Lawyers, Money, and Success The Consequences of Dollar Obsession

Subjects:

• Law » Business Law
• Law » Legal History
• Business » Business & Public Policy

Reviews:

• An interest in law is not essential for enjoying a splendid narrative, but readers familiar with the legal profession will be rewarded with rare insights presented in fine style.
  —Business Library Review
• This is an important contribution to the continuing debate about the growth and role of law and lawyers. Although the focus is the megafirm, the author's trenchant observations about the decline of integrity and the loss of public confidence in legal practice apply to the entire legal profession.
  —Choice
• Drawing on his 55 years as a lawyer and a judge, Fleming offers a shrewd, sober critique of modern legal practice, exposing economic injustices that the market must inevitably iron out....Fleming quotes from the classics--Aesop, Milton, Burke--but he writes with the rigor and insight of Thorstein Veblen.
  —The New York Times Book Review
• For a detailed diagnosis of what ails the profession, and a prescription for a cure, you couldn't do better than this slim book by a retired justice of the California Court of Appeal.
  —The National Law Journal

• Endorsement From Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas
  California Supreme Court, Retired: Justice Macklin Fleming has written an important book, a must-read for every lawyer, for almost every client, and for everyone interested in how our law works. He shows what may well happen to the economics of the practice of law, and how the system can be changed for the better, with a resulting improvement in the image of lawyers and the whole system. I urge everyone who is in any way involved in the civil justice system, directly or indirectly, to read this exceptional book.
• Endorsement From Honorable Shirley M. Hufstedler
  former Judge of the United States
  Court of Appeals: Justice Fleming's lucid explanation of the relationship between spiraling costs of legal services and the growth of very large law firms will evoke cheers in corporate board rooms and dismay in big law offices. Whatever may be the reactions, however, neither lawyers nor their clients can afford to ignore the lessons he teaches about the once and future legal profession.
• Endorsement From Anthony T. Kronman, Dean
  Yale Law School: Macklin Fleming has written a wise and well-informed book about the pervasive role that money plays in the contemporary practice of law. How do legal fees get set and why have they grown so large? What effect has the pursuit of money had on lawyers' relations with their clients, on the organization of law firms, on the legal profession's values, and on its public image? These are the questions that Fleming pursues in this absorbing and important book, and from his varied experience he has drawn some striking conclusions that anyone interested in the future of the legal profession must seriously study.

Table of Contents:

• Preface
• The Paradox
• Invention of the Corporate Law Firm and Its Evolution into the Large Law Firm
• Emergence of the Large Law Firm as the Dominant Element of the Profession
• The Decline of Cost-Effectiveness within the Large Law Firm
• The Magic of the Emperor's New Clothes Suspends the Law of Supply and Demand
• Excessive Legal Fees: The Count Dracula Clients Cannot Stake
• Excessive Legal Fees: Even the Courts Can't Stake Dracula
• Lawyers and Their Discontents
• The Pervasive Public Distrust of Lawyers
• Through a Glass Darkly
• First Challenge: Client Control of Fees
• Second Challenge: Increased Court Control Over Legal Proceedings and Lawyer Conduct
• Third Challenge: The Bite of Competition
• Fourth Challenge: Restlessness in the Workplace
• The Shape of Law Firms to Come: Professional Management
• The Shape of Law Firms to Come: Integrity and Quality Control
• The Shape of Law Firms to Come: Competitiveness and Job Satisfaction
• L'Envoi--Visions in the Crystal Ball
• Notes
• Index