Jason Mendelson, whose Law Firm 2.0 Series we’re big fans of, recommends Richard Susskind’s book “The End of Lawyers?” The book, and Mendelson’s series, focus on impending changes in law-firm structure and the practice of law generally.
The two agree that lawyers aren’t paid for their legal advice.
I’ve seen this and even made the statement myself. I never thought that I got ahead by knowing the law better than anyone else, rather knowing enough law that I could then give good business advice. In fact, I subconsciously have always considered my legal knowledge “my commodity” while I considered my judgment my “secret sauce.” So I can see where Richard feels that the practice of “core law” is going to become commoditized.
This is exactly what has been driving us crazy about the godawful advice Patrick Shea of Paul Hastings gave on the AIG Financial Products bonus payments. Our less-than-friendly take on that engagement was
Clients turn to firms like Paul Weiss for guidance on thorny issues with an understanding of the larger issues at work; to provide insight and analysis beyond the black-letter law. But this is a case of lawyer-as-scrivener at its worst – Shea and a bunch of associates apparently did nothing more than look up and regurgitate a bunch of statutes. That’s hardly “advice” or “counsel.” A second-year law student could have come up with the same unsophisticated dreck.
Shea, by the way, was at AIG HR exec Stephen Blank’s testimony before the Connecticut General Assembly last week. From the angle on the camera, it didn’t look like he was sitting next to him, just sitting behind him in the audience.
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