Practice Management

Law students work so hard to get to join the ranks of Big Law.  The money.  The prestige.  Sure you have to essentially sell your soul, ignore your family, and work crazy long hours to climb the ladder, but it is worth it.  Right?  You will make partner some day and live above comfortably.  Right?

Well, maybe that is wrong.  Nobody really thinks of Big Law as laying people off, much less laying off lawyers.  And, let us face it, most of these attorneys really do not have well rounded skills to just take over in all aspects of law in regard to marketing and mechanics of a firm.  They have tech guys, managers, staff, business managers and accountants for that.

Now Business Week tells us that the downsizing trend we see with big business is hitting Big Law.  It is probably related.

Even senior partners with equity stakes in the firm are not immune from these cuts.  Those with small books of business or who practice in an area that does not command top dollar are being reevaluated  -- read marked for termination.

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft', the law firm founded in 1792, has announcement that it plans on giving about 15% of its lawyers pink slips. Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal  has laid off 37 attorneys along with 87 other staffers, most of whom worked in real-estate securitization. Thacher Proffitt & Wood, a Wall Street firm with a big stake in structured finance, has booted 60 attorneys, or about one in every four of their attorneys.

Sure it is the economy over all, and the real estate market that is causing this.  But, the truth of the matter is that in hard times firms look around and decide they can no longer continue doing things in the same old cost prohibitive way that they are use to.  These are times of transformation.  Maybe Big Law decides it can do with fewer lawyers, but then they decide they can do without all of the expensive office space, support staff, telephony, and tech.

We can only hope.