It is early winter and amazingly cold, snowy, or rainy in many parts of the U.S. In Buffalo they recorded over 5' of snow in less than a week accompanied by winds of up to 45 mph and the Bills "was robed again" just like in 1992! Being from Western New York, I truly understand what a winter of discontent feels like.

But what depressed me more was a spate of articles in the legal trade publications about a small (but possibly growing) number of law firms that were moving or considering moving to a "Black Box" type of partner compensation systems. A Black Box system is one in which an individual partner's compensation is kept secret from the other partners.

One article quoted a "consultant" who said, "Almost by definition, you have to pay laterals above homegrown talent!" Later I learned the consultant was not really a compensation consultant but a recruiter.