Dispatches from a legal profession on the brink
Filed under: Careers, Law School, New Lawyers
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 »
Filed under: Innovation, Law School
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 »
Filed under: Billing, Ethics, Globalization, New Lawyers, Outsourcing
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 »
Filed under: Generations, New Lawyers, Talent
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 »
Filed under: Clients, Competition, Innovation, Technology
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 »
Filed under: Generations, Law School
I skipped my ten-year law school reunion in 2003. Partly I was just too busy, partly I already see a lot of my friends from law school here in Ottawa, and partly I never really got into that whole homecoming-week, relive-the-good-old days thing. Plenty of my classmates like it, however, and more power to them…. Read more »
Filed under: Generations, Law School
I skipped my ten-year law school reunion in 2003. Partly I was just too busy, partly I already see a lot of my friends from law school here in Ottawa, and partly I never really got into that whole homecoming-week, relive-the-good-old days thing. Plenty of my classmates like it, however, and more power to them…. Read more »
Filed under: Law School
Maclean’s has released its first ranking of Canadian law schools. The magazine’s choices for the top law faculties I’ll leave till later in this post, because there are rather more interesting things going on here. Let’s first look at the methodology. The schools are ranked equally on faculty quality (50%) and graduate quality (50%), the… Read more »
Filed under: Clients, Innovation
The indispensable Bruce MacEwen writes another superb piece at Adam Smith, Esq., this time on the lessons law firms could learn about client relations from consumer packaged goods companies’ marketing strategies (short answer: a lot). This quote in particular grabbed my attention: Focusing on clients means viewing the service your firm provides from their perspective… Read more »
Filed under: Clients, Innovation, Technology
The August 2007 edition of the Law Society Journal (New South Wales) talks about Nova Legal and Advisory, an incorporated legal business in Sydney consisting of both a traditional law firm and a corporate governance, compliance and risk management consulting firm. It’s the latter business that has come up with the innovative Nova Solutions, “an… Read more »
