American Law Firms PDF Download

Author: Randall Kiser
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781641053853
Category : Law firms
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Marc Galanter
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226278780
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Tournament of Lawyers traces in detail the rise of one hundred of the nation's top firms in order to diagnose the health of the business of American law. Galanter and Palay demonstrate that much of the large firm's organizational success stems from its ability to blend the talents of experienced partners with those of energetic junior lawyers driven by a powerful incentive—the race to win "the promotion-to-partner tournament." This calmly reasoned study reveals, however, that the very causes of the spiraling growth of the large law firm may lead to its undoing. "Galanter and Palay pose questions and offer some answers which are certain to change the way big firm practice is regarded. To describe their work as challenging is something of an understatement: they at times delight, stimulate, frustrate and even depress the reader, but they never disappoint. Tournament of Lawyers is essential to the understanding of the business of the big law firms."—Jean and Colin Fergus, New York Law Journal

Author: Toni Marie Massaro
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781888965117
Category : Law firms
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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This biography of F. Daniel Frost, whose life and work are most closely associated with the expansion of the Los Angeles law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher from the 1960s through the 1980s, is also a tale of the transformation of the American legal profession during that era. Macro histories offer one important window into this rich chapter of the profession’s history, and personal narratives of the most ambitious and high-profile leaders offer still another. This book is written from Dan Frost’s viewpoint as an exceptionally influential private lawyer who shaped a major California firm throughout the second half of the last century. During this dynamic time in the saga of the profession, the rise of California’s law firms was a crucial component. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher today is a global entity, with offices and influence in every major economic hub in the world, but when Frost joined the firm it still was a small, essentially regional institution. He was a witness to, and became a central architect of, the firm’s dramatic evolution thereafter. The foundations of Frost’s success included his family, education, and public service background, as well as the historical, economic, and geographical context in which he lived. During this time, California’s major industries, universities, cultural centers, and sheer geographic expanse and natural beauty established her as the nation’s other coast—rivaling, and in some respects defeating, the venerable East Coast in influence, affluence, and dynamism. Frost’s career holds valuable lessons for legal historians, California historians, and lawyers of any era. His life also offers insights for his professional and personal descendants, as Frost respected and sought to preserve the firm’s history and became a student of western history, spending many years capturing the history of his pioneer ancestors. This account is aimed at illuminating Dan Frost’s role in the evolving firm and family history and will enable his professional and personal descendants to find themselves in the ongoing evolution of a pioneer law firm and a pioneer family. They may glimpse their own trajectory as they reflect on the life of this western lawyer, professional leader, entrepreneur, and philanthropist—a journey that continues today.

Author: Los Angeles Richard L. Abel Professor of Law University of California
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198021852
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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This detailed portrait of American lawyers traces their efforts to professionalize during the last 100 years by erecting barriers to control the quality and quantity of entrants. Abel describes the rise and fall of restrictive practices that dampened competition among lawyers and with outsiders. He shows how lawyers simultaneously sought to increase access to justice while stimulating demand for services, and their efforts to regulate themselves while forestalling external control. Data on income and status illuminate the success of these efforts. Charting the dramatic transformation of the profession over the last two decades, Abel documents the growing number and importance of lawyers employed outside private practice (in business and government, as judges and teachers) and the displacement of corporate clients they serve. Noting the complexity of matching ever more diverse entrants with more stratified roles, he depicts the mechanism that law schools and employers have created to allocate graduates to jobs and socialize them within their new environments. Abel concludes with critical reflections on possible and desirable futures for the legal profession.

Author: Mark Geragos
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101595019
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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A searing and entertaining manifesto on the ills of the criminal justice system from two of America’s most prominent defense attorneys. From the rise of the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle to the television ratings bonanza of the O.J. Simpson trial, a perfect storm of media coverage has given the public an unprecedented look inside the courtroom, kicking off popular courtroom shows and TV legal commentary that further illuminate how the criminal justice system operates. Or has it? In Mistrial, Mark Geragos and Pat Harris debunk the myths of judges as Solomon-like figures, jurors as impartial arbiters of the truth, and prosecutors as super-ethical heroes. Mistrial draws the curtain on the court’s ugly realities—from stealth jurors who secretly swing for a conviction, to cops who regularly lie on the witness stand, to defense attorneys terrified of going to trial. Ultimately, the authors question whether a justice system model drawn up two centuries ago before blogs and television is still viable today. In the aftermath of recent high-profile cases, the flaws in America’s justice system are more glaring than ever. Geragos and Harris are legal experts and prominent criminal defense attorneys who have worked on everything from celebrity media-circuses—having represented clients like Michael Jackson, Winona Ryder, Scott Peterson, Chris Brown, Susan MacDougal, and Gary Condit—to equally compelling cases defending individuals desperate to avoid the spotlight. Shining unprecedented light on what really goes on in the courtroom, Mistrial is an enjoyable, fun look at a system that rarely lets you see behind the scenes.

