Larry Bodine had an interesting post on his Professional Marketing Blog today entitled “The Abrupt Resurrection of Mid-Size Law Firms. With mid-sized firm being defined as between 30 and 100 lawyers in a major city, Larry refers some recent thinking by Ward Bower of Altman Weil, and then he identifies several advantages of mid-size firms, including the fact that mid-size firms:
- Can match the expertise of the mega-firms with global networks.
Have equal access to cutting-edge technology, which has become less expensive in the last 5 years. Have the speed and agility that mega-firms can't offer. Offer lower pricing, because smaller firms have less overhead and there are no economies of scale in law firms. Big firms have many inefficiencies, redundancies and bureaucracies. And pricing counts. Are more flexible about pricing and more willing to offer flat fees, success bonuses in exchange for lower rates. Have partners who will work on a case and won't hand off the client to a less-experienced associate. Corporate counsel hire lawyers, not law firms. He who has the best relationship gets the client, regardless of firm size. The idea of one-stop shopping isn't that important. Corporations are happy to hire regional firms for specific projects.
This is a terrific list, but a cautionary note is in order. Mid-size firms will not succeed because of their size. Rather, in my view, mid-size firms will succeed because of other characteristics, such as being service-centric, entrepreneurial and willing to take risks on behalf of clients. It is true that these characteristics will be much easier to find in mid-size firms (and virtually impossible to find in big firms), but clearly many (an perhaps most) mid-size firms do not manifest these traits. Those firms will struggle.
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