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[quote=Anonymous][quote]Anonymous wrote:
yes, biglaw has changed from what it was before the 2008 crash, but I don't see where automation is having an effect. it's clients demanding more for less money spent. automation can help a bit here, but in the long run isn't going to have a real effect. it's true that clients don't want to pay for first years to learn, but what is a biglaw firm going to do - not hire first years? they need midlevels and seniors and can only rely so much on hiring laterals from boutiques and midlaw.

How about hire first years but do not bill them out at exorbitant rates? As a GC, I am not going to pay $350/hr for Biglaw to teach a first year how to put together a transactional closing checklist as a "teaching exercise" when a half-decent paralegal can pull it together at less than half the rate in half the time. Biglaw needs to build training into its business model ---not just expect clients to pay full freight for first years who know NOTHING. I only pay for one lawyer at a meeting---don't put the partner on the call and have an associate sitting there in the background and then bill me $1000+/hr for both.

The focus on seniority is so typical of in house lawyer type thinking. Who cares who is staffed on the deal? The only thing that matters is the quality of the work product relative to the bottom line price. Everything else is just moving numbers around. 
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Um---as the person who is [b]paying you[/b][u] I care quite a lot about who is staffed on a deal---particularly when the law firm's decisions re staffing result in a higher bottom line price.  I didn't say anything about seniority in my post above---I just said that I did not want to pay for two lawyers on one call when one lawyer would be sufficient.  But what happens is that both the partner and the associate are on the call.  This is either because (a) the partner does not think the associate has the experience/judgment to do the call alone but wants the associate to participate for training purposes; or (b) the associate is perfectly competent to do the work but the partner want to guard the client relationship and thus will not let the associate do the call alone or (c) the law firm just wants to screw over my company and needlessly double bill.  All of the above are unacceptable.  [/quote]

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