Changes in Law Practice

During the "yuppie period" of the late 1980's investment banking began to take the "cream of the crop", meaning the top 10% of prestigious law schools and business schools alike. In 1984 $50,000 or so (from memory, maybe my numbers are wrong) was a top-tiered salary for a first year associate in a major law firm. That mushroomed to $200,000 or so (again from memory) by 1990, in response to "competition" from investment banks. In fact, a close friend left the practice of law for such an entity in September 1985. Hourly billing rates of first-year associates went up commensurately. No one gave a moment's thought to the impact of those billing rates on client bills. Also, office expenses ballooned. Big firms were taking ten or so floors of Park Avenue office space. That went into billing as well. At some point clients began to push back.

The first major firm to go under was Finley Kumble (nicknamed "Finley Crumble) in late 1987. Myerson Kuhn, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn's firm, was not far behind. In March 1994 the venerable, old-line firm Shea & Gould (think Shea Stadium) went under. In May 2012, Dewey LeBouf (think former governor Thomas E. Dewey) went bankrupt. Below the surface of spectacular big-firm bankruptcies were small to mid-size firms such as ours, and the one into which we merged.

We were faced with the same pressures; unsustainable leases, and partners who considered themselves "entitled" to large salaries. Firm meetings concerning new ventures often turned into arguments about how to spend money expected in the future. In our case additional space was acquired in late 1997 which was rented out. In anticipation of additional business from a mortgage foreclosure defense operation those tenants were asked to leave. When the business did not materialize we merged into another firm, effective January 1, 2013. The new firm, counting the six attorneys and three secretaries from our firm that "survived" the merger, had 42 lawyers (Firm X). Within the year that had dwindled, if memory serves me, to 28. Given the prime White Plains office building in which we were located, this created tensions. My mentor squared off with another partner. Three of the partners from Firm X more or less back-stabbed my mentor, by siding with the other partner. The fight was petty; over which office to meet a new client we were introducing. Therefore we left for a larger, but still mid-sized mid-Manhattan firm, effective beginning of 2014 (Firm Y).

That firm, in hindsight, had peaked. This was aggravated by litigation against the firm generated by a past greedy partner who copped a guilty plea for tax fraud. I was out of the firm by the end of 2014. My mentor left in April 2017 and we reconnected. In the time between I survived with business I generated, and that both my mentor, still at Firm Y, and attorneys at Firm X sent my way.
Since May 2017 I have been back with my mentor, who I had been with from June 1986 through December 2014 in varying capacities.

Happy New Year and I hope I didn't bore you.