Jeremy Pischke

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ex judicata:  With us today is Jeremy Pischke, who is the Director of Sales & Account Management for West Academic. Kim and I first met Jeremy when we were creating ex judicata’s first asynchronous learning program: Financial Fluency for Lawyers Moving to Business.  The materials for the program include the West Academic textbook “Accounting for Lawyers”

Jeremy, ‘West’ is an iconic brand known to every attorney and law student as the publisher of textbooks and the Westlaw database, but most probably don’t know that much beyond that. If you could give us a capsule sketch of the company in 2023.

Jeremy Pischke:  Sure, West Academic is an exciting place right now as we approach the 23-24 school year to start.  There has been a little confusion in the market over this, but West Academic is actually a stand-alone legal education publisher, after being divested from Thomson Reuters and Westlaw in 2012. These are the textbooks and, now eBooks, near and dear to every law student and lawyer. Our laser focus is serving faculty members at law schools throughout the country helping them to educate the next generation of law students as well as providing working materials for practicing lawyers in law firms, law departments, not-for-profits and government agencies.

The story took a very interesting turn about a year and half ago when West Academic was bought by BarBri.  The company behind  the bar prep course taken by the vast majority of law students.  A bringing together of two iconic brands.

ex judicata:  If you could describe your role at West Academic as VP and Global Hea of Sales and Account Management.

Jeremy Pischke:  I oversee national sales activity at West Academic and manage a team of 9 field-based account managers.  All of whom are law school graduates as well. Their job is partnering with individual faculty members at every law school in the country to help them identify and deploy the best materials for use in their individual classes.  This may involve providing solutions in an ever-changing legal landscape responding to ABA directives etc.

My team also serves all of our other customers outside of law professors.  This would be law firms, corporations, not-for-profits and federal and state government entities.  And even some undergraduate and graduate level non-law school courses.

Ex judicata:  It looks like you were an associate in a law firm for about nine months.  You beat me.  I left after three.  Although, maybe I beat you depending on how you look at it.  What was your thought process in deciding to leave law?

Jeremy Pischke:  I can’t say strongly enough how much I enjoyed law school.  The whole experience.  The faculty, my classmates, the courses and the overall education.

It was all wonderful.  When I graduated from law school, the employment market was tight.  I was a top third student in my class, but I was only able to secure an opportunity with a general practice firm in central, rural Minnesota.  I found that the practice, like most practices in rural America was about 80% family law. Mostly I was dealing with divorces and custody battles.

So as much as I loved law school, it didn’t translate to the practice of law for me.  I worked at the firm for those nine months and that was probably too long.  I should have taken your cue and stayed for only three.  Now, this is not to put down the practice of law in any way.  We need family lawyers, and that path can be a good career, it just wasn’t for me.

ex judicata:  Did you get any pushback from friends and family. You spent all that time in law school, paid all that money?  How can you leave it behind?  I remember I did. And I simply told everyone that life was too short.  And I really did feel with the JD skill set I was well-armed for a lot of potential careers.  Law was just one.

Jeremy Pischke:  I think unquestionably some of that existed, although it wasn’t necessarily made obvious to me.  There was always a bit of awkwardness in explaining what I actually did with my law degree.  And to this day some people are surprised when I describe my job and it doesn’t match what they historically might think of for someone who trained to be an attorney.

ex judicata:  For attorneys who want to transition out of the practice of law certain moves are more seamless than others.  I think of JDs who move to areas like compliance, legal tech, legal ops and legal publishing as opposed to lawyers who want to move to say, as was the case with someone we recently interviewed, a job as a brand manager at Procter & Gamble.  That’s a major change of direction.

So, was your thinking to stay somewhat close to your JD roots in moving to business?  Or were you being opportunistic and came across an opportunity?

Jeremy Pischke:  That’s a great question.  When I decided to finally leave the practice of law I was only focused on positions where a JD was ‘required’ or ‘preferred’. Basically, jobs where I could continue on a daily basis to apply what I learned in law school.  Every position I have held after law school has required me to have a JD.  And I continue to be surprised at just how many opportunities there are in the marketplace requiring that JD even though the person is not practicing.

ex judicata:  I see that you returned to school to get your MBA.  Was that at night while you were working at West Academic?  What made you decide to get the additional degree?

Jeremy Pischke: About 5 years after law school, I decided to go back to my university and get an MBA.  At the time I was managing a group of 20 or so attorneys in a customer service role at Westlaw. It occurred to me, really from my first position at the company, that I knew very little about managing people and next to nothing about managing a budget.  I wanted to learn about these areas among others that make up a broad business education.

I thought the business knowledge would pair well with my legal training.  I loved my job so I searched for an evening MBA program.  I found one at my alma mater that was Thursday nights only for 4 hours a night.  Thursdays were rough going from working a full day to school and then typically staying beyond to talk about things with classmates. But it was well worth it.

ex judicata:  Do you think having the dual degrees helped you advance in the company?

Jeremy Pischke:  Definitely.  It made me a much better businessperson.  Much more effective and efficient in my job.

ex judicata: Turning back to your law degree for a moment, how do you think your law school training helped you in become a more successful businessperson?

