The New York Times reported, “At the root of the law-firm crisis, legal experts say, is the credit crisis, which has pulverized the need for traditional practice areas like structured finance, mergers and acquisitions and private-equity transactions – the very things that have always kept a high gleam of polish on the city’s whitest shoes. The downward trend has been unrelenting: fewer Wall Street deals mean fewer Wall Street lawyers.” Now, “big, as a business model (let alone as an expression of the national mood), seems bound for obsolescence.” In addition, “the natural order of this world has been set on end by the economic crisis and the possible disappearance of fixtures like the pyramid system (under which associates are thrown en masse at certain cases, fattening the fees), and the billable hour itself (increasingly replaced by flat rates or retainers in a client’s market).”
From the American Association for Justice news release
