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September 22, 2009 |
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Transformational Change?
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| Time is running out to sign up for our big Friday event: Hot Topics in Law Firm/Department Relations. See story below and sign up here. |
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| Does Akin Gump chairman Bruce McLean see our headline as what’s about to happen to the traditional law firm business model, given how companies are balking these days at the billable hour and use of inexperienced lawyers? How much of the current angst does he see as cyclical versus fundamental new attitudes? |
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We snapped this yesterday of Bruce in his office on DuPont Circle. We’re teasing you with these issues just to whet your appetite for our big Bisnow Breakfast & Schmooze Friday, when Bruce joins the General Counsel of CitiGroup and chairmen of Skadden, Kirkland & Ellis, and Arent Fox in debating the future of law firm/law department relations. Bruce says the new era introduces questions like whether entering classes will be much smaller, whether firms will employ a much larger cohort of contract attorneys not on tract to partnership, what further work will be outsourced (like document production today), and where lawyers will gain early experience if not at large law firms.
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In the last six months, a number of firms have announced an end to lock step compensation in favor of performance-based pay, which he says actually resembles the smaller and highly entrepreneurial Akin Gump he arrived at to do oil and gas regulatory work back in '73. Now it's up to 800 lawyers in 13 offices (DC’s the biggest at 250) and a market leader looking actively at all the options. You, too, can hear all the options aired at our Friday conference: Sign up Now!
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| Rooftop Party |
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We stopped by Huron Consulting’s East End rooftop Friday night for its Tastings on Tenth, a series of networking events, where we encountered this chivalrous band of legal eagles sampling a lively California Zinfandel: Baker Botts’ Brad Bennett, Huron’s Tim Hart (donning a medieval helmet he found in Prague), Squire Sanders’ John Burlingame, and legendary former Bisnow Legal editor John Ford (now with Hellerman Baretz). Tim, Huron’s resident oenophile, picked out the evening’s wines and treated guests with the civility and honor befitting a Czech knight.
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We snapped Debevoise & Plimpton’s Mark Jacoby and Huron’s John Hanson talking about when they expect we'll hear of the next round of financial fraud allegations. John would know: he spent over a dozen years investigating fraud as an FBI agent; he tells us the statistical mean between when a financial fraud is committed and when it is discovered is 18 months. Taking note of the one-year anniversary of Lehman’s collapse, John expects a fresh line-up of culprits by spring.
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Akin Gump’s Katie White, gov't attorney Jeanne Svikhart, and Huron Consulting DC Office Managing Director Tamika Tremaglio all have great jobs, but a future as glamorous rooftop furniture models is a viable Plan B.
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| Send story ideas to legalstories@bisnow.com |
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This newsletter is a journalistic news source which accepts no payment for featured interviews. It is supported by conventional advertisers clearly identified in the right hand column. You have been selected to receive it either through prior contact or professional association. If you have received it in error, please accept our apologies and unsubscribe below. © 2009, Bisnow on Business, Inc., 1323 Connecticut Ave, NW Washington, DC 20036. All rights reserved.
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