Details

This course is open to all 2L, 3L and LLM students. 2L students should have had some experience of working in a law firm. The course will consider the mutual influence of professional responsibility norms and business imperatives on large law firm structure. This course deals with the legal profession today and the place of large law firms in the profession, in particular, focusing on how they are organized, managed and regulated, their relationship with their clients and the condition of the lawyers who work in them. The course starts with an overview of the history of large law firms in the United States and with the evolution of the rules of professional responsibility. It then examines the reasons why lawyers associate and the structures in which they associate and whether those structures, predominantly partnerships, remain well suited to control the relationships between the firm and its clients and between the partners and other employees of the firm. The course introduces the finances of modern law firms and the metrics of law firm management and considers the importance of partner profitability and the structural and social consequences of the drive to increase partner profitability. What is law firm culture, what are values and how are these affected by relationships among the partners? Law firms exist primarily in order to service the needs of their clients. What do clients require of corporate law firms? How are general counsel managing their relationships with outside counsel and what effect is this having on the structure of law firms, their finances, on culture and on ethical behavior within law firms. Professional responsibility norms constrain the organization of law practice and the marketing of legal services. They limit the financial arrangements that lawyers and clients can undertake. They circumscribe the range of business forms in which legal services can be provided. They inhibit the bundling of legal and non-legal services. The focus of regulation at the state level limits practice across jurisdiction. We consider the practical effect of these limits and their desirability. At the same time, the organization of law firms and the legal services industry influences compliance with professional responsibility norms and the bar's broader aspirations of public service. We will consider claims that the increase in the competitiveness of the market for business law services has led to a weakening of lawyer efforts to induce clients to comply with legal and other public values. We will also ask what institutional circumstances are most conducive to generous and effective pro bono practice. The object of the course is to introduce students to the realities of large corporate law firms, to raise questions as to how law firms can respond to the challenges of the modern business environment, and take advantage of opportunities, presented by globalization, deregulation, evolving technology, and competition from non-traditional sources and the necessity to accommodate diversity. The course will be simulcast from Columbia Law School and will be presented mainly in lecture format. However some sessions will be conducted as case studies and we will arrange at least two guest speakers, one the managing partner of a large law firm and the other a general counsel on a large corporation. Evaluation: Final Examination.