Galanter and Henderson's "The Elastic Tournament: The Second Transformation of the Big Law Firm"

This article, which will be appearing soon in the Stanford Law Review, sounds fascinating.  And given who the authors are, it's undoubtedly a good one.  Here's the abstract:

In 1991, Galanter and Palay published 'Tournament of Lawyers: The Transformation of the Big Law Firm', which documented the regular and relentless growth of large U.S. law firms. The book advanced several structural and historical factors to explain these patterns, centering on the adoption of the promotion-to-partnership tournament. Systemic changes in the marketplace for corporate legal services in the intervening years suggest the need for an updated account of the modern large law firm.

Using 'Tournament of Lawyers' as a starting point, we propose to fill this void in the literature. Marching through a wide array of empirical evidence covering the last twenty to thirty years, our findings corroborate some of the core theoretical insights of 'Tournament of Lawyers'. For example, the continuous upward growth of the partnership based on the tournament is clearly evidenced by a 'smooth' upward trajectory in the partnership ranks while associate hiring hews more closely to the underlying business cycle. On the other hand, the widening ranks of permanent 'off track' attorneys and non-equity partners, including the prevalence of de-equitizations, suggest the emergence of a more complex and elongated tournament structure that applies to both partners and associates.

Under a new model, which we dub the 'elastic tournament,' the equity core is primarily reserved for partners who control access to key clients. This structure reduces cross-subsidies between lawyers with differential value to the firm, thus reducing the potential for large-scale lateral defections. Yet, this reduced sharing of risks and benefits simultaneously creates an environment in which it becomes more costly - at the individual lawyer level - to faithfully adhere to professional and ethics principles that are in tension with client objectives. Arguably, these dynamics have made zealous advocacy the touchstone of ethical lawyering. The diminution in sharing also reduces the time horizons of individual lawyers and decreases their willingness to invest in firmwide initiatives that do not simultaneously optimize their own practice. Amidst this widening collective action problem, the 'firm' itself has remarkably little autonomy to pursue non-economic objectives, such as racial and gender diversity (particularly efforts directed at retention) or the training and mentoring of the next generation of lawyers. Further, except in some exceptional cases, the influence of firm culture, which may have moderated lawyer self-interest in an earlier era, is weakened by the sheer size and geographic dispersion of the modern big law firm.

Although this model is fundamentally 'stable' in the economic sense, it raises several philosophical and practical issues regarding lawyer independence and the long-term viability of professional self-regulation.

Comments

[Alan Childress]

It is indeed a good one. I would add that these authors are scheduled to present on this topic at a panel for the Law & Society Association annual meeting in Montreal, May 29-June 1, 2008. I believe this presentation is June 1, and they have another panel earlier in the meeting on the problem of rankings and job opportunities in biglaw. If there are other panels with presenters from among the editors at Legal Ethics Forum, or others you would recommend, I bet your readers would want to know. I would.

[Alan Childress]

Correction: I think the earlier panel would be Henderson and Andrew Morriss (not Galanter as I said), but anyone the meeting will have plenty of interesting presentations.

[Andrew Perlman]

Thanks, Alan. If anyone else wants to put in a plug for papers to be presented at upcoming conferences, let me know. (For what it's worth, I'll be posting a paper in a couple of weeks that will serve as the basis for my remarks at the upcoming ABA NCPR.)

[John Steele]

I'm presenting on the "battle of the forms" between biglaw and big clients, and how it's affecting law practice. Mitt Regan will present, and Liz Chambliss, and I almost wish I hadn't started naming names. I will try to track down the panels.

BTW, Bill Henderson has been instrumental in creating some sort of affiliation group within L&S to address empirical questions about the legal profession, and it's that group that is spearheading all the panels.

[John Steele]

Scheduled Time:

Thu, May 29 - 10:15am - 12:00pm
Building/Room: conference / RM 09
CRN37 Private Practice Lawyers--Drivers of Contemporary Law Firm Culture 1209

Session Participants:
Session Organizer: William Henderson (Indiana University) wihender@indiana.edu

Chair/Discussant: Robert Rosen (University of Miami) rrosen@law.miami.edu

The Professionalization of Law Firm Management
*Elizabeth Chambliss (New York Law School)

Taxes and Death: The Rise and Demise of Jenkens and Gilchrist
*Mitt Regan (Georgetown University)

Battle of the Forms: How Biglaw and Clients Bargain over the Terms of Legal Engagements
*John Steele (UC, Berkeley/Fish & Richardson)

The Corporate Attorney-Client Privilege: Third Rate Doctrine for Third Party Consultants
*Michele D Beardslee (Harvard University)

CRN37 Private Practice Lawyers--Globalized Legal Services 1410
Session Code: 47698

Keyword Area / Sub Unit: Keyword Area / LEGAL PROFESSION
Scheduled Time: Thu, May 29 - 2:30pm - 4:15pm, Building/Room: conference / RM 10

Presenter on individual presentation: Geographic and Network Analysis of NLJ 250 and Am Law 200 Firms

CRN37 Private Practice Lawyers--Insights on Gender and Racial Diversity in Law Firms 2207
Session Code: 47706

Keyword Area / Sub Unit: Keyword Area / LEGAL PROFESSION
Scheduled Time: Fri, May 30 - 10:15am - 12:00pm, Building/Room: conference / RM 07



CRN37 Private Practice Lawyers--Lawyer and Law Firm Management, Regulation, and Bureaucratization 2407
Session Code: 47708


Scheduled Time: Fri, May 30 - 2:30pm - 4:15pm, Building/Room: conference / RM 07


CRN37 Private Practice Lawyers--Lawyer Professionalism and the Public Interest 3208
Session Code: 47699

Scheduled Time: Sat, May 31 - 10:15am - 12:00pm, Building/Room: conference / RM 08


CRN37 Private Practice Lawyers--Lawyers and Legal Education 3507
Session Code: 47709

Keyword Area / Sub Unit: Keyword Area / LEGAL PROFESSION
Scheduled Time: Sat, May 31 - 4:30pm - 6:15pm, Building/Room: conference / RM 07

Presenter on individual presentation: Explaining the Nexus between Law School and Law Firm Labor Markets
Add


CRN37 Private Practice Lawyers--Micro and Macroeconomic Analysis of the Contemporary Legal Market 4209
Session Code: 47703

Scheduled Time: Sun, Jun 1 - 10:15am - 12:00pm, Building/Room: conference / RM 09
Session Role: Session Organizer
Non-Presenter on individual presentation: The Elastic Tournament: A Second Transformation of the Big Law Firm
Add


CRN37 Private Practice Lawyers--Perceptions and Reality of What Lawyers Actually Do 4105
Session Code: 47700


Scheduled Time: Sun, Jun 1 - 8:15am - 10:00am, Building/Room: conference / RM 05

[John Steele]

Go here:

http://www.lawandsociety.org/ann_mtg/am08/conf_info_first.htm#Preliminary Program

and download the Word document with the program.

Search for "CRN37" to find the panels that, imo, deal with the issues you're most likely to see here and at Legal Profession Blog.