Practice Management

I know I am not new to this story.  But, HuffPo and most media outlets are reporting that Borders, the second largest book seller in the nation, may put itself up for sale, and that it is living now on borrowed time and money.  (Who is not).

I cannot remember when I was in a book store last.  When growing up in Texarkana, Texas I use to live in the old cluttered bookstore in town.  When I went off to college, and then even in law school, I visited bookstores several times a week, I think.  In 1983 or so when they opened up the Book Stop in an old art deco movie theater of Sheppard in Houston, it was overwhelming the number of books they had.  This store was later bought out by Barnes & Noble and the big box bookstore wave started. 

I have got to admit that growing up and in my young adult life my idea of a dream job was owning a small cozy bookstore and in between stacking and checking customers out at the register, I could just sit back in a tattered chair and read away my life.  Today, however, the big box bookstores just seem so impersonal and the small book stores (with the possible exception of used book stores) do not exist -- but otherwise would no longer be adequate.  I have just lost my enthusiasm for it all.

Thinking back a little harder, I guess I was in a Borders right before Christmas this last year.  Before, that it was probably 5 or 6 months earlier.  I did not stay long either time.  The only reason I went the last time was that my son forgot to get a book early enough for a high school reading class and I had to go looking for it.  I stayed minutes in the store.

It is not that I no longer read.  I do.  I read all of the time.  Only now I read blogs, I read the web, I read e-books, and still read the old paper newspaper each day during breakfast.  I need to -- meaning I feel compelled to -- read more novels.  But, I do not buy them from offline bookstores.  I buy them online.  Some are specialty books from particular organizations.  The rest are from Amazon.Com.  Nothing can beat their selection and pricing, and I can sit in my home, in an old tattered chair by the fire and read.  I think it is as close to owning that old run down book store that I always wanted.

I think the last book I read cover to cover was sent to me.  It was Solo by Choice by Carolyn Elefant.  It was not fiction. But, it was a great book.

So, am I going to miss big box book stores like Borders if they go.  Well, maybe if my son forgets until the last minute he has to buy a book for his English class, but otherwise not really.  I still like the dream of owning a little book store in an old building and working among the stacks, but that is no longer a reality.

There is a lesson here, I think for Big Law and others.  The Third Wave is decimating the offline bookstore business, and it is only a matter of time until it does the same to law firms that try to practice in a similar way.