Law Firm Evolution: Brave New World or Business as Usual?

I attended the Georgetown University Law Center Conference on “Law Firm Evolution: Brave New World or Business as Usual?” this week. It was tremendous. The presentations, the discussions, the ideas and the overall energy made this one of the best conferences I have ever attended in my career, and a powerful reminder of why I do what I do. Sound over the top? Read these articles, blog posts, papers, and other commentaries on the conference, and then tell me what you think.

Conference Papers and Related Documents

• “Abandoning Homogeneity in Legal Education,” Thomas D. Morgan
• “Business Models in Legal Practice: Toward Definition and Assessment,” Stephen Mayson
• “Chinese Law Firms After the Financial Crisis: The Case of Shanghai,” Sida Liu and Xueyao Li
• “Coase, Schumpeter, and the Future of the (Law) Firm,” David McGowan and Bernard A. Burk
• “The Consolidation of the Global Advertising Industry: Lessons for Law Firms?,” Andrew von Nordenflycht
• “The Death of BigLaw,” Larry Ribstein
• “Evolution and Revolution in the Governance of Law Firms,” Laura Empson
• “Hiring Teams from Rivals: Theory and Evidence on the Evolving Relationships in the Corporate Legal Market,” Michele DeStefano Beardslee, David Wilkins, John Coates and Ashish Nanda)
• “Law firm of the 21st century: The clients’ revolution,” Eversheds
• “Layoffs, Lawyers, and Learning,” Paul Oyer and Scott Schaefer)
• “Make or Buy Decisions: Theory and Evidence in Legal Services,” Mari Sako
• “The New Normal,” Paul Lippe
• “The Return of the Apprentice: New Lawyer Training Models for the 21st Century,” Jordan Furlong
• “Supply Chains and Porous Boundaries: The Disaggregation of Legal Services,” Milton C. Regan, Jr., in 78 Fordham L. Rev. 101 (2010) (forthcoming).
• “Third-Party Litigation Funding,” Anthony Sebok
• “Will There Be a Changing of the Guard? Law Firm Lessons from the Great Depression,” Peter Sherer

Session Recaps from Ron Friedmann at Prism Legal

• “Emerging Relationships Between Law Firms and Clients (Tweeted Conference Report)”
• “Creative Destruction and Innovation (session report, Georgetown Law)”
• “Business Models: Strategy and Governance (Session Report, Georgetown Law Conf)”
• “David Wilkins on Mega Trends for Legal Profession (Session Report, Georgetown Law Conf)”
• "KM in Action (After Action Review at a Conference)"

Articles and Commentary

• “The Change Agenda: Are We There Yet?” from Aric Press at AmLaw Daily
• “The Change Agenda: Is Mega Law a Dead Man Walking?” from Aric Press at AmLaw Daily
• “Calls for New Model of Law Firm-Client Relations at Georgetown Conference” from Law.com's Small Firm Business
• "Extreme Makeover: Law Firm Edition" from Vault's Law Blog
• “From Georgetown Law: ‘Law Firm Evolution-Brave New World or Business as Usual?’” from The Posse List
• “From Georgetown Law: ‘Law Firm Evolution’ – a video interview with Richard Susskind, author of ‘The End of Lawyers?’” from The Posse List (see also video interviews below)
• "From Georgetown Law: 'Law Firm Evolution-Brave New World or Business as Usual?' -- our review of the conference" from The Posse List
• "Georgetown Law School evokes Punk rock" from Joshua Kubicki on Legal on Ramp (registration required)
• “Is the Law-Firm Model Dying? Not Yet, But It Might Be On The Clock” from WSJ Law Blog
• "Law firm evolution at Georgetown" from Larry Ribstein's Ideoblog
• “Law Firm Evolution Conference at Georgetown in the US: my take” from Robert Sawhney’s Marketing Asia blog
• "Law Firm (R)Evolution & Gaps" from Joshua Kubicki's Legal Transformation: The Changing Legal Profession
• “Law Firm Time Bomb: You Have 18 Months To Try And Keep Your Clients”, from Business Insider Law Review
• “Lawyer Layoff Patterns: Young Go 1st, and Top 10 JD Is No Shield” from the ABA Journal
• "Layoff Patterns: was there a method to the madness?" from Above the Law
• "Murmurs of Change, but Where's the Proof?" from ABA Journal
• "New Model Evolving: Law Firms Have 18 Months Maximum to Adapt" from Law and More.
• “Panelists Explore New Business Models for Big Law” from The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times
• “Panelists Predict Changes to, Not Death of, Big Law” from The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times
• “Patterns Emerge from Lawyer Layoffs” from The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times
• “Paul Lippe, Lewis and Clark, and Google Maps” from In Search of Perfect Client Service
• "Report Finds Power Shift and Declining Support for Law Firm 'Up or Out' Model" from the ABA Journal
• "Secondments will rise if more firms decide they are a prerequisite to become a partner" from Rees Morrison's Law Department Management
• “So Long, Blank Checks: Clients Saying Get with the Program, or Get Out of the Way” from Shatterbox
• "Total median compensation of a group of general counsel was five times salary" from Rees Morrison's Law Department Management
• “Warnings Toll for BigLaw Firms Resistant to Change” from the ABA Journal

What the Hashtag?! Twitterstream

Video Interviews from Gregory Bufithis of The Posse List and Lisa DiMonte of MyLegal.com

Leah Cooper

Anthony Davis



Jose M. de Areilza

Michele DeStefano Beardslee

Deborah Epstein Harry

Ron Friedmann



Cynthia Fuchs Epstein



Jordan Furlong



David Galbenski



Susan Hackett

Joshua Kubicki

Bruce MacEwen

Stephen Mayson



David McGowan



Marisa Mendez



Thomas Morgan

Mitt Regan



Larry Ribstein



Timothy Scrantom

Reena SenGupta

Paul Smith

Richard Susskind

Laurel S. Terry