Firms & Courts Must Streamline in ‘Buyer’s Market,’ Longtime Partner Says

A downturn in the corporate legal market that is unprecedented in the memory of those in practice today is going to force both major law firms and the courts to make significant changes in the way they do business, a longtime lawyer predicts.

Law firms will have to be more cost-efficient and, pressured by corporate clients to reduce hourly rates, will have a greater incentive to develop workable alternative billing arrangements, writes litigator David Marion in a Bulletin article. The 45-year practitioner is a former chairman of Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads in Philadelphia.

"The severity of the current recession and its effects on law firms are unprecedented in modern times, may not end soon, and may persist for the legal profession beyond the time of recovery for the economy in general," he writes. "It is now a buyers’ market for legal services, and corporate in-house counsel are realizing that they have the upper hand and they need no longer tolerate the way law firms handle and bill for legal engagements."

Likewise, the judicial system will have to change its procedure to handle litigation more swiftly, more efficiently and more predictably, or else watch an ever-increasing number of businesses turn to alternative dispute resolution, he writes.