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45 S. C. L. Rev. 905 (1993-1994)
The Many Futures of the Big Law Firm

handle is hein.journals/sclr45 and id is 921 raw text is: THE MANY FUTURES OF THE BIG LAW FIRM* MARC GALANTER* AND THOMAS PALAY*** I. AN EVER-DECLINING PROFESSION ..................... 905 II. THE ASCENDANCY OF THE LARGE LAW FIRM ........... 908 III. ALTERNATIVE FUTURES ......................... 912 A. Bigger Firms .............................. 912 1. The Later Big Firm . ..................... 912 2. The Big Six Firm ........................ 913 3. The Multidisciplinary Firm.................. 914 B. Modified Firms ............................ 916 1. Boutiques ............................. 916 2. Mixed Compensation, or Lifestyle, Firms ........ 918 C. Analogues of the Large Firm .................... 921 1. Networks or Affiliation Groups ................ 921 2. Subcontracting .......................... 922 D. Nonfirm Alternatives ......................... 923 E. Profession-Wide Structural Changes ............... 924 IV. FINAL THOUGHTS ............................. 925 I. AN EVER-DECLINING PROFESSION The spectre of commercialism has haunted large law firms since their rise at the end of the nineteenth century. At the turn of the century there was already a sense that the profession had compromised its integrity and, by too close embrace of business, its identity. In 1895 a New York legal newspaper1 complained: [The bar] has allowed itself to lose, in large measure, the lofty indepen- dence, the genuine learning, the fine sense of professional dignity and We elaborate on many of the observations and ideas set forth here in MARc GALANTER & THOMAS PALAY, TOURNAMENT OF LAWYERS: THE GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION OF THE LARGE LAW FIRM (1991). Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin Law School. B.A. 1950, M.A. 1954, J.D. 1956, University of Chicago. Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin Law School. B.A. 1975, Tufts University; J.D. 1981, Ph.D. 1981, University of Pennsylvania. 1. American Lawyer (not the intense monthly that has since 1979 chronicled (and cheered on) rapid change in the world of large law firms, but a long-extinct legal newspaper of the same name, published in New York from 1893 to 1908).

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