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My firm did a fairly sig. deal and the other side was just in house counsel and Axiom lawyers. It was a fairly odd experience.

Is this the future?

Here's a good write up I found on Axiom:

http://www.elawyeringredux.com/2013/04/ ... -law-firm/

The article hits on a lot of good points regarding the legal hurdles that a company like Axiom can (and likely will) experience. I suppose it really comes down to cost and effectiveness. If this company can perform the services that lawyers can at a cheaper price, then it should have a good chance in the market. My immediate reaction is that while it's a novel idea, I think the difficulties mentioned in the article will prohibit considerable growth.

Interesting article.

I can easily see organizations like this doing the less sophisticated work that in house departments don't have the manpower to handle it.

Seems hard to believe they could ever really compete with the top biglaw firms for more sophisticated work, though, since they're not going to be hiring people competitive for biglaw.

Seems odd to me that they make it so hard to find the actual lawyers they employ / contract out / whatever on their website. The only way I could do it was by typing in common first names. As far as I can tell, the large majority of their Chicago lawyers are John Marshall JDs, with no previous firm experience.

I worked at an i-bank last summer that had axiom ppl placed on the legal team. I don't remember speaking to any axiom people, but they basically functioned as in-house counsel the way a law firm secondee would.

However, I don't recall many of them on the more deal-heavy transactional side of things ie. IB, cap mkts, etc. Part of the appeal of the law firms is that they are on hand 24/7 for a big deal, whereas axiom ppl seem to be trained for everyday documentation that isn't time-sensitive.

I have heard that if you work with axiom banks that want to hire you permanently after a stint will have to pay axiom a hefty release fee.