In today’s competitive, disruptive and often confusing legal landscape, it is difficult to see through branding and marketing to facts. This could be amusing except that the primary purpose of our profession is to consistently deliver excellence and value to clients, in whatever practices and locations a firm chooses to cover. Clients, lawyers and staff, and even entire law firms, are struggling to decipher the true nature of the (so-called) “law firm” structures being presented to them.

How do you share and collaborate? Is there any defined culture, or any common standards of excellence and ethics? How will conflicts of interest be cleared or are they ignored between and among constituent parts? Why will a client benefit by a firm’s name being on an office when that office may be disconnected from the firm it knows and which may not deliver services at a similar level, and which may ultimately not be the best choice for their overall need?