Want to get this daily news briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.
WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
BIG LAW BRAIN DRAIN? - Running a law practice no longer requires an army of support staff, industrial-strength printers or even physical office space. Because of this, as Law.com’s Frank Ready reports, it’s arguably never been easier to go solo or branch out from Big Law with a boutique. “I think that’s going to be something that we’re going to see more and more frequently—that we’ll see smaller boutique shops, like mine, that focus on an issue or [practice area] and get started. And law firms will experience significant brain drain in their associate pool and the low- to midlevel partner range,” said Tomu Johnson, who recently left Parsons Behle & Latimer to launch a privacy and data-centric firm, The Broad Axe, from the comfort of his Utah-based home. To be sure, the rise of remote work is one factor that is likely to entice some attorneys to strike out on their own. But Jarno Vanto, a partner at Crowell & Moring, argued that it could also be the impetus for some lawyers to make the leap to Big Law. “If your options are to say be in a large regional firm or going solo and bringing your clients with you, sort of the natural [alternative] there is joining a large national firm and work remotely from where you are,” he said.
