Altman Weil, a leading legal consulting firm, has just published this year’s “Law Firms in Transition Survey,” its eighth such survey since it started gathering data from law firms large and small. For those considering becoming a lawyer and for those who are already in private practice, its results are sobering. Experienced lawyers will likely not find its conclusions revelatory. Those disenchanted with the state of our discipline will find sufficient support for the proposition that we have evolved (or devolved, depending on one’s point of view) from a profession to a business. And, as a business, there is ample evidence to be anxious about its future.
The designers of the survey made a serious attempt to arrive at valid conclusions. Managing partners and chairs at 798 U.S. law firms with 50 or more lawyers were contacted; 386 firms (48 percent) including 50 percent of the 350 largest U.S. law firms and 50 percent of the AmLaw 200 participated.
