Scan through the Am Law 100 rankings and you won’t be surprised to find that most firms at the top have large and well-established corporate practices. Deals and transactions are the lifeblood of many major firms. They provide consistent work, command high rates and often generate work in other practice areas, including tax, antitrust, […]
Firms
If you think midsize law firms, regional firms, and boutiques are fighting over the scraps of corporate America’s most valuable matters, you’re the opposite of right. That’s according to a new report from Wolters Kluwer’s LegalView Insights. After analyzing $150 billion in law firm invoices from the company’s e-billing tools, […]
Welcome back to the Big Law Business column on the changing legal marketplace written by me, Roy Strom. Today, we look at how many new equity partners were minted during Big Law’s best year in a generation. Sign up to receive this column in your inbox on Thursday mornings. In […]
Law firms have a ton of data at their fingertips, but few of them are actually using it to fuel more effective lateral strategies. Using data analytics in talent acquisition and retention is becoming more common, but the so-called moneyball approach hasn’t become mainstream. Industry-watchers say many law firm decision-makers remain skeptical of this method […]
Big Law is increasingly adopting a mantra all too familiar in the tech world: grow or die. Instead of only poaching a handful of lawyers from a rival firm, several law firms this year have added lateral groups of more than 10 or 20 lawyers at a time. “If you aren’t moving […]
As law firms face mounting pressure from the talent wars, many are attaching strings to their partnership agreements in order to protect their partnerships and forestall lateral departures in a high-demand market. Since January, three Am Law 30 firms have incorporated clawback provisions into their partnership agreements that make it […]
Goodell, DeVries, Leech & Dann is merging with Astrachan Gunst Thomas. From right to left, K. Nichole (Nikki) Nesbitt, co-managing partner; James B. Astrachan, of counsel; Donna M. D. Thomas, partner; Kaitlin D. Corey, partner; Linda S. Woolf, co-managing partner. A pair of Baltimore law firms are merging to provide […]
Record financial years, a tight talent market and differing philosophies on what it means to be a partner are driving many Big Law firms to promote record partnership classes this year. On Thursday, Mayer Brown announced its largest-ever class of partners and counsel with 65 promotions throughout the firm. Similarly, Willkie Farr […]
The Coca-Cola Co. has officially walked away from race-based staffing requirements for law firms doing work for the company, following blowback from some investors and the removal of the executive who developed the plan. The proposed requirements “have not been and are not a policy” at Coca-Cola, general counsel Monica […]
After more than a year and a half of working remotely, law firms are pulling all sorts of levers to encourage their attorneys and staff to come into the office regularly: free food, a more relaxed dress code and fun charity competitions. In the time since the pandemic began, the […]
At least 10 U.S. law firms have matched raises announced by Milbank last week Many firms are still absorbing widespread pay raises from last year (Reuters) – A new round of pay increases at large U.S. law firms may be harder to swallow than other recent hikes, with some in […]
(Reuters) – When now-defunct Coudert Brothers in early 1988 became the first U.S. law firm to open an office in Moscow, it was big news —feel-good evidence of glasnost in action as the Cold War sputtered out. Coudert’s clients “all have reacted enthusiastically to the prospect of having Western legal […]
Lawyers love to talk about firm culture—how it sets them apart from the competition and makes them special and different from the rest. But short of reciting talking points, few have ever been able to define what their culture really is. And now it’s getting even harder. Faced with directives […]
Am Law 100 firms are taking a play from the management consulting playbook by setting up subsidiaries aimed at providing business advice backed by legal know-how. On Wednesday, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton launched KTS Strategies as a wholly owned subsidiary focused on assisting clients with both advocacy and business strategy […]
An unprecedented mass exit of talent that spans industries and continents is among the things Big Law firms are up against as the second year of the COVID-19 era winds down. A so-called Great Attrition this year has seen more than 15 million U.S. employees quit their jobs since April, […]
When Corrine, a Black lawyer, saw her name on a client pitch led by one of the partners at the major U.K. law firm where she was an associate, she was confused. “It wasn’t even my area of work,” she said. She soon realised that the pitching team “did not […]
By Scott E. Pacheco, marketing and communications manager at Lerch, Early & Brewer, Chtd. The events of the past year have led firms to reevaluate the way they approach Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in their leadership ranks, in their interactions with clients and in hiring. Building a culture of inclusion […]
There are many established legal industry rankings that seek to evaluate law firms against their peers in a variety of categories, with financial performance being the top-ranked metric. Some of them fall flat in terms of accurately measuring the health, stability and success of a law firm, which can change […]
Tuesday, February 1, 2022 A legal blog has a ton of value for law firms looking to improve their legal marketing and drive new customers to their website. Prospective clients often search for legal topics to familiarize themselves before consulting an attorney, and if a law firm can provide that information, that […]
As relations between the United States and China have spiraled dangerously downward in recent years, talk of decoupling the world’s two largest economies has grown louder. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson warned in a November speech that global economic coordination is the only way to avoid future catastrophic financial […]