For Lawyers, It’s a Case of Fast Change in a Slow Economy : Law: The number of attorneys has jumped to 1,300, with an unprecedented increase in firms. But there is a downside.

When Ed Duval started practicing law in 1948, he was one of 49 attorneys in Ventura County. The firm he joined, Benton, Orr, Duval & Buckingham, was the county’s largest--with only six lawyers.

“People were wiser then,” said Duval, now 73 and retired. “They kept out of the way of lawyers if they had a choice.”

These days, it’s harder to steer clear of lawyers in Ventura County, if only because there are so many of them.

And that’s not the only thing that has changed about the practice of law here, according to many local attorneys. The county’s legal community has been seeing--and, some say, suffering from--many of the same trends that have altered the practice of law nationwide, including:

* An explosion in the number of attorneys, with more than 1,300 practicing in Ventura County in 1991, according to the State Bar of California. The county has about one lawyer for every 500 residents, contrasted with one per 2,300 residents in 1950.

* A corresponding new emphasis on lawyering as not just a profession, but a competitive business. “In law firms today, there is an obsession with billable hours,” said Richard A. Regnier, who has practiced in the county for 28 years. “It has taken the fun out of practicing law.”

* Unprecedented growth of law firms as attorneys strive to offer a wider array of sophisticated legal services. “People are merging to broaden their ability to match what the bigger firms do,” said Larry L. Hines of Nordman, Cormany, Hair & Compton, the county’s largest law firm.

* Less emphasis on personal relationships and collegiality, as lawyers abruptly leave firms, join others, and start new ones. “There used to be a lot more stability,” said Bartley S. Bleuel, president of the Ventura County Bar Assn. “The loyalty is not there as it has been in previous years.”

* A decline in the number of sole practitioners, many of whom have decided that they must join with other lawyers to compete in the new environment. “There’s much more pressure today to join a firm,” said George C. Eskin, who practices with six other attorneys. “The practice has become extraordinarily expensive . . . making it on your own is extremely difficult.”

Ventura County has yet to see anything like the turmoil that has beset some of the giant law firms in Los Angeles, where a decade of rapid growth and cut-throat competition has been followed recently by layoffs and retrenchment.

But interviews with more than 30 local attorneys suggest that Ventura County lawyers, on a smaller scale, also are struggling to remain successful during a period marked by both rapid change and slow economic growth.

As evidence of the new era, observers point to what has happened in the offices of the district attorney, public defender, and county counsel, which together employ nearly 150 lawyers.

“In the early ‘70s, there was no such thing as a career prosecutor,” said Eskin, who, during that period, worked in the Ventura County district attorney’s office. “The usual tenure in the D.A.’s office was two to three years. It was a post-graduate course in trial training.”

Since then, however, public-sector salaries have gone up, to the point where a deputy district attorney with three years’ experience earns $51,200 a year. A senior prosecutor can get as much as $77,400 annually. Comparatively few people are willing to take the pay cuts that are usually necessary to enter private practice, Eskin said.

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury agreed that there is much less turnover in his office, but he said higher salaries are only one of the reasons for the change.

“Today, in private practice, there is tremendous pressure to get those billable hours,” Bradbury said. “A lot of people who have come here from private practice say the pressure was not worth it. They were beating their brains out to make whatever amount of income they were assigned.”

Attorney fees in the county range from $150 to $225 an hour, according to several attorneys. In Los Angeles, by comparison, attorneys charge from $225 to $350 per hour.

Bleuel and other attorneys said they believe the income range of Ventura County lawyers is probably lower than the statewide figures reported in a recent survey by the State Bar of California. That survey found that 45% of attorneys earned $75,000 or less; about 30% made between $75,000 and $125,000; 13% made between $125,000 and $200,000; and 12% made more than $200,000.

Bleuel said he believes the Ventura County average would be $50,000 to $60,000 per year. He and others said that only the most senior partners at the county’s largest firms earn more than $200,000 a year.

In Los Angeles, by comparison, senior partners at the largest firms are reputed to earn between $500,000 and $1 million.

