law firm economics | Brightleaf Solutions

Brightleaf sells document automation technologies—and technology-leveraged services—that help lawyers work more quickly, efficiently, accurately, collaboratively, and profitably. We deploy those technologies and services at law firms and in-house legal departments. Our customers at those firms and departments use Brightleaf to improve contract creation and contract negotiation…and to gain greater contract intelligence over their executed transactions. We make […]

Today’s National Law Journal leads with a report of plunging “lawyer population” (their term, not mine) at the AmLaw 250. The article lead is stark: “the United States’ largest law firms this year suffered the deepest cuts in their attorney numbers since The National Law Journal began tracking their census figures more than 30 years ago.” All […]

More and more legal departments are paying less and less to their outside counsel and are adopting a variety of strategies to achieve that reduction in spending. The list of these strategies vary from the traditional (keep more work in-house) to the more novel (ban first-year or even second-year associates from working on their projects), but […]

We b.leaf types read a lot of blogs that discuss the changes that technology, client demands, novel business models, competiton, and the economy are all wreaking in the business of law today. So far, the funniest–and among the most incisive–is Jay Shepherd’s Client Revolution. When he’s not dropping thought-provoking and often-hilarious posts into the ether, Jay […]

Yesterday, Mass High Tech wrote us up as an emerging legal technology trend. Today, American Lawyer sat down with our latest hire, Lynne Zagami, and talked about how Brightleaf represents a change in the traditional BigLaw economics and may be emerging as a new way for really talented young lawyers to work. Lynne, a former Proskauer/ Brown […]

Note: Akshara Kannan was a completely great 2009 Brightleaf summer intern. We miss having her around. But here’s the next best thing: during the year, she will occasionally share her thoughts here on how contemporary legal education is preparing her for the changing world of legal employment. When I began my summer internship at Brightleaf Corporation […]

“It behooves us, therefore, to follow the lead of business men and study efficiency, the elimination of waste, the accomplishment of best results with the least effort, and the least expense, and the other principles which are recognized as necessary to the conduct of any successful business in these days of strenuous competition and most earnest endeavor…”

Just below the fold on page one of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal is a feature article titled “‘Billable Hour’ Under Attack.” Its authors, Nathan Koppel and WSJ’s resident law blogger, Ashby Jones, bring to the surface much of what has been increasingly appearing in the print and online trade press over the past eighteen months. […]

OUR THOUGHTS

Tag: law firm economics

Helping Lawyers Help Themselves, (sometimes in spite of themselves)

b.leaf: NLJ reports “deepest cuts” they’ve ever tracked in BigLaw attorney population

61% of legal departments seek alternate billing structures from the outside counsel they hire

Incisive and really funny blog on shifting legal business models

Two days; two articles

b.leaf from our intrepid embedded 2L correspondent

Timely notes on legal practice innovation from the Georgia Bar Association (June, 1922)

Killable billable?