TechnoLawyer

Originally published on September 20, 2011 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

August is usually a quiet month for large firm laterals, but this year it was hot, hot, hot. We'll highlight two trends — law firms entering new markets overseas and beefing up their talent in hot practice areas.

Kirkland's Hong Kong Coup and More International Expansions

The four big UK Magic Circle firms (e.g., Slaughter & May) and American firms like Baker & McKenzie and White & Case have long believed in having local presences around the world. We may be seeing a renaissance in that mindset as firms look at opportunities. And they're not necessarily playing nice about it.

The headline move for August was certainly Kirkland's grand entry into Hong Kong. In one fell swoop, Kirkland rounded up three corporate partners from Skadden (leaving eight), three from Latham, and one from Allen & Overy (along with a senior associate who is joining as a partner). Kirkland's bold move instantly gives the firm a significant presence in the market.

Kirkland immediately caused ripples as Skadden turned around and lured banking lawyer Clive Rough out of his recent retirement from Freshfields and moved in M&A partner John Adebiyi from London. Skadden has stated that it remains committed to the Hong Kong market, so additional moves should not surprise anyone. But as we noted last month, associates who aren't taken along with their departing partners need to be on layoff alert.

Other firms targeting international expansion include:

• Locke Lord and Troutman Sanders in London.

• Dewey & LeBoeuf in Kuwait (the firm already has four offices in the Middle East).

• Sheppard Mullin in Beijing by hiring a Squire Sanders partner.

Bird & Bird may or may not have been actively looking to expand in Germany, but the opportunity to pick up the Hogan Lovells Hamburg media team couldn't be passed up. That firm has been hemorrhaging lawyers in certain markets since last year's merger.

Another firm that saw an opportunity it couldn't resist was Linklaters, which made its first Paris lateral hire in four years, picking up a capital markets partner from Gide Loyrette Nouel. As we saw last month with Cravath's hire of Christine Varney, even the firms that have traditionally avoided lateral hires have reconsidered that strategy.

Serendipitously, LegalWeek just published a retrospective on Proskauer's foray into the London market, which highlights just how difficult it can be to break into a developed market (subscription required).

The Patent War Results in a Talent War

The HogLove merger was more opportunistic than anything, but Google's $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility in August demonstrates why firms constantly seek partners in big-ticket practice areas.

Only Google knows all the reasons for its acquisition, but patents certainly played a role. As Bloomberg noted, when companies spend that much money on patents, smart law firms spend big bucks on patent lawyers.

Unfortunately, these firms must also compete with the technology giants' inhouse legal departments, which can offer options, better working conditions, and the opportunity to boss around former colleagues. Apple recently created a position for a head of IP litigation, which it filled with a former Sun lawyer. Apple also hired a new chief patent counsel from HP.

The Ghost of Ma Bell

Getting closed out of deals has always been a compelling reason to change firms — or, as David Boies most notably did, start your own. Rather than share fat telecom-deal fees, Carl Northrop decided to hang his own shingle, along with some of his former Paul Hastings partners, creating Telecommunications Law Professionals.

Much like Boies' frustration with Time Warner keeping him out of doing a deal for the Yankees, Northrop and company were none too happy about not being able to go up against the $39 billion AT&T/T-Mobile merger, which is spewing off tons of antitrust work now that it's been opposed (the FCC hired Renata Hesse from Wilson Sonsini in May to oversee the matter).

Low Margin Practice Areas and the Super-Boutique

On the flip side, once in a while a firm decides that it has a practice area it no longer wants to support. Not surprisingly, it's never M&A, IP, regulatory, or the like. It's always something far more plebeian and lower margin. CMS Cameron McKenna is exiting the immigration business, jettisoning 15 lawyers to Fragomen "an international firm specializing in immigration law." If you missed the link in BlawgWorld, read Jordan Furlong's take on this move, which he dubs the "rise of the super-boutique."

We've always felt that large firms only maintained immigration and similar practices as favors for high-net-worth individuals and major international corporate clients. These folks have finally realized that the help they need shouldn't be at the rates they're forced to pay.

