The challenges faced by law firms are a fun-house mirror of a first-world problem. Yes, there are children crying on the border, but what about profits per partner?
Got that. But if private law practice – or profit practice, as U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades played by Paul Giamatti in “Billions” calls it – is your calling, it’s a little tough right now. The stratification between the haves and the have nots of private law practice is widening with the rich getting Crazy Wild Lawyer Rich and their regional competitors cobbling together odd bedfellows in efforts to compete. We’ll see.
What’s absolutely clear is that these are golden years for those who are paid by lawyers to either finance their cases or move them in lateral blocks to other firms. And for no industry is life more peachy keen than legal funders. While it seems only moments ago that folks like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were gnashing their teeth about the subversion of justice wrought by outside capital entering litigation, those concerns have been rendered toothless by the power of Burford and the legal innovators of Adam Gerchen, Ashley Keller and Travis Lenkner. Together for a moment, and now back in their respective corners, they’ve led a billion-dollar takeover of traditional law practice that may still be in its early days.
There are many others here, as well, reflecting the global nature of legal practice and the consultants who facilitate it. From recruiters to publicists, directory mavens and technologists, we’ve assembled the best of the legal world’s consultants for our third annual look at the advisors to the world’s best lawyers.
