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WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
IS NEW YORK OLD NEWS? - New York has long set the standard for the rest of the legal industry on everything from salaries to workplace culture to industry status and practice area focus. But, as Law.com’s Patrick Smith reports, more and more firms are beginning to realize that they’re doing themselves no favors by trying to keep up with the Wall Street elites. “Everything is benchmarked after New York,” Jennifer Johnson, CEO and founder of legal consulting firm Calibrate Legal, told Smith. “Many are still chasing that. But New York will always lead with money, and that isn’t the way the rest of the country operates.” Kent Zimmermann, strategy consultant to law firm leaders at Zeughauser Group, suggested that a healthier strategy for law firm leaders would be to simply look slightly up-market from where they happen to be. “All firms are somewhere on a ladder, and what that looks like depends on where you are starting your climb from,” he said. “If you are in St. Louis, you might be looking at some Chicago firms. If you are in Chicago, maybe then it makes sense to look to New York, London and Northern California. You don’t want to be an also-ran in New York.”