Conclusion

Large firm moves aren't always about interpersonal relationships. They're often about the same economic drivers that motivate the business world — seeking out untapped markets, be it geographic or new services. This profit-driven model of law firms is also driving similar attitudes in partners, as they're constantly on the prowl for the BBD (Bigger, Better, Deal). This business first mindset results in a lot of churn as firms and partners try to maximize their profits with little long-term commitment.

Written by Law Shucks, which curates and analyzes data on large law firm lateral hiring.

How to Receive BigLaw
Many large firms have good reputations for their work and bad reputations as places to work. Why? Answering this question requires digging up some dirt, but we do with the best of intentions. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, BigLaw analyzes the business practices, marketing strategies, and technologies used by the country's biggest law firms in an effort to unearth best and worst practices. The BigLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on August 23, 2011 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

Two major stories rocked the large firm lateral market in July — O'Melveny & Myers, and layoffs related to rainmaker departures. It's always interesting to see how the mainstream media explains our world to the outside world. Peter Lattman wrote in the New York Times' Deal Book about the increasing activity and high stakes involved, placing a spotlight on the machinations behind Irving Picard's almost-move from Baker Hostetler.

O'Melveny & Myers: Bump in the Road or Road to Ruin?

Above the Law put it simply enough, "What's Going on at O'Melveny & Myers?" At the beginning of June, the firm had lost at least 22 partners, and then a handful more in July. Not surprisingly, these departures were attributed to a host of innocuous factors — high-profile jobs at clients, which could lead to future work; government service, which would promote the firm's brand; or a polished spin on sour grapes — that the departures were not undesirable thanks to a bad fit or low productivity.

However, observers felt something nefarious was afoot. When Bradley Butwin was appointed chair to succeed A.B. Culvahouse, AmLaw Daily reported that the firm's revenues had dropped last year, although profits per partner were up — due in no small part to reductions in the equity ranks.

There was also speculation of a rift between, depending on whom you asked, the firm's litigation and transactional departments or the legacy OMM partners (mostly litigation) and the lawyers acquired from the O'Sullivan Graev & Karabell merger (mostly corporate) a decade ago. Butwin's appointment should alleviate both of these fears. He's a litigator from OGK.

The real question is whether OMM's departures (around 60 over the past two years, according to one Above the Law commenter) represent the first sign of a troubled firm — another Howrey.

We're not convinced. These shifts seem more in line with Cadwalader in 2009 and White & Case in 2010, both of which suffered massive defections, some more intentional than others.

In 2009, Cadwalader's year got off to a horrible start. Profits per partner fell, the firm basically kicked off the layoff trend, and lots of notable partners left, including Bruce Zirinsky and John Bae for Greenberg Traurig, and John Busillo and Alan Lawrence for Arnold & Porter. But within a year, the ship had been righted and the money train was back on track.

Last year, Latham & Watkins raided White & Case for more than a dozen partners, and many more than that left over the year. Latham was specifically targeting the firm's #2 client, Saudi Aramco, but White & Case has held on after promoting a number of associates, flying in partners from other offices, and slowly rebuilding its ranks.

Similarly, keep an eye on where the Apollo work ends up. Seven of the OMM partners who serviced that huge client decamped to Paul Weiss with two others landing at Weil Gotshal.

Unlike Howrey, where it was clear early on that partners were jumping off a sinking ship (even though the firm, in an utterly classless move, tried to claim many had been pushed overboard), we would bet that OMM is just experiencing a bump in the road. The firm is much bigger and more diversified, geographically and by practice area. We don't anticipate adding it to the Dead Pool anytime soon.

Layoffs and Laterals

Layoffs and laterals sometimes go hand-in-hand — yet another underreported source of layoffs.

When partners leave, they may take a few key associates with them, but certainly not all. Those left behind find themselves in a difficult position, depending on how much work they did for the folks who left, or how niche their practice area was and whether it is something their firms will continue to support.

For example, Hunton & Williams laid off three lawyers and six staffers in London as a direct result of losing corporate partner Paul Tetlow to K&L Gates and energy partners Matthew Williams and John Deacon to Hogan Lovells.

