In a provocative new white paper, consultants Bruce MacEwen and Janet Stanton imagined the yearnings of “any large random number” of out-of-town managing partners trying to break into the lucrative New York law firm market:

“What we really need is a top drawer, high-end corporate and litigation practice in New York,” those too-numerous-to-count lawyers have concluded, according to MacEwen and Stanton, who work at Adam Smith Esq. in New York.

But for firms that follow those aspirations, the failure rate is “astronomical,” the two consultants write.