Pedigree vs Personality: The Dilemma of the Attorney Bio
By Kelly Hoey
One of my biggest pet peeves is when lawyer bios start with where lawyers went to law school
– @matthomann
Lawyer bios are not exactly exciting reading. Matt’s pet peeve is they always start with the
law school (check out his brilliant Venn Diagram).
For lawyers, law school is the mast we cling to. A badge of honor. Our cloak. Our tribe.
Now, my pet peeve? Lawyer bios - the ones you see on practically every Big Law , aspiring
to be Big Law, former Big Law website – descriptions of personal achievement which lack
personality, life, vibrancy, interest. ”Terrific that you went to a great school and graduated
in the top 10%, but do I want to sit in the same room with you?” Most lawyer bios do not
pass the airport test.
Know. Like. Trust.
After competence, skill, business acumen, my guess is clients look for someone they talk to,
someone say, with a bit of personality?
An exception to the “personality has no place in a lawyer bio” rule was the bio of the late
Marty Ginsburg. Husband of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Tax counsel at Fried Frank, Chair of
various bar committee, Professor and Harvard Law Graduate. Stellar, solid pedigree. But
it’s not the law school education which takes center stage in Marty’s bio, it’s the person. His
bio speaks for itself and for me, the personality of an attorney I never had the pleasure of
meeting, fearlessly and boldly shines through.
Martin D. Ginsburg is Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington,
DC. His professional corporation is of counsel to the Firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver &
Jacobson LLP.
Professor Ginsburg attended Cornell University, stood very low in his class and played on the
golf team. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School which, in those years,
did not field a golf team.
Professor Ginsburg entered private practice in New York City in 1958. He withdrew from fulltime practice when appointed the Beekman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and
moved to Georgetown University in 1980 when his wife obtained a good job in Washington.
In the interim, Professor Ginsburg served as Chairman of the Tax Section of the New York
State Bar Association, Chairman of the Committee on Taxation of the Association of the Bar of
the City of New York, Chairman of the Committee on Simplification of the Section of Taxation
of the American Bar Association, Member of the Advisory Group to the Commissioner of
Internal Revenue and Member of the Advisory Group to the Tax Division of the Department of
Justice. Since 1974, Professor Ginsburg has acted as Consultant to the American Law
Institute’s Federal Income Tax Project on the revision of the corporate and partnership tax
laws. From 1984 to 1987 he was a member of the ABA Tax Section Council, where he
performed no useful service at all; celebrating that unique achievement, in 2006 the Tax
Section gave Professor Ginsburg its lifetime Distinguished Service Award.
In addition to Columbia and Georgetown, he has taught at New York University School of Law
(Adjunct Professor, 1967-79, and Visiting Professor, 1993), Stanford Law School (Visiting
Professor 1978), the University of Leiden in Holland (1982), the Salzburg Seminar in Austria
(1984), Harvard Law School (Visiting Professor, 1986) and the University of Chicago Law
School (Visiting Professor, 1990).
In 1986, someone who probably prefers never to be identified endowed a Chair in Taxation in
his name at Georgetown; no one appears willing to occupy the Ginsburg Chair, and it remains
vacant. In 1993, the National Women’s Political Caucus gave Professor Ginsburg its “Good
Guy” award; history reveals no prior instance of a tax lawyer held to be a “Good Guy,” or even
a “Decent Sort.”
Professor Ginsburg is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel, a frequent speaker at
tax seminars, mainly in warm climates, and the author of one exciting treatise (with Jack S.
Levin of Chicago) and a ghastly number of articles on corporate and partnership taxation,
business acquisitions and other stimulating things.
In 2010, the publication Best Lawyers named Professor Ginsburg the best tax lawyer in
Washington, DC and named Mr. Levin the best tax lawyer in Chicago. Marty and Jack each
responded that the publication had gotten it at least half right.
Professor Ginsburg’s spouse was a lawyer before she found better work. Their older child was
a lawyer before she became a schoolteacher. The younger child, when he feels grumpy,
threatens to become a lawyer.
Well? Is your bio up to Ginsburg standards? Is it still suck in the “glory days” of law school?
Yes, I’m puzzling why accomplished professionals, such as lawyers, hide who they really
are and what they’ve really accomplished - recently.
And I wonder if any attorney has thought “I must take a serious look at my bio and edit it”.
I know, I know, you (attorney) will tell me justifying your inertia to change your bio – “our
firm has standards for the information which goes in the bio”, “our marketing department
puts these together”, “our practice head wants a uniform structure”…
A little reminder - it’s your expertise and your (lost) opportunities to showcase who you
are and why clients should want to work with you.
Instead of drafting to the required format, draft outside of it.
Listed in Forbes as one of five women changing the world of VC/Entrepreneurship, Kelly Hoey is a
founder of Women Innovate Mobile, the first accelerator program for women founded (or co-founded)
startups focused on mobile technology or mobile applications.