Law firms, like so many other organizations - profit and non-profit - refer to themselves as "purpose-driven." Well that buzzy phrase better refer to something very pragmatic. That's the business of their clients. Not just the client's legal matter.
WE USED TO LAUGH ABOUT CASES WON, BUSINESSES COLLAPSING
The client's business wasn't always the business of a law firm. When I began covering trials in 2005, both lawyers and fellow bloggers/journalists used to joke about how big-name law firms would win tough cases. And then that client's business would collapse. Ha-ha. But the lawyers received great media coverage for the success. And went on to defend clients in similar legal situations. Yes, they had done their job well.
That was then.
CLIENT ACCOUNTS NO LONGER “STICKY”
Currently, such an outcome - the business failure - would tarnish both the brands of the law firm and the legal team. A driver in that is this: The whole law firm – client relationship is being reimagined. With the client having the upper hand. The short version: The client expects more. And can get it.
Evidence of that is this: It is rare for client accounts to be considered “owned” by any one law firm or a partner or team of partners in it.
In an interview with Leaders, April 2022, Paul Weiss Chairperson Brad Karp put it this way: The “sticky” part is over. In the ungluing, the new normal is for clients to shop around, kicking the tires about how a legal situation will be managed, by what players in the firm, and at what cost. The macro issue has become: What overall value is the law firm creating for the client?
BEING A BUSINESS PARTNER
A major chunk of the reconfiguration, Karp hammers, is that the client demands more than stand-alone legal services. Actually, the language has shifted to “solutions.” And that pertains to the business as a whole. The legal situation is simply one moving part in those complex dynamics. Since they are occurring in real time, the legal strategy part itself may change as the conditions of the business evolve. Karp describes that role as being a “business partner.”
This is the Paul Weiss mission: “We need to deeply understand our clients’ business goals, professional culture, key stakeholders and risk tolerance.”
NOT UNTHINKABLE
It is not unthinkable that there eventually will be the demand by the business that it emerges from a legal entanglement – litigation or transactional – better positioned than when it entered. Lawyers will be required to have in-depth knowledge of business.
Yes, that could disrupt how lawyers approach and practice law. Already that kind of shift is occurring in how in-house legal departments are managing ESG issues. In Corporate Counsel, Paul Weiss outlines how the “playbook” is being reinvented for the chaotic ESG era, when corporations fear being the “Next Disney.”
IMPLICATIONS FOR LEGAL EDUCATION
Law schools will have to prepare this current generation and future ones in very different ways about what is the role of the lawyer.
Meanwhile, simultaneously, how to approach law itself is changing. The classic example is how ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) is upending traditional legalities. Karp, along with Paul Weiss Chief Sustainability - ESG Officer David Curran, notes in Corporate Counsel:
"The standard lawyerly approach - researching precedent and applying the law - does not work when it comes to advising in the gray areas of ESG."
Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com. Now and then she does freelance assignments for professional services firms such as Paul Weiss.