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WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
TALENT NO-SHOW - It’s arguably harder than ever for Big Law firms to hold onto talented young lawyers amid intense competition from rivals and a smorgasbord of internal and external pressures, including crushing workloads and mounting home responsibilities. And, as Law.com’s Andrew Maloney reports, despite salary increases, creative bonuses and more flexibility than ever, industry observers say firms still aren’t finding enough, investing in enough or folding in enough young attorneys to office leadership, causing concern they’ll burn out or find greener pastures in other industries. Randy Kiser, a scholar of the legal profession and analyst for DecisionSet, said two of the major challenges to law firms right now are “if we don’t bring in more young people into law firm leadership and the leadership starts to stagnate,” as well as an inability to recruit or retain enough attorneys to do the work. “And at this point, it looks like that is a growing threat to the law firm business model,” said Kiser. “As long as you’re selling time, you have to be very careful about retaining the people who are delivering that profitability.”
