Biglaw is dying Forum

[2014]

Totally agreed, i think the hiring model has to shift to focus more on people who either demonstrate potential to do midlevel work earlier (maybe employing a consulting like substantive interview approach) or people who seem able to handle all of the tertiary bullshit that comes with the job (idk how you best proxy for this but you can start by not recruiting at Yale). Probably need to get away from 100% offers too if first [and second years] truly become loss leaders (which they really aren't now - the trope about time getting written off is way overblown in my experience).

[Npret]

Totally agreed, i think the hiring model has to shift to focus more on people who either demonstrate potential to do midlevel work earlier (maybe employing a consulting like substantive interview approach) or people who seem able to handle all of the tertiary bullshit that comes with the job (idk how you best proxy for this but you can start by not recruiting at Yale). Probably need to get away from 100% offers too if first [and second years] truly become loss leaders (which they really aren't now - the trope about time getting written off is way overblown in my experience).

Biglaw doesn't shift quickly. I know this is speculative discussion but I think the preference is always going to be for strivers who have done well, seek prestige and money and are willing to sacrifice personal life for these goals.

Though maybe those fit interviews you are mentioning will just highlight those people anyway.

[A. Nony Mouse]

(idk how you best proxy for this but you can start by not recruiting at Yale).

lol, Yalies already aren't going to biglaw.

[TLSModBot]

(idk how you best proxy for this but you can start by not recruiting at Yale).

lol, Yalies already aren't going to biglaw.

Egregious lies. I know of SEVERAL Yalies who did a year or two after clerking before going into academia so they could confidently claim they know the legal market and exactly how their "Law and East Asian Traditional Medicine" class will be practical for their students.

[FSK]

1) Another reason why I'm going into the government
2) Criminal law will be safe probably forever, constitutional right to counsel isn't going to be satisfied by computers.
3) If we could automate away secretaries and paralegals that would be a huge gain for all involved
4) UBI Thread

[FSK]

(idk how you best proxy for this but you can start by not recruiting at Yale).

lol, Yalies already aren't going to biglaw.

Egregious lies. I know of SEVERAL Yalies who did a year or two after clerking before going into academia so they could confidently claim they know the legal market and exactly how their "Law and East Asian Traditional Medicine" class will be practical for their students.

Wanting to be a tenured law prof makes you per se doo doo brain. If I had the intelligence and work ethic to get into and succeed at YLS I hope to god I'd try to move the needle on the world and not throw my dick into the 15th-centry-rule-against-perpuities-circle-jerk or wtf ever constitutes legal scholarship.

[Hikikomorist]

(idk how you best proxy for this but you can start by not recruiting at Yale).

lol, Yalies already aren't going to biglaw.

Egregious lies. I know of SEVERAL Yalies who did a year or two after clerking before going into academia so they could confidently claim they know the legal market and exactly how their "Law and East Asian Traditional Medicine" class will be practical for their students.

Wanting to be a tenured law prof makes you per se doo doo brain. If I had the intelligence and work ethic to get into and succeed at YLS I hope to god I'd try to move the needle on the world and not throw my dick into the 15th-centry-rule-against-perpuities-circle-jerk or wtf ever constitutes legal scholarship.

Kind of a weird stance given your voting history.

[jbagelboy]

(idk how you best proxy for this but you can start by not recruiting at Yale).

lol, Yalies already aren't going to biglaw.

there are plenty

[skers]

A lot of junior work could be done by secretaries or paralegals, but firms choose not too, and some even bill out for summer work. There are a number of firms that aren't really feeling real fee pressure given how they bill out.

[FSK]

(idk how you best proxy for this but you can start by not recruiting at Yale).

lol, Yalies already aren't going to biglaw.

Egregious lies. I know of SEVERAL Yalies who did a year or two after clerking before going into academia so they could confidently claim they know the legal market and exactly how their "Law and East Asian Traditional Medicine" class will be practical for their students.

Wanting to be a tenured law prof makes you per se doo doo brain. If I had the intelligence and work ethic to get into and succeed at YLS I hope to god I'd try to move the needle on the world and not throw my dick into the 15th-centry-rule-against-perpuities-circle-jerk or wtf ever constitutes legal scholarship.

Kind of a weird stance given your voting history.

Hating law profs is bipartisan.

[Anonymous User]

I know a Yale grad in my starting class who came to my firm directly after graduation without even clerking. What a fucking idiot

[A. Nony Mouse]

(idk how you best proxy for this but you can start by not recruiting at Yale).

lol, Yalies already aren't going to biglaw.

there are plenty

Okay, let me precisely state the point behind my one-off - fewer Yalies go to biglaw than grads from other top schools.

[Tiago Splitter]

I don't know what "firm" you work for, but wake me up when computers are writing briefs that have the passion that makes one exceptional. I am not a scribe. Even a deal lawyer can't be truly great unless he or she understands the hopes, fears, aspirations, etc. of the players.

I love this shtick

Please post more

It's almost as good as "LOOK AT THE TRENDS DOC REVIEW WILL BE AUTOMATED MOMENTARILY!!!"

Let me know the first client that permits doc review for any meaningful case to be automated and let me know the first judge that doesn't rain sanctions all over the first party that says "well your honor yea we should have produced that but Watson said it wasn't responsive."

