The US law firm, Howrey, is “the first AmLaw 200 firm to open an office in India to handle client work” (Am. Lawyer, Vol. 30, Feb. 2008 at 22). The firm’s policy is that clients can choose “whether to use the Indian office to cut costs or to have their…
An article in the Am. Lawyer, Vol. 30, Feb. 2008 at 16-17, describes the migration of a well-known bankruptcy partner from one law firm to another. At his new firm, Martin Bienenstock will lead a team — called the Business Solutions and Governance Group — that will “assemble corporate partners,…
About 18 months ago I published a contrarian article [click on the link for the PDF of it] Download put_eggs_in_one_basket.pdf on convergence. In it I challenged the validity of the arguments made in favor of law departments who dramatically reduce the number of law firms they retain. My critique drew…
Some time back I wrote an article [click to view PDF] Download when_law_departments_auction.pdf about various kinds of auctions that law departments might conduct. That article extended my thinking as expressed in several posts to that date (See my post of May 21, 2007 and 7 references cited.). Since the article…
Aric Press, Editor-In-Chief of the Am. Lawyer, Vol. 30, Feb. 2008 at 9, discusses layoffs by law firms. Rather than pink-slip associates, he speculates that law firms might decide to “sharply reduce the size of first-year classes.” He then notes offhandedly that “This means that some midlevels will be assigned…
No self-respecting law department lacks its statement of principles and operating rules for its law firms. Many posts on this blog have commented on these outside counsel guidelines (See my posts of Dec. 17, 2007 on the profusion of outside counsel guidelines; Aug. 1, 2006 on their goals; and Jan.…
David Hobbie posted a thoughtful comment on my blawg. Rather than reply there, which few readers will, I reproduce it below. “Rees, as a former litigation associate who was sometimes belatedly staffed on very big cases with little awareness of the main strategy and facts of a matter, I agree…
Modesty should compel me to remain silent, but isn’t a modest blogger an oxymoron? Deborah McMurray of Content Pilot was kind enough to interview me about some trends in how to manage outside counsel and was consummately skilled when she wrote an article about our discussion. Too shy to say…
The 2007 ALM Research Survey Report on Billing Rates & Practices summarizes data from 5,058 law-firm respondents. About a third of those respondents were solo practices, 58 percent were from firms of 2 to 39 attorneys (“small firms”) and 10 percent practice in firms of 40 to 170 attorneys (“mid-size…
In November of 2007 I published an article about some down-and-dirty steps to make the implementation of an e-billing system go more smoothly. The article Download rees_morrison_practical_tips_on_ebilling.pdf offers a number of practical suggestions. Since then, more posts have joined the group on this blog (See my posts of Nov. 20,…