I find it interesting that human resources is an area rather infrequently addressed in the Law Practice Management Section. We know about things like e-discovery, business development, alternative billing and succession planning, but when it comes to the world of HR, there seems to be a gap.

I still remember my first interaction with HR on my first day of “real work at a real job,” as the Assistant Director of Public Relations for the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals. It took only a few hours for me to accomplish my first “run-in” with HR. I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. We argued about a rule regarding how I needed to fill in my time sheet and related issues of overtime, Jewish holidays and comp time. I told the HR director that I thought the process was illegal and refused to sign the time sheet. I’m sure he figured it was only a matter of time before he got this 22-year-old punk in front of him again to deliver a severance arrangement of some sort.

My boss, Capitals general manager David Poile (who remains to this day one of my favorite and most respected “supervisors”), gave me some sage advice: Shut up and sign the time sheet. Which I did. And I’m happy to report that was my only visit to the HR department for the Capitals, Washington Bullets (now Wizards) and the Capital Centre (now a shopping mall or something).

There are a few lessons to take away from that anecdote. First, I realized I should probably go to law school (which I did). Second, you should probably try to do what HR requests (as much to stay off the radar as to be in compliance). But third, and most importantly, they have a difficult job to do: Being consistent and compliant on so many levels with a company’s most treasured resource—people—is far more difficult than it might seem.

Take that traditional level of difficulty in running HR and toss it into the world of law firms—where people are not only the resource but also the product. And where the “boss” is a large horde of people with titles like partner, shareholder or director who all have differing ideas on how to run a business. When you add in today’s issues and dilemmas surrounding subjects such as telecommuting, family leave, diversity, health-care contributions, social networking policies and a wide range of sensitivities, you need a level of HR administration that is capable of keeping things under control. Otherwise, the law firm can quickly and often become a defendant, instead of counsel.

Like so many areas of business operations for law firms of all sizes—technology, marketing, finance and so forth—the attorney’s job in developing human resources people, departments and protocols is especially hard. And there is a greater pressure to do it right because if clients see you getting in trouble with staff, how are they going to trust you to advise them on many of the same issues and circumstances?

Today, with my own business and practice, I am devoid of true internal HR dealings. However, as fate would have it, I interact with HR professionals every day for my law firm clients in the selection of law firm marketing personnel. I’ve come to appreciate the difficulty of the task, and see that the issues are much greater than vacation days and medical plans.

Thanks to the Law Practice Today leadership of John Bowers and Elise Martin for working to develop an online issue dedicated to an important area of law practice. The focus of this issue is not designed for the HR professional, but for the lawyer needing to make the call on HR and related issues. Thanks also to Molly DiBianca, editor of the infamous Delaware Employment Law Blog and an associate in the Employment Law Department of Wilmington, Delaware-based Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, for serving as this issue’s editor.