Lists of law firms which do contain a judgment-freighted component (the AmLaw’s “A List,” a “Top” or “Hot” almost-anything) are forced to determine in advance just exactly what their measures of quality are, and which matter most. The US News rankings notoriously exclude price (tuition) from their school and university rankings. And now that you mention it, I’ve never seen a list of “Top” law firms that includes price as a metric, either.
This brings us back to the Super Rich and “everyone else.” Here are a few firms from each decile of the latest AmLaw 100. Ask yourself what firms in these groupings have in common (hint: not that much):
- 1st decile: Latham, Kirkland, Jones Day
- 2nd decile: Gibson Dunn, Morgan Lewis, Sullivan & Cromwell, Cleary, Greenberg Traurig, Reed Smith.And as we go up the deciles, the differences are even more patently obvious.
- 6th decile: Vinson & Elkins, Cravath, Wilson Sonsini, Bryan Cave
- 10th decile: Boies Schiller, Fox Rothschild, Fenwick, Baker Donelson
I’m not so naive, or idealistic, as to imagine that pointing out flaws in aggregate listings will deprive them of their guilty-pleasure appeal. US News has transformed itself from a Time/Newsweek also-ran to a List Factory, methodological and conceptual flaws notwithstanding. Some publications in Law Land seem to the innocent eye to be tending in the same direction, and without question it’s a strategy with demonstrable marketplace popularity.
All I’m asking is that you not mistake lists or rankings for intellectual analysis.
The Super Rich are playing a different game than everyone else. For them and their clients, price (cost) is asymptotically close to immaterial. The rest of us aren’t so fortunate.
Or maybe we have to make our own fortunes, on a non-intersecting plane of reality in this four-dimensional marketplace we are all playing in. One where price matters.
Either way, it’s high time to stop assuming lists can be comprehensive and heterogeneous.
Very true! To say that my very small firm is in the same business as Skadden because we both practice law is like saying that NASA, United Airlines, the municipal bus company, and my friendly mortician are all in the same business because they transport people.
Mr. MacEwen,
Thanks again for an excellent piece.
More Peter Drucker-isms come to mind here. (Professor Drucker’s quotes have appeared in this revered site in the past).
Cited in the link below:
“Drucker explained that the source of confusion was that many economists consider profit maximization a basic tenet for business success: one buys low and sells high. The larger the differential, or profit margin, the better. However, Drucker continued, this simple prescription by itself, tells us nothing. If we look at the difficulties of business survival today, and the many failures that have occurred under the pressures of impending financial calamity, it is clear that buying low and selling high in itself does not explain why certain businesses fail or why others are successful, and some even accelerating their success in the midst of surrounding financial ruin.”
http://www.marketingandsalesbooks.com/en/purpose-business-not-profit
Financial rankings are one measurement, but by itself says little.
Thanks for your kind words, JC.
Drucker’s thoughts remind us of the reality that there is no dial in the cockpit of our firms where we can adjust “profit”–its existence and level are the result of a myriad of other things we do, that we do have control over, but we can’t control profit per se. Were it otherwise, we could repeal Chapter 11 and never miss it.
BTW – I am reading one of your past pieces, which is right on target:
https://adamsmithesq.com/2005/11/drucker_on_feed/