In a decades-long career as a corporate-securities lawyer, Jonathan Baum ’78 has handled mergers and acquisitions, public and private offerings, securities litigation, and complex business transactions at law firms, investment banks, and asset management firms. But for the past 18 years, Jonathan has been working as an independent lawyer—and, by his account, has never been happier.
In 2007, Jonathan started Avenir Law, his own funds and asset management law practice in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Now he has launched Avenir Guild, an online platform designed to help legal professionals who are seeking to work for themselves and to collaborate with each other. The website will connect users to services ranging from IT support and insurance providers to career counseling and mentorship. With an upbeat disposition, Jonathan—whether he’s appearing on podcasts or writing for online legal news outlets—has been outspoken about the merits of professional autonomy, especially as a way to improve the well-being and mental health of lawyers. “There’s no mystery, as a recent Law 360 article pointed out, that there are high rates of divorce, suicide, and drug abuse in the legal profession,” says Jonathan. “But it’s very hard to ignite a conversation about their root causes—namely, excessive workloads.”
In this Q&A, Jonathan talks about being an entrepreneur, reflects on his time at NYU Law, and explains how lawyers can do more to lead more fulfilling professional lives and, correspondingly, improve their general well-being and mental health.
Tell us about your objectives with Avenir Law and Avenir Guild.
Avenir Guild connects lawyers with the resources and encouragement to operate independently from a firm and to collaborate with each other. An independent lawyer, as distinct from a sole practitioner, operates in a low-overhead environment and collaborates with others on an as-needed basis to execute engagements typically reserved for major firms. The website has been extensively revised to reflect this approach and will be publicly accessible soon. Given the almost complete embrace by the legal profession of “eat what you kill” in law firm compensation and promotion, lawyers must realize that we’re all independent, whether we admit it or not. I stand ready to advise and support any lawyer who wishes to make the step into independence. My hope for Avenir Guild is that it will spark an evolution from the current law firm business model and benefit lawyer and client alike.
Avenir Law is my law practice. It embodies the principles espoused by Avenir Guild. At Avenir Law, I operate as an independent lawyer with two major value propositions. First, “Big Law” quality at small-town fees and more responsive service. Second, the capacity, through collaboration, to execute any funds-related engagement typically done by a major firm.
Why did you decide to go to law school?
I went to Tufts University in Massachusetts for two years, and then I went to Paris to study music. In my attempt to learn French I wound up admitted to L’Institut d’Études Politiques, now commonly known as Sciences Pô. I really wanted to become a professional clarinetist. It was my dream. So, I studied with a very acclaimed clarinetist. But after a year in Paris, the level of competition brought me back to reality. Eventually, I came back to Tufts and graduated with a degree in music and political science.
I chose law school as a form of “reset.” I believed it would give me the greatest and widest opportunity to move in any direction I chose. I focused on NYU primarily because it was known as a great school and, by that time, my family had moved from Brooklyn into the Village area. It was a homecoming of sorts.
What stands out to as you recall your time at NYU Law?
I was very fortunate to be at NYU Law. Based on what my friends related from their experience at other T14 schools in the Northeast, their lives looked like a precursor to Squid Games. But at NYU Law, I felt that my classmates were very collaborative, and we worked very well together. I don’t know if I can describe law school as a relaxed experience, but it just felt like there was much less pressure at NYU than at other schools.
And the faculty was wonderful. I still remember the first five minutes of my first class because it made such an impression on me. I had Graham Hughes, who taught Criminal Law. He was terrifying as a teacher, but I learned so much from him. And I never forgot something that he said in the opening minutes of our first class. He said, “Law is simple. And whatever you confront in your career can be broken down into concepts that any 11-year-old can grasp. If someone’s explaining something to you and can’t bring it down to that simple component, the odds are heavy they have no idea what they’re talking about.” Complexity often obscures what’s really going on. I’ve returned to and reflected on his comment throughout my career.
What led to you becoming an independent lawyer?
I like to think that I’ve always had an independent streak. In the 1980s, I worked in the New York office of a prominent Palo Alto firm that is now called Fenwick. I then joined the corporate finance department of one of the big Wall Street investment banks, EF Hutton. In 1993 I married and a year later, we had a son. Late one Sunday afternoon in 1994 at our weekend home in upstate New York, shortly after a large bankruptcy case I was working on consummated and I received my bonus, my wife and I decided not to return to New York City. As my son now says, I became a remote lawyer before it was “cool” and certainly before email. My client base began with clients initially in New York and ultimately in Japan. For several years I let go of my clients and worked as an outside general counsel for Madison Capital Management, an asset management firm. Then in 2007 I left Madison and re-launched my private practice. I know it sounds sort of crazy for me to start developing a law practice while in my 50s, but that’s what I did. It wasn’t easy, but I started with one client and continued from there. My client base has included firms in Hong Kong, the UK, and throughout the US.
I think that my friends in the big firms still can’t figure out how I was able to succeed operating from a small town in New England. My response is, “I don’t know how you can tolerate the risks of being in a big firm.”
Can you discuss your focus on mental health in the legal profession and the reaction among your peers?
I’m trying to engage my profession in a conversation about how this well-being and mental health crisis arose. The research on this question is unequivocal. Excessive workloads, whether or not expressed as billable hour requirements, are the key driver of this crisis. What I find extraordinary and troubling is that there’s almost no discussion about this root cause. If you go to any of these well-being-in-law conferences, they’re all focused what I think of as palliative care, such as yoga and mindfulness. One law firm several months ago brought therapy dogs into the office for an afternoon. Really?
The prevalence of high workload demands and high billable hour requirements is not only harmful to lawyers, but it also impairs the quality of the work we do for our clients. I recently published an article that presented this scenario: if you’re a client, would you prefer associates who complete work at 2 a.m. and have been at it since 10 a.m.? Or would you rather have associates who have a good night’s rest and spend time with their families? When I was at a recent lawyer well-being conference in New York, I asked the associate general counsel of a major US bank that very question. And he said, “Of course, we would want the well-rested associate.” But then he said something further, which impressed me. He said, “We can always tell by the quality of the work whether this person on the edge of burning out.”
What advice would you give NYU Law students today?
One of the great virtues of a law degree is flexibility. When I was on my way to being a clarinetist, I always envied singers, because their voices—their instruments—were always with them. And I pitied bass players and percussionists. With a law degree, I believe that we can create, and recreate our lives, with more freedom than we realize.
What are your future ambitions?
I know this sounds incredibly grandiose, but I really want to do whatever I can to help the profession reinvent itself into a model that better serves its lawyers and clients. I want to create an environment that’s nurturing for the practitioners and serves the interests of clients. We can do better. We can treat ourselves better. We can treat our colleagues and families better. And we can serve our clients better. How do we do that effectively? That’s the conversation that I want to have.
Posted March 27, 2025