Two months ago, in “Big Law Leaders Perpetuating Mistakes,” I outlined evidence of failure that most big law firm leaders ignore. Back in December 2011, I’d covered the topic in “Fed to Death.” The recently released paperback edition of my latest book, “The Lawyer Bubble,” includes a new afterword that begins, “The more things change …”
The failure is a ubiquitous strategy: aggressive inorganic growth. In response to facts and data, big law firm leaders aren’t stepping back to take a long, hard look at the wisdom of the approach. Instead, they’re tinkering at the margins in the desperate attempt to turn a loser into a winner. To help them, outside consultants—perennial enablers of big law firms’ worst impulses—have developed reassuring and superficially appealing metrics. For anyone who forgot, numbers are the answer to everything.
