But it's over.
Per Adam Smith. Esq. "We don't like to talk about it, none of us do, not me, not senior partners, not bankers or consultants to the industry, but the stark, glaring reality is that law firms are fragile institutions. Brobeck, Coudert, Heller, Shea & Gould, among the firms that didn't deserve it, and Finley Kumble and Myerson & Kuhn among the firms that did."
What went wrong?
Law firms say that they understand that "Our assets go down in the elevator every night." Take that bromide seriously. You must give people a persuasive reason to come back "home" every Monday morning.
Back to Heller. What finally went wrong?
It's the same phenomenon, actually, that we've seen on Wall Street in the last few weeks: A failure of confidence. There doesn't need to be anything wrong with Heller, or Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, or Merrill Lynch, for people and the market at large to perceive there's something wrong with any of those firms. It's the run on the bank mentality.
In law firm land, this is how the breakdown of credibility (the "character" of the firm) goes:
Per Adam Smith. Esq. "We don't like to talk about it, none of us do, not me, not senior partners, not bankers or consultants to the industry, but the stark, glaring reality is that law firms are fragile institutions. Brobeck, Coudert, Heller, Shea & Gould, among the firms that didn't deserve it, and Finley Kumble and Myerson & Kuhn among the firms that did."
What went wrong?
Law firms say that they understand that "Our assets go down in the elevator every night." Take that bromide seriously. You must give people a persuasive reason to come back "home" every Monday morning.
Back to Heller. What finally went wrong?
It's the same phenomenon, actually, that we've seen on Wall Street in the last few weeks: A failure of confidence. There doesn't need to be anything wrong with Heller, or Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, or Merrill Lynch, for people and the market at large to perceive there's something wrong with any of those firms. It's the run on the bank mentality.
In law firm land, this is how the breakdown of credibility (the "character" of the firm) goes:
- A few key partners leave
- Taking a few key clients with them
- Which makes other partners wonder
- And start looking around
- Finding, in this very liquid lateral partner market, ample opportunities
- Which some take advantage of
- Taking away more clients
- Making more partners, and associates connected to them, thinking about the door
- Leaving only the least mobile people with the smallest books of business at the firm
- And the vicious cycle has kicked in, with almost no meaningful chance of its being reversed.
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