Remaking news of the week: Deloitte acquires law offices

On Law.Com on June 06, 2018, Dan Packel reported that Deloitte UK will acquire the Berry Appleman & Leiden’s eight overseas offices. This is in addition to regulation-circumventing (my words) alliance between Deloitte and Berry Appleman & Leiden’s US operations. 

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Posted by on Jun 14, 2018 in Big Four, BigLaw firms | 1 comment

Big Four’s Big Bite

“Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water …” Thirty years ago, that was the tagline for Jaws 2, the 1978 second installment to the iconic shark movie, Jaws, that three years earlier kept many movie goers from daring to dip a toe in the water never mind venture out for a swim.

The odds of being killed by a shark are 1 in 3,748,067. Furthermore, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History, you’re more likely to be killed by fireworks (1 in 340,733), lightning (1 in 79,746), drowning (1 in 1,134), a car accident (1 in 84), stroke (1 in 24), or heart disease (1 in 5).

However, if you’re a law firm, the odds of being badly bitten by one or more of the Big Four professional services firms are chillingly high.

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Posted by on Jun 13, 2018 in Big Four, BigLaw firms | 0 comments

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.”

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Posted by on Jun 7, 2018 in BigLaw firms, Remaking News of the Week, Small law firms | 1 comment

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.  

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Posted by on May 31, 2018 in BigLaw firms, Remaking News of the Week | 1 comment

Break the law firm business model

Today we re-publish Break the law firm business model, Jordan’s Furlong’s inaugural post on the blog of the ABA’s Center for Innovation, on the Advisory Board of which Jordan serves. He starts by quoting what is becoming an apocryphal statement by Neota Logic founder Michael Mills: “Innovation destroys hours” and goes on to say those three words in a 2014 blog post summarize the fundamental challenge that every law firm faces today. They reflect two market realities that are inherently incompatible with each other.

Since I published Remaking Law Firms: Why & How in 2016 (ABA) the realisation that the business model of BigLaw firms is their Achilles heel has been gathering momentum. Jordan concludes this post by addressing BigLaw leaders and owners: “You’re going to have to change your law firm’s business model eventually”; read on to understand the logic of his argument.

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Posted by on May 25, 2018 in BigLaw firms, Business models | 1 comment