Jeremy Pischke:  As I said earlier, I loved law school.  I grew up in a small rural community.  My hometown had 250 people in it. In those kind of settings there isn’t a lot of diversity of thought.  I was smart enough and motivated enough to leave and go to college but it wasn’t until law school that I developed the ability to critically think about issues.  A skill applicable and important in any kind of profession.  That more than anything has helped me to succeed in my career.

ex judicata:  If a lawyer is interested in transitioning to a role at a legal publisher, what is the best way in?  Does one’s practice play any kind of role. So, if I’m in the corporate department is the easiest move for me to go to a place where I can work on corporate titles, or does it matter at all?

Jeremy Pischke:  There are lots of opportunities in legal publishing.  It helps to have an understanding of the whole process of legal education and the role that developing the right materials plays.  It doesn’t much matter what kind of practice someone is coming from. For any folks interested in learning about opportunities I invite anyone to contact me over LinkedIn.

I should add that we do have some folks that have an IP background who do specialize in certain kinds of titles at West Academic

ex judicata:  If someone is interested in being an editor, do they need some kind of prior training, even something as simple as working on a publication in college?

Jeremy Pischke:  The short answer is no.  But I should explain the role of editors at West Academic.  We have what we call production specialists.  These are the people that take the manuscript from the professor(s) and have the never-ending task of formatting the material correctly and editing as it applies to getting it proofed for production.  We don’t do editing in the traditional sense of copy editing or changing the content of the manuscripts.

We also have a role called Acquisition Editor. Though editor is in the title, again, there is no editing in the traditional sense going on.  Their job is to go out and work directly with existing authors in developing their publications and also scouting out new potential authors. These editors don’t have to have a publishing background.  Rather, they need to have gone to law school and be familiar with legal education and different kinds of curriculums. 

ex judicata:  Are you yourself involved in the actual negotiation of the author contracts?

Jeremy Pischke: No. Our acquisition editorial team is involved in negotiating the contracts with existing and new authors. I am, however, involved in negotiating contracts with academic institutions that are subscription-based sales delivering digital content giving all their students access to academic content and resources. This is very different than a traditional model where a student goes to the bookstore and buys the books they need for a class.  Here a contract has been negotiated with the school and the material made available to all students via a license purchased by their school.

ex judicata:  Tell me about the interplay between sales and marketing at West Academic. Do you have attorneys in marketing positions as well?

Jeremy Pischke:  That’s a good question.  I think of our marketing group as part of my sales & account management team and I’m sure our marketing group thinks of sales & account management as being part of marketing.  We work together closely sharing the same vision.  We don’t currently have any attorneys in marketing roles at the company.

Our marketing leader has been with the company for about 20 years, and we think of her as a de facto attorney since she’s been working in the industry for so long.  But I’m sure having a law degree would certainly be a plus in applying for a marketing role at the company.

ex judicata:  How would you advise an attorney who is struggling with leaving law?

Jeremy Pischke: It’s easy for me to say once safely on the other side, but you have to take the path that you think will make you happiest.  There are attorneys very satisfied with practicing and the services they are providing. Which is great because we need every single one of them and society, as a whole, needs them.  But if you are feeling more and more that the fit isn’t right you owe it to yourself to try to find something that will give you satisfaction.  We shouldn’t put ourselves in boxes that dictate one’s having to practice law simply because they went to law school.

In my experience mentioned earlier, the practice of law wasn’t the right fit for me. I found everything I was looking for as a businessperson. Back then I never would have guessed that I would wind up a sales leader in legal publishing.  And now in 2023, I can’t imagine doing anything else.

ex judicata:  A final question which I was trying to avoid asking because I was thinking how nice for someone to see an article, an interview what have you in the legal space that doesn’t mention AI or ChatGPT.  But I must.  How is West Academic approaching AI?

Jeremy Pischke:  Our content remains exclusively faculty driven. Written by law professors at the best law schools in the country. It is not produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence.  Having said this, there is a place for AI in helping to create digitally immersive kinds of materials.  The use of interactive simulations and hypotheticals combined with what law professors are doing for us throughout the country makes for a pretty potent combination.  We are just getting started here.

ex judicata:  Jeremy, I remember when we first spoke about a year ago, I asked you what the breakdown was between students using actual hard textbooks versus solely relying on eBooks.

Jeremy Pischke:  The percentage remains about the same as when we first spoke. More than 80% of our students are buying either a print textbook or a print textbook bundled with a digital copy.  Pure eBooks sales are about 20%.

This will change as the electronic medium allows us to deliver enhanced content which is getting more and more sophisticated and valuable.  Students will direct us on their future needs.

ex judicata:  I may be out of step but I still think having an office with a bookcase and actual textbooks makes an impressive presentation in lawyers’ officers before potential clients.

Jeremy Pischke: That is absolutely right.  I am also one of those that keeps all their law textbooks from school on my shelves at home.  I don’t think that is going to go away.

ex judicata:  That is nice to hear.

Jeremy, thank you so much for your time today.  We also are going to ask if you would do an article for The Transitioning Traveler section of exjudicata.com on your Inca trail adventure.

Jeremy Pischke:  I’d love to. 

And, thank you for your time and the opportunity to share what we have going on at West Academic.  If there is anything else I can do to help your users interested in transitioning to new careers let me know.

I think what you guys are doing at ex judicata is terrific and long needed.

ex judicata:  Thanks again.