After making an offhand comment in a previous post, that only about 10% of all Canadian lawyers were in large law firms, I began to wonder if that was, you know, accurate. So I checked the statistical breakdowns available at the Federation of Law Societies of Canada website and confirmed that yes, out of 79,147… Read more »
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The good times rolled
A noteworthy item in the National Law Journal today, interesting for a bunch of reasons. The thrust of the article is that with a recession likely to arrive in 2008, associates at many top US firms are likely to see an end to the salary and bonus frenzy that has obsessed the legal press for… Read more »
Waking the neighbours
Ten years ago, it was rare to see more than a passing mention of law practice management or legal business issues even in the legal press. Today, the legal press has finally caught up, but the mainstream media also seems to be warming to this topic. In recent weeks, we’ve seen prominent articles on lawyer… Read more »
Amazon.law
This post originally appeared as an article at Slaw on December 16, 2007. If you’ve ever ordered an item from Amazon, you know that every time you log back in to the website, you’re greeted with a list of recommended books, CDs and DVDs. Amazon compiles this list based both on your product purchases and… Read more »
Partner up
I’m always a little bemused by those notices in the legal press in which national law firms announce that “X has joined the partnership.” I find it odd that a lawyer in, say, the Montreal office could refer to another lawyer in, say, the Vancouver office, as “my partner.” It seems to stretch the word… Read more »
Large firms and law schools
Law students seem to believe in a hierarchy of legal job options: large law firms #1, small law firms #1A, everything else #2 and lower. One of the main reasons for this is that the legal profession believes in it, too. You don’t have to buy your average private-firm lawyer too many drinks before they’ll… Read more »
Three for the money
Three interesting items in the inbox today, each of which reflects a different facet of the many forces hard at work on producing imminent changes to the profession. First comes news from the ABA’s Law School Admissions Council that the number of applications to U.S. law schools dropped in 2006 by 7.6%, the second straight… Read more »
Offshore reflections
It’s a few weeks late, but this article about offshore legal services published early last month in The Hindu is worth a read, although it’s not offered on the basis that all its contents should necessarily be taken at face value. It comes across rather as a corporate Q-and-A for SDD Global Solutions, an Indian… Read more »
Millennial fever
This post first appeared as an article at Slaw on October 1, 2007. During the past 50-odd years, the North American legal profession has been notable for a ready supply of labour. The post-war population boom and increased access to post-secondary education, combined with the enduring lure of a legal career, ensured that there would… Read more »
What clients want
What do lawyers sell? To this day, you’ll hear a lot of lawyers say, “The only thing I have to sell is my time.” That’s the wrong answer, not only because it encourages our unhealthy fixation on hourly billing, but also because most clients prefer to pay for as little of our time as possible…. Read more »