Author: John Oller
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1524743259
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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The fascinating true story of how a group of visionary attorneys helped make American business synonymous with Big Business, and Wall Street the center of the financial world “Entertaining.”—The Wall Street Journal • “Fast-paced history.”—Library Journal • “Insightful and revealing."—Kirkus • “Captivating.”—BookPage The legal profession once operated on a smaller scale—folksy lawyers arguing for fairness and justice before a judge and jury. But by the year 1900, a new type of lawyer was born, one who understood business as well as the law. Working hand in glove with their clients, over the next two decades these New York City “white shoe” lawyers devised and implemented legal strategies that would drive the business world throughout the twentieth century. These lawyers were architects of the monopolistic new corporations so despised by many, and acted as guardians who helped the kings of industry fend off government overreaching. Yet they also quietly steered their robber baron clients away from a “public be damned” attitude toward more enlightened corporate behavior during a period of progressive, turbulent change in America. Author John Oller, himself a former Wall Street lawyer, gives us a richly-written glimpse of turn-of-the-century New York, from the grandeur of private mansions and elegant hotels and the city’s early skyscrapers and transportation systems, to the depths of its deplorable tenement housing conditions. Some of the biggest names of the era are featured, including business titans J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, lawyer-statesmen Elihu Root and Charles Evans Hughes, and presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson. Among the colorful, high-powered lawyers vividly portrayed, White Shoe focuses on three: Paul Cravath, who guided his client George Westinghouse in his war against Thomas Edison and launched a new model of law firm management—the “Cravath system”; Frank Stetson, the “attorney general” for financier J. P. Morgan who fiercely defended against government lawsuits to break up Morgan’s business empires; and William Nelson Cromwell, the lawyer “who taught the robber barons how to rob,” and was best known for his instrumental role in creating the Panama Canal. In White Shoe, the story of this small but influential band of Wall Street lawyers who created Big Business is fully told for the first time.

Author: Robert L. Nelson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801497100
Category : Lawyers
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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"This collection of articles is an effort to create a greater understanding of the empirical issues that lie behind the debate over whether in the practice of law the ideals of professionalism have been replaced by the demands of commercialism. This book is the most systematic attempt so far to examine what professionalism means in the various arenas of legal practice in the United States. It also seeks to advance the theoretical interpretations that lie at the heart of the scholarship on professionalism and establish a framework for analyzing the issues that is more grounded than previous idealist accounts, yet retains some of the ideas of contingency and changeability that structualist accounts have ignored"--Preface.

Author: James B. Stewart
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Introduces the elite corporate law firms and some of their unique contributions to economic, social, and political developments in recent years.

Author: Robert A. Katzmann
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815720025
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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What can law firms do to ensure justice for all? How can they serve the needs of those unable to pay? How can law firms improve the quality of life for their lawyers? At a time when government support for legal aid is limited and under fire, when recent U.S. presidents have urged increased volunteerism, when the American Bar Association's Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge is under way, and when some within the legal profession have called for mandatory pro bono work, this new book examines these important questions. The Law Firm and the Public Good blends academic scholarship with real world experience as it brings together lawyers who have wrestled with the pressures of everyday practice. Concerned about deepening the commitment of large law firms to the wider community, the authors seek to provide a blueprint for firms concerned with creating, developing, implementing, and evaluating pro bono programs. Moving beyond the ethical arguments which justify a law firm's commitment to community service, the authors argue that pro bono work is in the firm's self-interest. They show that a heightened concern with the public good can improve a lawyer's spirit, sharpen lawyering skills, and enhance the humanistic traditions of law practice. They conclude that professional responsibility and self-interest support the same conclusion: that the law firm and the public good are inextricably linked and that each can draw strength from the other in ways that nourish both. The contributors are William A. Bradford, Jr., Hogan & Hartson; Senior Circuit Judge Frank M. Coffin, U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit; Anthony F. Earley, Jr., Detroit Edison; Marc Galanter, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Donald W. Hoagland, Davis, Graham & Stubbs; William C. Kelly, Jr., Latham & Watkins; Esther F. Lardent, director of the ABA's Law Firm Pro Bono Project; Edwin L. Noel, Armstrong, Teasdale, Schlafly & Davis; Thomas Palay, University of Wisconsin-Madison; J

Author: Bruce MacEwen (Lawyer)
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781481896047
Category : Law firms
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Now in its Second Edition "Growth is Dead" addresses the future of "BigLaw" (or "SophisticatedLaw") in the wake of the great financial reset of 2008 and its continuing repercussions including: (a) relentless pricing pressures; (b) excess capacity; (c) partner expectations; and (d) the accelerating entry of new "legal service provider" organizations, with all their implications for career paths, the traditional leveraged staffing model of law firms, and much more. Brad Karp, Chair of the Firm at Paul Weiss, describes it thus: "I read all 12 installments of your series with great interest...twice. This is an extraordinary body of work that reflects enormous insight and ought be required reading by managing partners of law firms and professional services organizations. You do a very effective job of challenging the status quo and your series is a much-needed wake up call for our profession. As always, I plan to share many of your insights with my partners. And I plan to cogitate over many of your proposed initiatives." "2012 Year in Review: Must-Read." "Any review of 2012 must begin with Bruce MacEwen's 12-part "Growth is Dead" series, which looks at, and analyzes, the monumental effects of the Great Recession on the legal industry." "Immediately became required reading for law firm leaders, by the one and only Bruce MacEwen." - Bloomberg Law "When it comes to the economics of the legal industry, there's Bruce MacEwen and then there's everyone else."