• Yet, remarkably, two-thirds of respondents said they were “somewhat optimistic” about their own firm’s outlook.
• And 80% expect profits per partner to grow in 2014, one fourth of them at a rate greater than 5%.
  • They plan to do this not by doing anything new—what might seem logical and even, dare I say, advisable, given that the status quo is producing less than compelling results—but by:
    • Raising rates (98% of respondents), eventhough
    • Realization rates are under 85% for three-fourths of firms in 2013.
• Is there hope in any particular practice area?
  • The AmLaw report points to M&A, second only to litigation as the most popular practice for firms’ increasingly frenzied and desperate pursuit of laterals, which might make sense sense merger market activity was up 22% for the first three quarters of 2013—unless you subtract out the once in a lifetime thunderbolt of the Verizon/Vodafone deal, in which case the M&A market us, oops, down year over year, and still roughly at 2008/2009 hibernation levels.
• But at least we all have our own houses in order, right?
  • Actually, 85% are very or somewhat worried that partners are not billing enough hours (12% can’t make up their minds, leaving a resounding 4% [2 in 50] saying they’re “not worried”)
  • Meanwhile, two out of three are worried that some partners are hanging on too long before retirement
• Well, we can solve that by having hard conversations, right?
  • Maybe not: Half of firms have no plans to de-equitize partners, this year or next, regardless of performance.

Reality check time, folks.

Lately I’ve been reading Brad Stone’s The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, and if you learn nothing else about Bezos’ astonishing rise and rise and rise as a business leader, you learn that he has a blistering insistence on the unvarnished truth. He will not tolerate anything less.

During the critical Christmas shopping season for Amazon, Bezos held daily “war room” meeting with about 30 of his senior management team to go over critical issues. As sales started ramping up in 2000, hold times on Amazon’s phone lines began growing longer. Bezos began one meeting by asking Bill Price, the VP of customer care, how long the hold time actually was. Less than a minute, Price told him.

“Really? Let’s see.”

Bezos called the Amazon 800 number on the speakerphone in the middle of the conference table and set his watch down beside it. One minute, two minutes, three minutes—four and a half brutal minutes later, the line was finally picked up. “Thanks, just checking!,” Bezos said and hung up. Price was soon gone.

If you don’t want to rely on Bezos as an example, take Churchill. During the worst depths of the Blitz, when it looked as though the US would never help and Britain was abandoned to her own resources in the face of the Third Reich’s onslaught, in January 1941 Churchill created the “Central Statistical Office” as an independent entity outside the control of his ministers, who he feared would filter the news coming to him. He said that only if he knew exactly what was really going on in terms of armaments, men, territory, and so forth, could he sleep well at night: “Facts beat dreams.”

Now, we don’t seem to be following the same commitment to insisting on the unvarnished truth.