The latest addition to our “value practice” blog series features a timely and provocative four-part discussion on training legal talent, all focusing on different aspects of Hewlett-Packard Company’s innovative new legal talent development project. This series will provide an in-depth look into HP’s post-law school training for new lawyers, with entries on how HP integrates their new hires into the legal team, how they plan to develop their new lawyers’ client service focus and skill set, and will also feature the perspectives from their new-to-in-house counsel. This series will also provide an exclusive look at a successful value-based staffing practice that focuses not just on the experienced counsel, but on the pipeline of talent that the company will rely on in future generations. It will provide a rare insider’s look and a terrific model of how to prepare attorneys to meet the challenges of complex and sophisticated corporate practice and client service.
We are pleased to welcome, Amy Schuh as our first guest blogger. Amy is the Legal/GA Chief of Staff and Vice President of Operations for Hewlett-Packard, where she is responsible for driving operational excellence across the law department. She also serves as the Co-Chair to HP’s Pro Bono Program. Amy will open up this series with an overview of the program.
Thank you to everyone at Hewlett-Packard, for your time and for offering to share your experiences with us. As always, any comments, questions, constructive criticisms, cries from the bewildered and notes of appreciation are welcome in the comment area at the end of the blog posts.
Part I
It was the fall of 2009. Law firms were canceling summer programs and deferring start dates. We were staffing our cases with junior associates whose hourly rates seemed high, and worse, we had little prospect of retaining their work product after staffing an HP case. At the same time, we had a need for top talent, especially in the junior ranks, as we historically hired attorneys 5-7 years or more out of law school. We had a perfect storm. We knew there was a pool of law school students who were incredibly talented, smart and eager to find a job. This has rarely been done in-house, but we also knew that we could be the pioneers — we could train new attorneys as well as, if not better than, any major law firm. Best of all, we could shape them in the ways of an HP attorney. Not only that, but we could develop them and provide them with enormous future opportunities by leveraging the many practice areas in our large, global, diverse law department.
And so started our new graduate attorney program. That winter we met with students at the top law schools in the country, seeking three lawyers who would be interested in entry-level litigation, intellectual property, corporate and commercial law positions. We chose four (and it turns out we chose really, really well), who started at HP in the fall of 2010. Each attorney was assigned a buddy, someone experienced in the law department who could help orient each new graduate to the ways of HP and answer any questions. We also developed an awesome onboarding website. Our GC and his direct staff personally selected four supervising managers to ensure that each new attorney received critically important mentoring and day-to-day oversight. We then created a two-year formal education and development program, which was kicked off by two training boot camp sessions. That program was so effective that we extended invitations to any new professional joining the legal department. Our new graduates receive a mix of core content, practical experience and targeted training for the area in which they are assigned. The training program was well-received and is evolving as we prepare to onboard a new class in the fall — five more in the United States and three in India — and are already recruiting in the fall for the class of 2012.
Initially, we selfishly sought to train lawyers who could be great, lifelong HP attorneys. But the reality is that we also freed up our more senior lawyers to do the complex work we are paying them to do, and exponentially increased the energy level in our teams just by adding four fresh faces, who were excited and proud to say that they are the inaugural class of this cool program HP Legal, concocted just a few short years ago.