Recent American Lawyer coverage offers a bleak assessment of the state of law firm leadership (here) (here) and (here). The job is a lot harder. Turnover among law firm leaders is up. More firms are moving to dual-leader structures. Decreased job satisfaction and burnout are to blame.
While this assessment may prove to be predictive, it is not yet descriptive of what is currently happening. Data on Am Law 100 top leader turnover, including recent news of a changing of the guard at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, suggest that turnover, in fact, is up, but job dissatisfaction/burnout does not appear to be the cause. If anything, recent top leader departures may have been overdue as market factors caused top leaders to defer their departures.