Uh literally this weekend I'm setting up predictive coding instead of a responsiveness review for an entire HSR Second Request. No review team, no contractors, 1-2 days of training the system and a max of 5K docs reviewed instead of 100K. Yeah lit is slower on adoption but sucks to suck I guess

lol Capitol I know you got your sky is falling shtick but slow down chief. Back when you had to do manual redlines, like literally a first year redlining every document by hand, biglaw hired 3000 people a year. Now it's 7000.

[greatspirit]

So...is biglaw dying?

[jbagelboy]

So...is biglaw dying?

just don't go.

[TLSModBot]

So...is biglaw dying?

Everything is fine! There will be jobs forever, more jobs than you can believe.

Pay no attention to Howrey, Dewey, Thelen, Bingham, Heller Ehrman, Thacher Profit, Dreier, etc.

[sublime]

Johann thread.

[Tiago Splitter]

So...is biglaw dying?

Everything is fine! There will be jobs forever, more jobs than you can believe.

Pay no attention to Howrey, Dewey, Thelen, Bingham, Heller Ehrman, Thacher Profit, Dreier, etc.

lol...6 out of hundreds!!! Also...Dreier?...wtf? Also...automated redlines?

[SemiReverseSplinter]

As long as humans make and interpret the law, humans will be needed to argue the law.

Also, if you want to own a mansion, sell something that rich people want; if you want to own a castle, sell something that poor people need.

[TLSModBot]

So...is biglaw dying?

Everything is fine! There will be jobs forever, more jobs than you can believe.

Pay no attention to Howrey, Dewey, Thelen, Bingham, Heller Ehrman, Thacher Profit, Dreier, etc.

lol...6 out of hundreds!!! Also...Dreier?...wtf? Also...automated redlines?

OK fine here's the attention you want Tiago.

1. Read the Citi Hildebrandt Law Firm Advisory - they're the fucking sugar coating Biglaw cheerleaders and even they say we're in for, best case, "modest growth in a fragile and unpredictable legal economy"

2. Georgetown State of the Legal Market does some good analysis on claiming industry revenue - the sum total of firms aren't making more money

3. 37 very large law firms have failed in the past 29 years. How many new firms popped up in that time to take their place of the same robustness and size?

4. You need to include law firm mergers into the mix. 2014 was a record year for law firm mergers (which result, by the way, in "efficiencies" which mean fewer jobs). 2015 was another record. So was 2016! Altman Weil Mergerline has the data on this. Off the top of my head, A&P Kaye Schiler, Dickstein Shapiro, Squire Patton are mergers that are going to mean net fewer jobs post merger, not more.

5. Finally, and the point where Tiago is being the particular dummy, is putting the "doomsday" words into my mouth. Reread my shit upthread. It's extremely reasonable to predict a contraction in the market. If you are seriously advocating that that is crazy and that Biglaw is just going gangbusters forever, then I just don't know what to tell you dude. You just keep that sweet beautiful outlook alive friend and cherish it.

[Tiago Splitter]

It's fine to predict a contraction in the market. It's stupid to say biglaw is dying unless you can rationalize the massive increase in employment large law firms have enjoyed in the last couple of decades. I'm not saying biglaw is going gangbusters forever but you're ignoring a huge amount of data.

[star fox]

Dewey was straight up cooking the books. It looked a kickass normal V100 firm from the outside but it was shady as hell. They were less of a problem of the failing biglaw model and more just what happens when shady people run a law firm.

[TLSModBot]

It's fine to predict a contraction in the market. It's stupid to say biglaw is dying unless you can rationalize the massive increase in employment large law firms have enjoyed in the last couple of decades. I'm not saying biglaw is going gangbusters forever but you're ignoring a huge amount of data.

Point me to where I said Biglaw is dying and also point me to this data pls.

Like I literally went through 10 years of AmLaw revenues for the top 200 on a lark last year. If there's some magical source you can point to I'm all ears.

And if it's PPP or SA hiring classes I swear to God I will shoot myself in the head before engaging any further

[Tiago Splitter]

It's fine to predict a contraction in the market. It's stupid to say biglaw is dying unless you can rationalize the massive increase in employment large law firms have enjoyed in the last couple of decades. I'm not saying biglaw is going gangbusters forever but you're ignoring a huge amount of data.

Point me to where I said Biglaw is dying and also point me to this data pls.

Like I literally went through 10 years of AmLaw revenues for the top 200 on a lark last year. If there's some magical source you can point to I'm all ears.

And if it's PPP or SA hiring classes I swear to God I will shoot myself in the head before engaging any further

Point you to what?!?! You just called me out for putting "doomsday" words into your mouth when at no point did I put any words like that into your mouth. Weird projecting.

Anywayz I told you biglaw automated major shit years ago. And then hired tons more people (uh oh - I might have violated your no killself rule - my condolences to your family). So clearly the real biglaw firms have figured something out.

[star fox]

If there's more shit going on, there will probably be more companies that need to buy each other and companies that need to sue each other. Even if the growth is wayyyy smaller than the growth in the overall economy because lol at paying a bunch of lawyers there's still a decent shot at overall growth since you need lawyers for that stuff.