Rara Aves: Cravath's Laterals, and Skadden's Ex-Retiree

They say three's a trend, so what else can we say but that there is a trend of lateral hiring at Cravath? The firm went 62 years without a lateral, but then brought in tax lawyer Andrew Needham from Willkie in 2005, and Richard Levin from Skadden in 2007 to start a bankruptcy practice. We liken these two Cravath laterals to the Yangtze River Dolphin — a species on the verge of extinction but at least with the possibility of reproducing in the future, unlike poor Lonesome George, the last of the Pinta Island tortoises.

Now there's a third Cravath lateral hire, with Christine Varney joining from the Department of Justice. She previously worked at Hogan & Hartson before she joined the DOJ, and was one of the people we thought was notably absent from the National Law Journal's list of the decade's most-influential antitrust lawyers. We suspect she'll make it the next time around.

Less rare, Skadden lured Sheli Rosenberg out of retirement. This was an interesting play for client development, diversity (age and gender), and mentoring.

Conclusion

As Lattman pointed out in Deal Book, lateral activity is on the rise, and the stakes are growing astronomical with $5 million+ signing bonuses becoming increasingly common. Stay ahead of the information curve with the Law Shucks Lateral Tracker.

Written by Law Shucks, which curates and analyzes data on large law firm lateral hiring.

How to Receive BigLaw
Many large firms have good reputations for their work and bad reputations as places to work. Why? Answering this question requires digging up some dirt, but we do with the best of intentions. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, BigLaw analyzes the business practices, marketing strategies, and technologies used by the country's biggest law firms in an effort to unearth best and worst practices. The BigLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Answers contains these articles:

Ken Laska, Lessons About Cloud Security From Historical Icons Hammurabi And Sitting Bull

Jason Pink, Our Law Firm's Search For A New Phone System: What We Learned

Greg Goonan, A Caveat About Verizon Data Plans When Traveling Internationally

Alli Lyde-Stad, Review: Fujitsu Scansnap S1500

Paul Bagley, My Late Friend's Amusing Lawyer Email Disclaimer

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive TL Answers
Do you believe in the wisdom of crowds? In TL Answers, TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers. This newsletter's popularity stems from the relevance of the questions and answers to virtually everyone in the legal profession. The TL Answers newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on July 26, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

"Bookmarks are dead."

That's what an MIT-educated, super-nerd friend of mine told me several years ago as I complained about my unhappiness with my browser-based bookmarking system. (A complaint that may owe more to my inherent disorganization than to major deficiencies in browser technology it should be noted.)

"In a world where Google puts everything on the Web a quick search away, why bookmark anything?" my geek-guru asked rhetorically. I thought about that for a while. The logic made sense, but the conclusion didn't work for me.

I research on the Web the way I used to conduct legal research (aimlessly and incompletely, if my 1L legal research professor was to be believed). I roam freely and gather things as I go before I've decided on a connection or categorization for the item, so it is entirely possible I may never cross paths with the site again.

I decided that search only replaces bookmarks if you consistently reuse the same or very similar terms on each search. Maybe that works for those MIT computer brains, but it assuredly doesn't work for me.

Over the years I have tried a variety of improved bookmarking tools with varying degrees of success. In this issue of SmallLaw I discuss my top five.

The Uber-Notebooks: Evernote and Springpad

By now, you have probably heard of (and maybe use) Evernote, the online digital notebook. Evernote can do a lot of things, but one of the most underappreciated is that it's an excellent bookmarking service. With its terrific Web clipper extension for Chrome and Firefox, saving Web pages to Evernote is a snap. Not only do you get a bookmark with a link to the page, you also get the page itself.

Springpad is similar to Evernote, and it must be said, equally excellent. It also functions superbly as a bookmark tool (superior to Evernote in my estimation). I stick with Evernote largely because it hooks into everything I use, from my Fujitsu ScanSnap to my iPhone and inertia makes it hard to leave. If I were choosing between the two today, though, it would be tough call.

The Social Bookmark: Pinboard and Delicious

Social bookmarking sites Pinboard and Delicious offer another alternative to the traditional browser-based bookmarks. They function as a cloud-based service on which you save your bookmarks to a Web site that you log into from anywhere.

These services offer the usual cloud technology benefits of easy accessibility across a range of devices and reduced worry about hardware failures, as well as the usual cloud technology concern of privacy. Both Pinboard and Delicious offer tagging, notes fields and the ability to make a bookmark private. All in all, they are comparable services. Pinboard costs about $10 though, while Delicious is free.

