We as lawyers have a unique skill set that distinguishes what we do and how we do it from investment bankers or corporate executives. We have the professional autonomy to advocate on behalf of a wide variety of clients, including those who desperately need our services. As the economic imperatives of the profession evolve year after year toward a more corporate, profit-maximizing model, we have built our law firm, Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss in a different, perhaps more traditional way, that permits us to practice law at the highest levels, not only for leading international commercial clients, but also for the indigent and despised in our society.
The evolution of law from profession to business is reflected daily in the pages of the New York Law Journal. Law firms duly report profits-per-partner and revenue-per-lawyer; successful law firms, like Wall Street’s favorites, show double digit growth. Firms with bearish results see the exodus of their best talent; lawyer mobility, once anathema, is endemic. Law firms that would once weather downturns while keeping associates and staff intact, cut numbers at the first signs of slowdown. White shoe firms maintain satellite offices in smaller cities or abroad to do discovery at reduced rates. Lawyers have always been well paid, but now the top business getters receive income guarantees and bonuses like top draft picks; but like their sports analogs, they view themselves as free agents, ready to sell their talents to the highest bidder. As we have recently seen with Dewey & LeBoeuf, these artificially constructed behemoths sometimes end in disaster as expectations are not met or cultures collide.
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