Category: General

Just clip this coupon to save big dollars. Has the corporate legal market come to offering clients coupons?  Not quite but read on. That Eversheds mulls shares for fees as firms step up alternative billing (Legal Week, 18 March 2010) is not such big news....

Some recent commentary suggests that the economic crisis has caused a lasting change in the legal market.  For a time, I feared the crisis had been wasted, that BigLaw would not change. I see and hear comments from more and more directions that the new...

The 2010 Hildebrandt Client Advisory paints a grim picture for Big Law.  The report, prepared jointly by Hildebrandt and Citi Private Bank, notes that “While the year ended with some hopeful signs, we enter 2010 with little prospect of a robust recovery and with mounting...

Risk analysis with decision trees is a rigorous way to analyze disputes and decide how much to invest in the litigation. An important threshold question is when does it pay to do risk analysis, which is not that easy and can take a fair bit...

Just when lawyers thought it was safe, the Economist comes along to pronounce it’s not.  Laid-off lawyers, cast-off consultants (21 Jan 2010) reports on the impact of the economic crisis on lawyers and management consultants. The Economist writes that “the legal profession seems likely to...

Consumers routinely seek estimates for many services, for example, buying a new roof, replacing an HVAC system, repairing a car repair, and even obtaining some medical services. The logic behind this should also drive general counsels to seek estimates for the cost of legal work. ...

Lawyers like precision. As a result, they often let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The new economic reality may force them to live with approximation and ‘good enough.’  First, a story. After graduating NYU Law I worked for Bain & Company as...

Two recent published comments about BigLaw associates illustrate what I view as the risk of thinking about the legal market as it has been instead of what it likely will be.  One comment comes from the GC perspective. A leading general counsel, commenting on lawyers...