In the years following the 2008 global recession, the legal industry’s largest firms faced financial difficulties resulting in mass layoffs, mergers, and bankruptcies1 In this blog post, I will discuss some of the changes that have occurred in the “biglaw” industry since the recession along with the reasons for these changes. Most notably, many large…
Tag: Law Firm Business Model
Rule 5.4 and the Chance that American Law Firms Will Eventually Go Public
Currently, every jurisdiction in the United States prohibits public ownership of law firms.1 Though each state is free to adopt its own ethical rules, most base their ethical rules on the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which prohibit profit sharing with non-lawyers in Rule 5.4.2 The only exception is that in Washington,…