Bill Henderson, the irrepressible Indiana University law professor, had a simple idea. To test the viability of the big firm model – and look for ways to change and rescue it – he and Anthony Kearns, the lead risk manager for the professional indemnity insurer for Australian lawyers, organised a clever role-playing game, a sort of Dungeons and Dragons for lawyers.
FutureFirm, as they called it, is a case study of a hypothetical Am Law 200 law firm in trouble. Teams of law firm partners, clients, law students, and consultants would spend a day and a half trying to devise a strategy that would allow the tottering Marbury & Madison LLP to survive for another decade. And in the process, the emerging PowerPoints and rump partners meetings would shed light on the current thinking of what firms in peril – and others merely facing the broader economic turmoil – might do to right themselves.
