Even non-lawyers are asking me about the implosion of the Weil Gotshal law firm. It’s not every day that you see law firm business on the evening news.
And don’t even mention all the schadenfreude-laden think-pieces all over my LinkedIn feed.
Weil was founded in 1931, had more than 1,200 attorneys, offices all over the globe, and the annual revenue of a third world country.
Despite all that, after a bunch of rainmaker partners left, it slowly and then all of a sudden drifted into a death spiral, shutting down faster than a Spirit Halloween in November.
Could that happen to any law firm? Probably.
Law firms are funny businesses. Sure, it can be a wildly lucrative business, but it doesn’t have significant assets. A lavish office full of used office furniture and computers. Some account receivables. But real assets? Those are the lawyers’ brains and their book of business, which are highly mobile assets.
We see this in Nashville all the time. Nearly every day, the Nashville Post writes about a lawyer or an entire practice group, jumping to a new (big) law firm. The press release talks about “bigger platforms” and “client services,” but, generally, the lawyer got a little bit more money and felt flattered by the recruiting.
“Partner for life” is as antiquated as “dictaphone” or “martini lunch.”
Remember this post about Memphis’ Apperson Crump law firm (founded in 1865), which filed bankruptcy for a number of reasons, including losing 8 lawyers and a dozen staff members in 2025, and being crushed under the weight of an expensive office lease and lots of empty offices?
Remember when the Harwells left their internationally famous law firm (literally named after them) to go to a rival firm?
At my old law firm, the boss had a thing he’d often say when one too many lawyers asked one too many questions about the law firm: “Nashville has lots of law firms. If you don’t like how we do it, you can go work at one of the other ones.”
He always said it in a half-joking way, but, about 11 years ago, the firm started losing superstars and entire practice groups. Now, that law firm doesn’t exist any more.
More than anything, all this shows how fragile and loose of an association that a law firm is. Working at a huge law firm is an aspiration for most law students, but is it because that’s all they’re shown at law schools? “Life as a new lawyer is miserable, you grind out 2,200 billables, nights/weekends/holidays, and, maybe, you’ll make partner someday.” Sounds awful, right?
Nobody explained that, once you finally make partner, maybe the firm shuts down because some of the other partners no longer liked the vibes.
The legal industry, largely, runs on a centuries-old business model, a world where “the way things always has been done” is the motto. We are learning in real time that it’s bad business to cling so zealously to tradition.
As generation of lawyers (and law firm leaders) are approaching retirement, they’re holding on tight to the ownership of firms. They aren’t retiring, they aren’t succession planning, and they aren’t sharing.
At the same time, artificial intelligence is changing the way lawyers work and manage their practices. Here’s the real issue: AI is being embraced by a new generation of lawyers, raised on remote work and technology. These two forces are about to collide, and we haven’t even seen the beginning of what is coming next.
Nashville is going to see this trend play out in a number of ways. Partner defections will continue, as new Big Law Firms enter the market and poach existing rainmakers and practice groups with the promise of a little bit more money. Existing Nashville firms will either shut down or stay alive in the hope that a Big Law Firm will make an offer to buy them. Micro, Small, and Medium Law Firms will embrace the new technology and be really competitive for about a decade. (Based on my 6 years running a tech-forward firm, it’ll be a great decade.)
What’s next? I predict that we’ll see an influx of management services organizations (MSO), which use funds from outside investors to finance law firm technology, operations, and, yes, payroll/recruiting to introduce concepts of “private equity” into the law profession. Of all the ways that the legal profession fights against innovation, this development will tickle the industry’s weak spot (money), and we’ll let the wolves be in charge of the sheep.
The sales pitch to clients will be about how much better the client services and technology will be, but the private equity directive will focus on higher hourly rates, more billable hours, and profits.
TL;DR: It will be awful to be a lawyer and to be a client in this new world we are entering into.
For years, I had a thing I’d say, when people asked me if I enjoyed being a lawyer. “No,” I’d tell them, “but I’m good at it and the money is good. It’s my hope that I can do well enough in the law that my kids can find a job that they enjoy.”
Then, when I started my own firm, I realized that I had started encouraging my kids to became lawyers. I had started loving the job.
This post has taken on more of a “sky is falling” vibe than I intended. I’m not sure how to end it, except the future is coming and it’s rare that I’m glad to be middle-aged.
Maybe, in 10 years, the private equity funded associates will blog about all the ways that I’m holding the profession back.
