THE PIPELINE: ACT ONE SCENE ONE

The children of a nation are its future so everyone says and this fact is invoked when it needs to be and it is a fact. Look at the current crop of national leaders across all industries and you'll notice that they are wards of the state or children of wards of the state in the sense that the state gave them an international childhood, education, development and nutrition programme. Adolf Hitler for all his choices made sound choices as far as the children of Germany were concerned, with preserving their culture and securing their contribution to the state e.t.c.

What does have to do with legal? In the fourth year of yours truly in the school system (400 level) it happened that lawyees were doing all sorts of professional programmes (ICSAN, CIARB) and after this they hopped on a plane across the Atlantic or to Jo'burg for a foreign degree to JumpStart the illustrious legal career. After a while the lawyers returned or finished the ICSAN or whatever else and began work at a law firm.
Then a short while or a few years later (pick one), THEY LEFT THE LAW. For a simple reason really. The finances were off and they usually moved to financial institutions like banks, financing outfits.
I find this decision to be admirable and a true reflection of the beauty of capitalism which allows you to do as you please where you own the means of your own production. But from a legal ecosystem perspective we must stop the bleeding or else in few years we will be an ecosystem in drought.

These said lawyees are sharp, ambitious and fortunate enough to be able to purchase an expensive, global education and they should be a high return on investment to legal directly, the idea being that this education gives you an edge, a cachet to the firm you are with as well as enhances your contribution to local legal culture. But if these lawyees are leaving then what is the point?

This is about the legal pipeline of talent, of bodies on the ground and of ambitious young minds engaged in legal. The football team F.C. Barcelona has its marbles straight, is sticking to the plot and is a model to follow. It has its functioning football academy (a pipeline of football talent) that produces a team that has become a living, breathing fighting unit of steel. Its results speak for it: The Champions League, The World's Best Player, Massive Membership of the World XI, Reception of a large part of advertising revenues e.t.c.

Creating and tending to a pipeline means addressing the issues that encourage prospective legal heavyweights to leave before they find their feet at the beginning stages of the legal career: poor pay, stifling of initiative, actively killing of ideas e.t.c It will also weed out the weak, the unlucky and the unproductive so whatever is left will be leaner, meaner and will guarantee a meaningful future for legal.