I’ve been thinking about the fact that December and January can be pretty miserable for law firm partners. Deprived of the opportunity to reflect and reposition, the last two weeks of the year partners scramble to collect fees and the next two weeks are spent waiting to hear about distributions. The issues underpinning both the ask and the wait are often, and unfortunately, sticky.
Truth is, the other 10 months are pretty hard too. With more than 160,000 lawyers licensed to practice in the state of New York, getting and growing clients is combat, pure and simple. The amount of work sent to outside counsel is shrinking, the number of firms nibbling at that smaller pie—often through competitive RFP processes—is also down, pressure on fees persists, mega-firms with mega-footprints make it harder for mid-sized firms to compete and managing those large firms with thousands of lawyers, dozens of offices and a myriad of cultures is nearly impossible.
