Law Practice Management
Were Heller’s Problems Caused by Term Limits?
Posted Sep 17, 2008, 10:03 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
As Heller Erhman loses lawyers and potential merger partners, a legal blog is asking whether the law firm’s problems were created by its own self-imposed term limits.
The firm’s “wildly successful” former chairman, Barry Levin, stepped down four years ago after serving two three-year terms, Legal Pad reports. He had managed to increase revenue by more than double, leading the chair of the firm’s business department to describe him as “one of those really extraordinary leaders that only comes along occasionally.”
Levin had to retire from his post, the blog says, because of the firm’s own limits on the time that its chairs may serve. The blog doesn’t blame the new chairman, Matt Larrabee, for all the firm’s problems. But it raises the question whether the firm would have fared better under Levin.
“In rereading the old clips, it's striking to see the degree to which, under Levin, Heller partners seemed to think they could resist the market forces that were turning all the other big firms into top-down autocracies,” Legal Pad says. “Levin and others seemed to think there was something special about Heller; in hindsight, it seems just as likely that there was something special about Levin, something that allowed him to improve financials despite the democratic culture.”
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