Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> Legal Blog Watch

Legal News

: Legal Blog Watch

Economic Recession May Be Kryptonite for BigLaw

By Carolyn Elefant

Today's prediction of the end of BigLaw (and in the past few months there have been many) comes from Douglas McCollam in the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal. McCollam summarizes the evidence of demise -- declining profits for partners and the massive layoffs -- and notes that in contrast to days of yore when lawyers found a way to make money in boom times or bust, the prolonged recession combined with the unsustainable growth of law firms has forced them up against a wall: When times were good, lawyers earned enormous fees engineering mergers and takeovers. When things were bad, they earned enormous fees fending off angry shareholders and breaking up the conglomerates that they had helped put together. When things turned really ugly, they made a fortune carving up the bankrupt carcasses of their former clients and toiling to keep top management out of federal prison. And when questioned whether they bore some measure of responsibility for the malfeasance that felled their erstwhile patrons, lawyers typically answered with a ?hey, we just work here? shrug. It seems plain that a great many members of the American bar fell prey to the same strain of hubris that infected...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on July 30, 2009 (boomark / email).