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Welcome to the Law Firm Disrupted, a briefing from Law.com reporter Dan Packel that surveys new competitive pressures on law firms and how their managers are
May 25, 2021 at 12:08 PM Shares0 (image via Getty Images) Ed. note: A version of this column originally appeared on Original Jurisdiction, the latest Substack publication from David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction on its About page, and you can subscribe through this signup page. By now we all know the story of how the Am Law 100 fared in 2020. Contrary to what many of us predicted, the Am Law 100, the nation’s 100 largest law firms by revenue, hit new highs in terms of gross revenue, revenue per lawyer, and profits per equity partner. For Biglaw, last year was a very...
May 7, 2021 at 4:28 PM Shares1 The coming wave of consolidation among law firms is a perpetual topic of discussion and speculation. The basic narrative is that the richest, most successful firms are pulling away from the rest of the industry, and firms below the top tier will be forced to merge in order to grow and remain competitive. The notion that consolidation could be the panacea for challenges facing less profitable firms has always been questionable. But whether you buy into that particular narrative or not, it is incontrovertible that the legal industry remains remarkably fragmented i...
We make earning CLE easy so lawyers can get back to what matters most. Find the credits you need, in the topics you care about… From Practising Law Institute Our next thought is a shameless, self-laudatory “we told you so” point. Last spring, most media reports were all forecasting doom and gloom for the legal industry, reporting on compensation cuts, layoffs, furloughs and the like. On the other hand, a year ago, nearly to the day, in this Above the Law post, we predicted the opposite, saying (among other things): Until the dust settles, most would agree that the near-term demand for l...
April 30, 2021 at 3:01 PM Shares0 “Lawyers are terrible businesspeople.” You’ve surely heard this before. But is it true? If lawyers are so bad at business, then why did the Am Law 100, the nation’s 100 largest law firms ranked by revenue, have such a banner year in 2020? In the midst of a global pandemic and economic downturn — one that hammered so many industries, from airlines to hospitality to commercial real estate — Biglaw firms flourished. Last week, the American Lawyer issued its eagerly anticipated Am Law 100 rankings for 2021. As a group, here’s how the Am Law 100 fare...