Free was not enough to keep me using Delicious, however. I was a devoted Delicious user for years but switched to Pinboard when it looked like Yahoo (the former owner of Delicious) might shut the service down. Fearful of losing my bookmarks, I forked over the $10. Now that Delicious has been acquired, it again looks enticing, but I've been happy with Pinboard.

The Browser-Based Bookmark 2.0: Xmarks

Despite all of these options, there are still a few bookmarks that I like to keep in my browser (mostly because I use them all day long and that is the quickest way to access them). If you prefer to keep your bookmarks there as well, take a look at a service like Xmarks.

Xmarks will sync your bookmarks (via browser extension) across multiple machines as well as store a backup set of your bookmarks to prevent loss. Your bookmarks stay right in the folders you are used to in your browser, but are securely backed up and synced. It's a functionality that is increasingly being baked in to browser technology (Firefox for example), but for now I still think Xmarks offers a valuable service.

Conclusion

Check out these bookmarking options to see if any work for you. Maybe you'll conclude as I do, that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the demise of bookmarks have been greatly exaggerated.

Written by Erik Mazzone of Law Practice Matters.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on September 6, 2011 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

I recently received an assignment from BigLaw editor Neil Squillante: "The recent volatility of the stock market may prove a harbinger of another recession. In fact, some pundits think a recession has already begun. How will large law firms handle a double dip?"

Have large law firms learned from Great Bloodletting of 2009-2010? Are they better equipped to handle another downturn? Or will they again resort to the scorched-earth layoff strategy that resulted in 10,000 or so top-of-class law school graduates becoming a lost generation?

Well, who better to pose these questions to than Bruce MacEwen, a master of law firm economics and the erudite thinker behind Adam Smith, Esq. and JDMatch? Like a Federal Reserve chairman, MacEwen takes a measured view of the situation.

We Do Not Control Our Destiny

"The kind of volatility we're seeing in the stock market is, I believe, perfectly rational" (he says professorially), given that "we're being buffeted by good news and bad news of great magnitude on what seems like an accelerating time-frame." That said, he adds, "I would not take whatever the stock market does any given week or any given month as meaning it has any unusual forecasting prowess. There doesn't seem to be a solid trend established and until that comes I think it's predicting nothing but uncertainty, which we're acutely aware of already."

As to whether disaster lurks around the bend, MacEwen delivers an informed maybe. "Six months ago I would have said a double-dip recession was extremely unlikely," he notes. "Now I think it's a 50/50 bet." Why? Well, among other things, lots of Americans are still underwater on their home mortgages, and unemployment is not only historically high, but appears poised to remain that way. We face perhaps a decade of 'supra-normal' unemployment," MacEwen says. "Many lost jobs are simply not ever going to come back."

What does this mean for law firms? According to MacEwen, "the most important thing to remember about our industry is that we do not control our destiny." Thus, "when consumers stop buying and businesses stop investing in growth and hiring, our clients are hurt," both by the decline in top-line revenues, and the simple reality of decreased workloads, which result in a decreased demand for legal services. And, of course, that also means that, if they go into a second recession, "we will inevitably go with them."

What About Large Firms Jobs?

Even if growth declines, we probably won't see "stealth layoffs," or the kind of bloodletting we saw a few years ago, right? Wrong according to MacEwen.

If a second recession comes our way, MacEwen believes, more layoffs are bound to follow. "Large firms are certainly better equipped to weather a recession now than in 2007," he opines, "but they have also learned the virtue of quickly paring capacity to match demand, and that's a lesson no one has forgotten." The pressure to maintain profits per partner is on, he points out, and law firms will do what they must to keep numbers up.

But doesn't that mean law firms are leaner, meaner, and better at staffing nowadays?

"Firms are as lean as I've ever seen them," MacEwen says. "Partly this was because the recession forced them to address deadwood which they had the luxury of letting accumulate in richer times. They won't be that undisciplined again, I predict." In addition, he notes, firms are configuring themselves to be more responsive to economic flux by exploring "all kinds of different career models" — beyond just outsourcing and the use of temporary attorneys.