Many attorneys say the depressed economy is another factor behind the changes in the industry.

“It’s maybe less of a profession and more of a business,” said Theodore W. England of Cohen, England & Whitfield, based in the Financial Tower in Oxnard.

“You look at the recession, the drought, what’s happening with the construction industry--when our clients are having hard times, it’s more difficult,” he said. “Nobody is jumping off the tower, but you can sense the recession in the overall legal profession.”

Joseph R. Henderson of the Ventura firm of Henderson & Wohlgemuth agreed: “I think there are probably lawyers who are struggling. I would say 15% are just making it or failing.”

England said larger firms such as his--the county’s second-largest with 24 attorneys--can adjust to hard times precisely because they are big and can handle a wide variety of legal matters.

“You have the flexibility to adapt to what’s going on,” he said. “You spend more time related to bankruptcy, creditor rights, things that arise out of difficult times. There’s less time devoted to transaction things, which would occur in good times.”

The recession is not the only reason for the trend toward larger law firms. Just as significant, some say, is the growth of the law itself.

“The problem is not just competing with other lawyers, it’s maintaining your competitive edge,” said Henderson, whose firm has 10 lawyers. “There is so much information being generated.” He cited environmental law, worker’s compensation law, and estate planning as fields that have greatly expanded in recent years.

Margaret Keller, who recently joined the firm of Muegenburg, Norman & Dowler after 42 years as a sole practitioner in Ventura, agreed.

“The law is a lot more complex,” she said. “When I started out, attorneys did a much wider variety of practice than they do now. A firm can handle a lot of things, but no one person can.”

And Ventura County’s business community is demanding a lot more things, many attorneys said.

“You kind of grow with your clients,” said Hines, who began practicing here in 1969. “As their affairs become more sophisticated, so do yours. . . . When I started, this was very much an agriculture-oriented community. The farming families were just beginning to develop their properties.

“Now,” Hines said, “although we still represent those landowners, their holdings are different. And new businesses have come in.” He said 60% of Nordman, Cormany’s activity now is business litigation, and the increased sophistication of the county’s business community has led to other changes.

“We have seven attorneys now that spend a great part of their time on employment law--discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful termination,” Hines said. “Ten years ago, that wouldn’t be the case.”

Nordman, Cormany is probably the most visible of the county’s law firms--not only because it is the largest, with 32 attorneys, but also because its name is stripped across a gleaming new office building alongside the Ventura Freeway in Oxnard. Since the firm relocated there about 1 1/2 years ago, several other firms also have moved to impressive new headquarters.

Last month, for example, the 14-member Muegenburg firm moved into a new building a block from the Hall of Justice in Ventura. Not far away, the firm of Ferguson, Case, Orr, Paterson and Cunningham constructed a new building for the 14 lawyers who work there.

One longtime Ventura County attorney said he believes the almost simultaneous moves are not a coincidence.

“They have all moved into upgraded surroundings that are consistent with top-level firms in the Los Angeles area,” he said. “Competitors have to look around and say, ‘Is that firm getting a competitive advantage, not just with clients but in the area of attracting good people?’ Employees want prestige, too. They want to be with a premier firm that looks like a premier firm.”

The Muegenburg firm makes no bones about its desire to “project a ‘firm’ presence,” in the words of partner F.T. Muegenburg Jr. In addition to its new three-story building, the firm has doubled in size in the past five years and hired an executive administrator, John J. Sullivan, who previously handled the business end of law firms in Los Angeles and Chicago.

“Law firms have had to come to grips with what it means to be a business,” Sullivan said. As an illustration, he cited the need to provide detailed explanations with client bills.

“In the old days, you could just say ‘for services rendered,’ ” Sullivan said. “That doesn’t cut it anymore.”

Marketing, computers and deployment of staff also have become larger concerns in the new climate, several attorneys said.

“Fifteen years ago, marketing was not employed,” Henderson said. “Now, it’s very common to use newsletters and other marketing tools. Firms are re-examining their letterhead to look like other businesses. They’re asking how best to use paralegals and other support staff.

