Who’s In Dialogue: 01

 Today we start introducing Who’s In Dialogue.

Commenced in December 2015, Dialogue on Remaking Law Firms now has more than 200 posts from 50 contributors around the world. Some know others well; others tell me they have never met. As contributors, it’s time to get to know each other a little better.

Once-a-week, I’ll provide a clue about one of our contributors. Join the fun; in a comment tell us to whom you think the clue refers. Don’t out yourself! Proofs will be published the following week from public sources.

The answer will be revealed next week.

Remaking news of the week: No consolidation

Today Remaking the news of the week celebrates some of the American Lawyer’s best writing in years.

On May 22, Hugh Simons and Nicholas Bruch opened their article with “A mistaken and dangerous belief pervades much thinking about the US legal market: that it is consolidating as larger firms grow more quickly than the market by taking share from their smaller rivals. A thoughtful look at the numbers reveals that no such consolidation is happening.”

Remaking news of the week: Mergers don’t make sense 

Today’s Remaking the news of the week post is a bit unusual. This a post about a post about a 2012 WSJ article on BigLaw firm mergers. Ron is a brilliant blogger (and an active contributor to Dialogue), so I read his argument all the more carefully, asking myself ‘Is this still true?’. And I concluded, yes it is – and it’s newsworthy.  

Remaking news of the week: Equity profit-sharing

Today’s Remaking the news of the week post is on the old chestnut and increasingly thorny topic of equity profit-sharing.

Why the economics of free agency should worry partners

Some years ago, during a conference of BigLaw leaders in Chicago, I came to understand why the economics of free agency should worry partners in BigLaw firms. Until then I had not paid full attention to the free agent phenomenon.

David Parnell opens his book on The Failing Law Firm with an exposition of the adverse impact of free agents on that American religion, baseball. With David Goener, I updated the analysis of why law firms fail in this October 2017 post.