MacEwen lists non-partner track associates, flex-time, and "onshoring" (the use of lawyers in inexpensive cities like Dayton, Fargo, and Wheeling) as staffing alternatives that many previously bloated firms now use to stay lean and nimble.

At the end of the day, however, MacEwen reminds us of the bleak truth. "Nothing will prevent layoffs on whatever scale it takes to get capacity in line with demand," he says. "We have lost our virginity on that score."

A Postscript Arrives at the Same Conclusion by Another Means

Apparently, my questions touched a nerve in MacEwen. After my interview and upon further reflection, he published an article — A Double Dip Recession? — in which he changed his analysis though not his conclusion. MacEwen now believes that although the last recession officially ended according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, other metrics suggest we're still in a recession. Thus, a double dip recession won't have any impact among large firms. In other words, welcome to the new normal — don't expect large firms to allow capacity to exceed demand even if that means layoffs, stealth or otherwise.

How to Receive BigLaw
Many large firms have good reputations for their work and bad reputations as places to work. Why? Answering this question requires digging up some dirt, but we do with the best of intentions. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, BigLaw analyzes the business practices, marketing strategies, and technologies used by the country's biggest law firms in an effort to unearth best and worst practices. The BigLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to TechnoFeature: Cats and dogs living together may sound like a bad idea, but Brookings Institution economist George Winston has come up with a doozy — the deregulation of lawyers. While having Walmart greeters handle the paperwork for structured finance deals may not sound as bad as having them analyze your MRI, lawyer Liz Kurtz doesn't like it all the same. In this issue of TechnoFeature, Liz discusses the fallout from Winston's recent op-ed piece in the New York Times. She then tackles the related issue of publicly-held law firms, which just became a reality across the pond in the UK. Remember dear subscribers, before you can defeat the enemy you must know the enemy.

How to Receive TechnoFeature
Our flagship newsletter never disappoints thanks to its in-depth reporting by leading legal technology and practice management experts, many of whom have become "household names" in the legal profession. As a result, TechnoFeature offers some of the most profound thoughts on law practice, and helpful advice about legal-specific products. The TechnoFeature newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on August 16, 2011 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

I'll be honest. I greeted the fanfare of Google+ (pronounced Google Plus) — yet another Google social network — with a healthy dose of skepticism. Remember Google Buzz? What about Google Wave? Both had big coming out parties and neither lasted past beta. And let's not forget Dodgeball, which Google bought and then killed. But hey, Orkut is big in Brazil.

So what about Google+? Does it have what it takes to find a place among the big three — Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter? Or will Google again drop the social ball, especially now that it needs to manage 19,000 new employees courtesy of its Motorola acquisition?

What Google+ Has Going for It

Google+ had an outstanding launch, growing in just two months to more than 25 million members despite being available only by invitation. By comparison, at the beginning of 2009 Twitter had an estimated five million members after almost three years of operation, while Facebook had around 40 million members after six years. Google+'s rapid growth increases its chances of success.

While Google+ has a number of interesting features, the most intuitive and useful is Circles. Think "circle of friends" in which you have a circle of work buddies, a circle of friends from law school, a circle of people that you haven't seen since grade school but who always want to comment on your posts, etc.

Currently, I think of the big three as three circles — Facebook is very personal, Twitter is for content sharing with professionals, and Linkedin is for all my serious business contacts.

Google+ Circles makes a compelling argument: "You can have all three here in one service, and keep them separate."

What Google+ Has Going Against It

Let's face it — Google+ is late to the party. Although the tech community may be fast to move from Geocities to Friendster to MySpace to Facebook to Friendfeed, we really don't know if the average joe — prospective clients of yours in particular — will switch to a new social network.

Take my father for example. He is 63 years old and logs into Facebook every evening. Sort of. He logs into my Mom's account because he doesn't really like the idea of belonging to a social network. Google+ is going to have a difficult time assimilating many of the older generation that came kicking and screaming to Facebook. Have you ever tried to help convince an elderly person it's time to move into an assisted living center? It's near impossible. Facebook is just as "sticky" for most people as an elderly person's home.