“You can’t just continue to raise the hourly rate,” he continued. “You have to work more efficiently, more effectively.”

But some attorneys fear that the idealism that attracted them to the profession is being lost in the drive for more efficiency and more profit.

“You can’t ignore law-office economics, but I don’t think you should be so obsessed that lawyers become like automatons,” said Regnier, who practiced with a firm for more than 20 years before becoming a sole practitioner 1 1/2 years ago. “Life is going to pass you by.”

He said the “slavish adherence to billable hours . . . dehumanizes the profession. It takes the personal service out of it.”

In his new role as a sole practitioner, he said, “if I want to charge somebody $200 for services, even if I have $1,000 worth of time into it, I don’t have to answer to other lawyers about that.”

Regnier was a partner in the firm of Ferguson, Regnier & Paterson until it merged with Case, Orr and Cunningham to form the current firm of Ferguson, Case, Orr, Paterson & Cunningham. Case, Orr and Cunningham had been formed several years earlier by several attorneys who had left the county’s oldest law firm, Benton, Orr, Duval & Buckingham.

Nordman, Cormany experienced a major defection recently when four partners left to form the firm of Arnold, Back, Mayfield, Mathews, Wojkowski & Zirbel.

Attorneys differ as to the meaning of all the moves. Several say they may simply reflect philosophical differences among the people involved, or the desire to have a larger voice in the direction of a firm.

But virtually every attorney interviewed said the movement is unusual. “When I went to Benton, Orr, nobody ever left,” said Ventura County Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren, who worked at the firm in the 1970s. “People have become much more flexible, more willing to make moves.”

And a major defection can seriously hurt a firm, several attorneys said.

“I think any time you have people leave who are reaching the peak of their billing productivity . . . it has to be viewed as significant,” Henderson said. England likened it to grooming a baseball player through the minor leagues and then losing him to free agency.

Several attorneys said the movement indicates a change in values.

“There’s not the same feeling of loyalty among members that you historically had,” Regnier said. “That saddens me. I’m a strong believer in loyalty.”

Bleuel, the bar association president, said the changes reflect national trends. “A lot of the movement nationwide is caused by this yuppie syndrome,” Bleuel said. “People tend not to be satisfied wherever they are. They need immediate gratification.”

But Bleuel, who practices with two other attorneys, said he recognizes why larger firms hold appeal. “There are some days when I think we should merge into a larger firm just . . . to practice law,” he said. “When you have to spend half your time running an office, half drumming up business, half being an attorney--there are not that many halves. Life is more than practicing law.”

Jonathan Fraser Light, a partner in Nordman, Cormany, said Ventura County still offers a more reasonable pace for an attorney than he experienced in Los Angeles, when he was with the 200-member firm of Loeb & Loeb.

“Being part of the community is a big issue up here,” he said. “You’re dealing with people on a social level. In L.A., there’s no time for that. You live so far from where you work.”

Even with all the growth, the comparative smallness of Ventura County’s legal community also makes the practice more rewarding, Light said.

“In L.A.,” he said, “fighting dirty is not the norm, but it’s much easier to get away with. Chances are you’re not going to see the same lawyer again. If you have a bad experience with a judge, it’s not as likely to be spread around the courthouse as it is here.”

But persuading lawyers to move to Ventura County can be difficult, some attorneys said. England noted that housing costs here are nearly as high as in Los Angeles, and that even large firms such as his cannot pay the kind of salaries that big firms in Los Angeles offer.

“Yet we have to have people with the same intellectual capabilities, because we’re doing the same kind of work” as the Los Angeles firms, he said. “It makes recruiting much more difficult.”

Ventura County always has held attractions for attorneys who wanted to “get the hell out of Los Angeles,” said Duval, who was born here and practiced for nearly 40 years. But by the time he retired, he said, the small-town feeling was disappearing.

“I kind of resented the way it was going around here,” Duval said. “It always seemed to me that lawyers were supposed to help the client as the primary object, not make a bunch of money.”