Feature Article |
The Last Days of the Philadelphia Lawyer
By Tom McGrath
SO, WHAT WILL happen to Philadelphia’s biggest firms? In the current world, to stand still is to go backwards. As Alderman recently said, “There may be no place in the future for a 300-lawyer regional firm.”
Not growing — both in number of lawyers and offices around the country — means an increased risk of losing clients, which means an increased risk of declining profits, which means an increased risk of losing partners, which means an increased risk of losing clients … and on and on it goes, a vicious cycle that can quickly obliterate even what appears to be a healthy firm. Last year, 17 major law firms across the country dissolved.
One glimpse of what the future might look like is Duane Morris. With lawyers in 20 offices around the country, it’s now classified — by none other than American Lawyer — as a national firm, not a Philadelphia one. And it’s clear that Philadelphia is less and less crucial to its future. Every other year, Duane holds its annual partners meeting in Miami — and it doesn’t do anything to play up its Philadelphia roots. The firm can’t, John Soroko says, get a San Diego lawyer with a hefty client base to join the firm by selling its Philadelphia-ness. As he puts it carefully, smiling one day in the firm’s 17th Street offices, “We try not to be Philadelphia chauvinists.”
AS PART OF his class on law firms, Mark Alderman asks his students to do short presentations on the firms at which they worked as summer associates. One day in early February, two students got up. The first, a young man, recounted his experience last summer, in which he started working at the Washington, D.C., office of a West Coast-based firm, only to see that office close a week after he started. He managed to land a job at another firm in D.C. — only to see that one merge a few weeks later.
“That’s going to be pretty tough to beat,” Alderman laughed. “You basically just summed up this entire course.”
Next came a young woman whose presentation may have been even more instructive about where the legal industry is headed. As she talked about her summer — partly spent in London, partly in New York — she made reference to the “company” she was working for, then talked about a trend that “all the big law companies” were following. When her presentation was over, she was asked whether that phrase — law “companies,” not firms — was an emerging one in the business. She looked momentarily perplexed, then acknowledged that she had simply misspoken. She meant firms.
But the slip of the tongue may have been a more honest description of the state of the legal industry. While previous generations seemed to understand that there was such a thing as a higher calling, we’ve created a world where the only measure that matters is money. And so the big law companies will continue to manufacture and sell legal services in Philadelphia — and maybe every once in a while, if their billable-hour requirements allow it, the lawyers will stop to wonder where we’ll lead them next.
Not growing — both in number of lawyers and offices around the country — means an increased risk of losing clients, which means an increased risk of declining profits, which means an increased risk of losing partners, which means an increased risk of losing clients … and on and on it goes, a vicious cycle that can quickly obliterate even what appears to be a healthy firm. Last year, 17 major law firms across the country dissolved.
One glimpse of what the future might look like is Duane Morris. With lawyers in 20 offices around the country, it’s now classified — by none other than American Lawyer — as a national firm, not a Philadelphia one. And it’s clear that Philadelphia is less and less crucial to its future. Every other year, Duane holds its annual partners meeting in Miami — and it doesn’t do anything to play up its Philadelphia roots. The firm can’t, John Soroko says, get a San Diego lawyer with a hefty client base to join the firm by selling its Philadelphia-ness. As he puts it carefully, smiling one day in the firm’s 17th Street offices, “We try not to be Philadelphia chauvinists.”
AS PART OF his class on law firms, Mark Alderman asks his students to do short presentations on the firms at which they worked as summer associates. One day in early February, two students got up. The first, a young man, recounted his experience last summer, in which he started working at the Washington, D.C., office of a West Coast-based firm, only to see that office close a week after he started. He managed to land a job at another firm in D.C. — only to see that one merge a few weeks later.
“That’s going to be pretty tough to beat,” Alderman laughed. “You basically just summed up this entire course.”
Next came a young woman whose presentation may have been even more instructive about where the legal industry is headed. As she talked about her summer — partly spent in London, partly in New York — she made reference to the “company” she was working for, then talked about a trend that “all the big law companies” were following. When her presentation was over, she was asked whether that phrase — law “companies,” not firms — was an emerging one in the business. She looked momentarily perplexed, then acknowledged that she had simply misspoken. She meant firms.
But the slip of the tongue may have been a more honest description of the state of the legal industry. While previous generations seemed to understand that there was such a thing as a higher calling, we’ve created a world where the only measure that matters is money. And so the big law companies will continue to manufacture and sell legal services in Philadelphia — and maybe every once in a while, if their billable-hour requirements allow it, the lawyers will stop to wonder where we’ll lead them next.
Originally published in Philadelphia magazine, April 2008
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