My Recommendation for Midsize and Large Law Firms

Join Google+ and learn how to use it (let me know if you need an invite). Remember the contrarian rule of marketing? Go where your competitors aren't. If you practice intellectual property or environmental law, or work with technology companies (especially startups), your prospective clients are already hanging out on Google+, but not many lawyers have taken the time to do the same. When legal questions and issues arise, you will be well suited to demonstrate your expertise and build some new relationships.

Written by Adrian Dayton of Marketing Strategy and the Law.

How to Receive BigLaw
Many large firms have good reputations for their work and bad reputations as places to work. Why? Answering this question requires digging up some dirt, but we do with the best of intentions. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, BigLaw analyzes the business practices, marketing strategies, and technologies used by the country's biggest law firms in an effort to unearth best and worst practices. The BigLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on July 26, 2011 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

For most, June in the large law firm world means the arrival and settling in of summer associates. But for partners, it is often the culmination of a quarter taken exploring opportunities and finalizing plans to move on. Client work tends to slow down slightly, partnership distribution checks have cleared, business plans for the year are finalized (and ready to be slapped into a headhunter's marketing package), so thoughts turn to moving on. Let's see who couldn't resist the spring wanderlust.

Staying in the Family

In our view, some of the most interesting moves are those within the large firm ambit. Two of June's finest intra-moves were Michael Fitzgerald bringing about a dozen corporate and securities lawyers from Milbank to Dewey & LeBoeuf, immediately providing the firm with the Latin America presence it has lacked. Dewey is about twice as big as Milbank, but Milbank had comparable profit-per-partner and probably a broader international footprint, albeit without the depth.

Of course, these moves don't always come down to money. Personal relationships are, in part, responsible for Fitzgerald's move to Dewey. The firm's former chairman, 92-year-old Leonard Joseph, is his father-in-law. Also, Fitzgerald's son, Reid, spent three years as a college intern at Dewey, and will attend Columbia Law School in the fall.

At the end of June in a trend that continued in July, O'Melveny lost three regulatory partners in DC to Allen & Overy, which was quite a surprise because Magic Circle firms have never been known for strong DC presences. The halls of power in our nation's capitol have traditionally been trod only by the whitest of shoes, so the addition of Charles Borden, Chris Salter, and Barbara Stettner shows some groundbreaking expansion.

Feeding Frenzy

When the large firm belly can't get fed by its own denizens, it goes searching farther afield for choice fare. Boutiques are plum targets these days for two types of acquirors — large firms looking to snag talent on the cheap or to shore up an underserved market (geographic location or a practice area), and small- to mid-sized firms trying to find safety in numbers.

Cozen O'Connor gutted IP litigation boutique Cohen Pontani Lieberman & Pavane, taking 19 of the NY firm's 27 lawyers. Five former Cohen Pontani lawyers came aboard as partners: Thomas Langer, Lance Lieberman, Martin Pavane, Thomas Pontani, and Edward Weisz. No word on what happened to the eight men out, although the firm was expected to dissolve, and its Web site now redirects to Cozen O'Connor.

Saul Ewing is also in "go big or go home" mode. It acquired five partners and one associate from Boston's Dionne & Gass. Dana Lanzillo, Don Lussier, Sally Michael, Richard Gass and Joanne Robbins joined as partners. Even for a boutique, that seems unbelievably highly leveraged, so we'll keep an eye out for word of associates not included in the deal. The fate of those left behind is another trend that we'll hit next month for its tragic repercussions.

Greener Pastures

For some, a large firm is no longer the right fit. The classic move out is the Jump In(House). At partner levels it's either a top legal job or out of law entirely to the coveted investment-banking world, as Cleary's former managing partner, Mark Walker did last month, when he joined Lazard in Paris.

The newest trend shows that lawyers may not be as risk-averse as believed. Weil Gotshal IP studs Matthew Powers (despite some recent rough patches) and Steven Cherensky have decided to blaze their own path, leaving the security of the GM Building (yes, we know they didn't sit in NYC) for their own startup practice, Tensegrity Law Group. They'll focus on contingent-fee plaintiff work, although at some point they may go fully over to the dark side, a la John Desmarais, the former Kirkland & Ellis partner who last year founded his very own patent troll by buying a bloc of patents and selling covenants not to sue.

