, including many who can
easily afford an attorney."
While statistics from various sources differ, "up to 80 percent of
all family cases nationwide have at least one party appearing pro se,"
Bakke points out.
Add to the list yet another form of competition: the Internet. Bakke
pulls out an example of a printout from a Web site of a Harvard
professor who acts as a clearinghouse to find flat-fee counsel for
individuals or businesses through his nationwide attorney network. At
another site, consumers can post their legal problems and receive bids
from attorneys who want to do the work.
"I'm not saying these Internet ventures are going to be successful,"
Bakke explains. "But the point is that so many things are changing out
there. The status quo isn't going to work." While lawyers aren't alone
in coming to grips with these developments - look at what's happening to
booksellers, mortgage brokers, travel agents, and stockbrokers - lawyers
have been slow to acknowledge what's going on and search for ways to
adapt, Bakke says. That's not surprising behavior, he adds, for a
profession made up of people who are taught to look at precedent.
Lawyers Need to be Visionaries
"We are always looking backward. 'How did they do this last time?'
It's very difficult to look forward at the same time. We're not into
being visionaries," he says. Still, Bakke feels it's a role lawyers must
learn to assume. '"I hope we in the Bar association can help guide the
changes," he says, "to a place that's good for the profession and the
public."
For instance, attorneys must become much more efficient in producing
their work products. And that goes beyond employing computer technology.
"Just having computers doesn't cut it," Bakke says. "What you need is a
system such that you type in a client's name correctly the first time he
or she walks into your office, and then never have to type that name
again. It should go into every form, every bill. We have that ability in
my office today, but we don't use it consistently. That has to
change."
But that's just the beginning. Although his law office has a
reputation for being on the technology cutting edge among Wisconsin
firms, "we're in the Neanderthal era compared to other businesses,"
Bakke says, citing as an example a recent visit to his hometown bank to
obtain a home equity loan. In the time he and his banker chatted about
their families, a bank employee produced all the necessary documents and
disclosures - in personalized, not merely fill-in-the-blank, format.
"You can't do that in my office," Bakke notes.
Becoming more efficient also may require commoditizing some legal
services, in order for clients to see them as cost-effective. Many
routine legal matters can be off the shelf, rather than designed from
scratch for a particular client, Bakke suggests.
But above all, lawyers - whether they're working in private practice,
corporate law, or the public sector - need to transform how the public
views them. "We have to have the reputation -to earn the reputation -
for being problem solvers," Bakke says. "Many people avoid hiring
lawyers because they think we're going to make things worse, rather than
better. We have the opportunity to be good counselors and
problem-solvers, and to be cost-effective and efficient - what the CPAs
claim to be. But we can be better at it because, as lawyers, we have a
much broader perspective. We can understand matters and put them in
context. Good lawyers are Renaissance men and women."
Too often, however, lawyers get caught up in an adversarial demeanor
and forget the counselor role, Bakke observes. Many new law school
graduates seem to feel it's their job to be argumentative and
confrontational. "I'm distraught by that," Bakke says. "Now, there are
cases where strong, zealous advocacy is important - in criminal cases or
cutting-edge tort litigation. If you're going to take on Ford Motor
Company, you'd better be aggressive. But that doesn't mean you do that
if you're dividing the home 40. Or if you're helping two people who once
chose each other in marriage to resolve matters in a civil way, without
burning every bridge, throwing bombs, and helping them hate each other
forever. And hurting their kids. Some lawyers don't make that
distinction. But we have to."
All of these factors - the economic pressures, increased competition,
combative lawyering - combine to create severe consequences for
attorneys, both in terms of the public's perception of the profession
and in lawyers' personal lives, Bakke says. He notes that lawyers now
rank highest among all professionals for incidence of depression.
Maintaining balance is vital. For Bakke, a former marathon runner and
competitive ski jumper for 20 years, "Physical work is my recreation,"
he says. Some of that "recreation" took the form of designing and
building his own home a few years ago. Family is another focal point of
his personal life; he and his wife have two daughters, ages 36 and 24,
and two adopted sons, 12 and 6.
As Bar president, Bakke hopes to stir discussion among his fellow
lawyers about the dilemmas and problems they must face. "I don't know
the answers," he says, "but I can help us focus on the issues. I know
that people who are smarter than I am can find solutions. I have a lot
of confidence in lawyers when we work together."
Dianne Molvig operates Access
Information Service, a Madison research, writing, and editing service.
She is a frequent contributor to area publications.
Wisconsin Lawyer
