Our Arms’ Race (2)

Now that I have published a column (“Our Arms Race”) which took a stand against lateral partner hiring almost across the board, let me acknowledge the obvious and state for the record that no matter what anyone says or the track record shows, lateral...

Our Arms’ Race

Within the past 48 hours: Managing Partner #1 (an AmLaw 50 firm) said to me, “I just don’t understand this lateral hiring frenzy. I just don’t get it. Do you?” Managing Partner #2 (an AmLaw 50, and one whose strategy has been so widely...

How do we know what we know?

What follows will be a bit out of the ordinary—OK, a lot out of the ordinary—for regular readers of Adam Smith, Esq., but there’s a cold, hard, important, gem of truth in it for lawyers, our firms, and our bedrock assumptions about the way things ought to work...

USNWR, RIP

Most people attend law school to obtain jobs as lawyers (Not butchers or bakers, or candlestick makers.) If law school was just a cool place to chill out for a few years without building specific job skills, they’d call it “college.” Jobs are...