The Revolving Door of Government Work

Another macro trend to keep an eye on this quadrennium is the inflow/outflow of our brothers and sisters in public service. We're about a year out from another election cycle, so quite a few people will be leaving who don't plan to stick around for the next term. Six lawyers left government in June for partnerships at major firms, but we expect that number, and their profiles, to rise in coming months. And, of course, there are some earlybirds. Kathryn Ruemmler will join the administration from Latham & Watkins to serve as White House Counsel.

Another large firm alum who could have a significant impact on that election cycle is Anthony Herman, the Covington partner who was recently named GC of the Federal Election Commission.

Conclusion

As alluded to above, July has some alarming trends, which I'll report on soon here in BigLaw.

Written by Law Shucks, which curates and analyzes data on large law firm lateral hiring.

How to Receive BigLaw
Many large firms have good reputations for their work and bad reputations as places to work. Why? Answering this question requires digging up some dirt, but we do with the best of intentions. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, BigLaw analyzes the business practices, marketing strategies, and technologies used by the country's biggest law firms in an effort to unearth best and worst practices. The BigLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a high-tech court reporting service (see article below), a new Microsoft technical support site, and ipad document management app, an email marketing utility, and a web analytics service. Don't miss the next issue.

Court Reporting Goes High Tech for Less Money

Court reporting companies once consisted of mom and pop shops that competed by giving lawyers gifts like invitations to swanky holiday parties and hot tickets. I know because as a young litigation associate I once got the plumb assignment of sending requests for proposals to these companies for a multi-defendant litigation that would have required 60 or so depositions had it not settled for $60 or so million. Of course, I tried not to let all the attention influence me, but back then these companies didn't differ from one another all that much. The times have changed. Increasingly, court reporting companies now offer their own technologies rather than gifts to give them an edge.

Silk Deposition Services … in One Sentence
Silk Deposition Services is a litigation support company that focuses on developing proprietary technological solutions and services for the legal community, with a specific emphasis on reducing costs.

The Killer Feature
Many court reporting services charge per page. With the help of an advisory board of litigators, Silk developed a new format for transcripts that increases the density of words on each page while improving readability over standard transcripts, resulting in a savings of 20-25% per page versus its competitors, according to the company. Silk also provides many complimentary services, including customizable binding options and a deposition CD loaded with the transcript in all the common formats.

"In today's very challenging economic climate there's no reason for a law firm of any size to throw away money on litigation costs," Silk Deposition Services Senior VP of Business Development David Kennedy told us. "Our clients tell us that our Silk transcript format reduces their costs while providing a quality product. They love it."

Other Notable Features
Silk offers a number of other deposition technologies. For example, the company can summarize your transcript for you at a lower cost than hiring a contract paralegal (plus it's a hard cost that you can bill to clients). Its WIN Depo technology creates a secure WiFi network (if none exists already) in the room in which your deposition takes place, enabling you to access the Internet and take advantage of realtime services.

SilkWeb is an online repository in which Silk securely stores all your transcripts at no extra charge. SilkWeb also provides tools for color coding and annotating transcripts as well as sharing work with third parties. You can also schedule depositions, view your upcoming and past depositions, and download invoices. If you have a deposition in New York but don't live there, the "Sleep N' Save" feature enables you to book a hotel room as part of a package deal (Silk Deposition Services has arrangements with several hotels at special rates).

What Else Should You Know?
Silk Deposition Services offers its court reporting services on three continents with offices in New York City, London, and Israel. In the United States, it has court reporters in all major metropolitan areas. Learn more about Silk Deposition Services.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to BlawgWorld: Our editorial team has selected and linked to 132 articles from the past week worthy of your attention, including our Post of the Week. Here's a sample:

Lexis Advance: What Lexis Got Right

Will Tablets Replace Laptops?

An American Lawyer Goes Virtual From Canada

Making Your Blog Content More Shareworthy

Don't miss this issue or future issues.

How to Receive BlawgWorld
Our newsletters provide the most comprehensive coverage of legal technology, practice management, and law firm marketing, but not the only coverage. To stay on top of all the noteworthy articles published in blogs and other online publications you could either hire a research assistant or simply subscribe to BlawgWorld. The BlawgWorld newsletter has received rave reviews and is free. Please subscribe now.