As I look at those numbers I’m afraid we’re stuck in an “enabling economy,” where for the average firm the results are not so dire as to demand serious action, but not so healthy as to excuse inaction. We seem to be stuck in a holding pattern: We can cope; we can get by; we can muddle through.

If you want evidence of this mindset I’m positing, I invite you to compare the adjacent lines for “demand” and “headcount.” Demand down/headcount up?

I’m tempted to invoke the signature outburst of John McEnroe, the tennis star with the notable temper, expressing ire at any line judge whose call he questioned: “You have got to be kidding me.” (And it’s not the least bit hard to tie this back to Law Land, a byctually: His father, John P. McEnroe, is of counsel at Paul Weiss.)

In trying to understand why firms might think it advisable to add headcount in an era of shrinking demand and productivity, I cannot rely on economics, because it’s, shall we say, ill-advised from the perspective of economics.

So I have to resort to psychology, at which I am a novice at best.

First, a caveat about the figures. May I be permitted to observe again that they are averages, which can be misleading? (You surely have heard this one: A Keynesian, a Friedmanite, and a statistician are out hunting and spot a deer. The Keynesian shoots five feet to the left of the deer, the Friedmanite five feet to the right, and the statistician exclaims, “We got him!”)

Back to rising headcount/falling demand: Isn’t it possible that some firms who are dramatically outperforming the pack have (justifiably) added enough headcount to outweigh the other underperforming firms who should be (rationally) shedding headcount, so that the industry average is a net headcount gain? Well, of course, arithmetically that is indisputably possible. But it doesn’t deal with the larger point that as an industry we are committing an irrational act.

Why are we doing this?

My instinct is that when forward visibility is as impaired as it is now—never in the career of anyone alive today in BigLaw has the future been more obscure and harder to forecast—firm leaders are tempted to resort to what has worked in the past, or at least what they believe has worked in the past, or at least what’s in their comfort zone if they feel they ought to be seen as “doing something.”

That “something,” predictably if sadly, is lateral hiring. Laterals with books of business are sure to bump up the firm’s revenue, and higher revenue is what most firms are finding hard to come by in the market-share-battle following the Great Reset.

Two problems: First, the vast majority of laterals underperform expectations. This is so well known as to be a bromidic truism, although why firms not only aren’t acting on this truism but are pouring fuel on the lateral market fire as never before should continue to impress and amaze us all.

Second, remember there are two major headings on your firm’s P&L: Revenue and expense. Laterals may indeed bring in revenue, but at what cost in added expense? Assuming they get a bump in compensation from where they were (par for the course) and assuming they underperform in terms of expected revenue generation (par for the course), whether their net contribution to profits is positive is very much an open question.