Wednesday, April 25, 2007 7:26 AM
Last week, Ronda Muir, writing at Law People, offered an interesting post entitled Legal Services Across the Pond. In this post, she gave an update as to the state of affairs for the legal industry in the United Kingdom:
Across the pond, the legal industry is addressing some of the same issues as US firms but with their own distinctive twist. Facing attrition rates similar to those in the US, UK law firms are re-jiggering what it means to be a partner and whether lawyers even need to be one in order to stay over the long haul. One-third of the UK 100 law firms have over the last few years introduced non-partner career tracks, based on associate feedback that partnership and its lifestyle has lost its allure.
On the legislative front, an NFO report in March 2001 on "Competition in Professions" recommended that unjustified restrictions on competition be removed. The government's report in response on competition and regulation in the legal services market concluded that "the current framework is out-dated, inflexible, over-complex and insufficiently accountable or transparent..."
...The idea of multi-disciplinary practices has been bandied around in the US for years, and the growth of global law firms, and the prospect of competing with UK multi-disciplinary firms, may again suggest that model as a possible development of the future. What is interesting is the extent of support that UK firms are giving the idea.
You can read Ms. Muir's full post for more context and details on the above snippets, Legal Services Across the Pond.
In the era of globalization, where the largest United States-based law firms are opening offices worldwide, it stands to reason that the U.S. legal industry would start to go through a similar self-examination.
And, this morning the following headline from Bruce MacEwen at Adam Smith, Esq., who has long written about developments in the U.K. and the economics of law firms, confirmed just this, Publicly Traded Law Firms in the US? Georgetown Law Symposium:
Regular readers know that I've written regularly about the so-called "Clementi" reforms scheduled to take effect next year in the UK which would permit public ownership of, and investment in, law firms, as well as permitting diversified multidisciplinary firms combining, for example, lawyers with management consultants with accountants with financial planners with investment bankers. I'm not being facetious to say that I wish the US had managed to beat the UK to the punch on this.
So it is with great pleasure that I can announce that the Georgetown Law Center for the Study of the Legal Profession will be hosting a symposium next April 3 and 4, 2008, titled "The Future of the Global Law Firm," which is actually about the prospects for precisely this type of reform in the US.
The impetus for this conference began with my proposing the concept of a derivative security, roughly reflecting a law firm's valuation, that might comply with existing ethical proscriptions against ownership of law firms by non-lawyers. I shared this concept with Prof. Mitt Regan of Georgetown and Prof. Larry Ribstein of the University of Illinois College of Law, two of the most highly-qualified individuals I can think of to critique and extend my notion.
...As I've said in personal communication with some of you, I strongly believe this is a timely and profoundly important conversation for our profession and our industry to have, and I am gratified to have played a very small part in occasioning it in at least one venue.
The importance of these issues to our profession in the 21st Century demands that our approach not be determined by inertia, free-floating (and in my opinion, irrational) fear, or an undue reverence for tradition.
You can read Mr. MacEwen's full post and get additional details here: Publicly Traded Law Firms in the US? Georgetown Law Symposium.
Good stuff.