The Lawyers Weekly - January 14, 2011

THE LAWYERS WEEKLY
January 14, 2011| 21

BUSINESS
CAREERS

“Ultimately, Jim and I flipped a coin to decide whether it was going to be Fears before Payne or Payne before Fears,” he says with a touch of humour.

Payne & Fears LLP is a labour and employment boutique firm in California that has expanded to four offices and close to 50 lawyers in the past 18 years — so it would seem that their name has in no way hindered their growth.

“It’s more luck than design, and ironic-
ally, I thought initially that it might be an
impediment to being taken seriously, but
my instincts on that were completely
wrong,” notes Fears. “Actually, it turned
out to be something that caused our name
to get out in the community.”
In fact, their name garnered some
particularly unanticipated attention
when Jay Leno mentioned the firm on
the Tonight Show last year.

Lawyer
names

Choosing a baby name can be a difficult task for parents. There are family names to consider, current naming trends, personal taste, and so on. But what about choosing a name that would look good with the LL.B. moniker attached to it?

Well, according to research published earlier this year on Nameberry.com, the name you choose for your child may set them on the path for a legal career. Author Conrad Saam ran a data search using the online legal directory Avvo and compiled a list of the most popular lawyers’ names based on their year of acceptance to the state Bar.

“Obviously, these lists correlate with popularity of names over time, but the actual results are amazingly consistent and defy many overall name trends,” states Saam in the article.

Although Saam is working with data from the U.S., when comparing these
names with the names of the lawyers at 20 of the largest law firms in
Canada, the numbers are interesting. Over eight per cent of the lawyers at
these firms have one of the top four names
identified by Saam— with three per cent of the
lawyers being named “David,” compared with two
per cent with the name “John.”
According to statistics published by the U.S.
Social Security Administration, “James,” “John”
and “Robert” are the top three most popular boys’
names in the U.S. over the past 100 years —
with “David” ranking at number six.

Interestingly, “Charles” is ranked at number nine in overall popularity, but fails to make Saam’s list in overall frequency. In fact, “Charles” only appears on Saam’s list as a top lawyer’s name between

1951 and 1980, and is nowhere to be seen in the top 20 for the past decade
(2001–2010). And among the top 20 largest firms in Canada, only 0.4 per
cent of the lawyers are named “Charles.”
Despite the growing number of women in the profession, only “Jennifer,”
“Elizabeth” and “Sarah” made Saam’s top 20 list for 2001–2010 — ranking
number 4, 15 and 19 respectively. In Canada’s largest firms, 2 per cent of the
lawyers have one of these three names, with “Jennifer” appearing most often.

So, assuming it’s about 25 years from birth to call, those called in between 2000 and 2010 where born between 1975 and 1985. According to U.S. Social Security, “Jennifer” ranked in the top two most popular names in the 1970s and 1980s — making the appearance of “Jennifer” on Saam’s top 20 list not surprising.

Interestingly, however, “Amy” was the second most popular name in the 1970s and “Jessica” was the most popular name in the 1980s, yet they only ranked fourth and fifth respectively on Saam’s list for the past decade. So, if law is the preordained career for your new arrival, bypassing the trendy “Emma” or “Ethan” for “Jennifer” or “David” might be something to consider.

Top girls’ names

When running these names through the Law Society of Upper Canada’s online database the top female names were:

442
Jennifer
95
Amy
77
Jessica
Top boys’
names

The top male names that reigned supreme on Conrad Saam’s list of overall frequency:

John
Robert
David
James
1.
2.

4. 3.

The annual CLawBies, whcih recognize the best Canadian blogs of the past year were handed out recently. The 2010 CLawBies go to…

AWARD

Best Canadian blog

WINNER

michaelgeist.ca
Best practitioner blog
Best culture blog
Non-legal audience blog
Friend of the North blog
EuroCan connection blog
Best legal news blog
Practice management blog
Law librarian blog
Best legal technology blog
Best practice group blog
Best new law blogs
thetrialwarrior.com, donnaseale.ca
and envirolaw.com in a three-way tie
lawandstyle.ca
windsorlaw-leap.blogspot.com
blawgreview.blogspot.com
charonqc.wordpress.com
business.financialpost.com/category/legal-post
avoidaclaim.com
brendawoa.wordpress.com
goclio.com/blog
ontariocondolaw.com
torontoestatemonitor.com,
entertainmentmedialawsignal.com and aglawblog.ca
Law professor/law faculty blog gautrais.com

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