Partners with power: the social transformation of the large law firm

Abstract

Partners with Power, by Robert L. Nelson, is a fascinating analysis of the present condition of the largest law firms in the United States and should be required reading for their managing partners. Illuminated by statistics illustrating the methods and manners of large law firm organization and operation, it contains a wealth of detail about the ways in which the largest firms have bureaucratized themselves to meet the demands of their corporate and institutional clients and to remain profitable. Perhaps the most valuable feature of Nelson's book is his comparative analysis of four large Chicago-based firms (with true names carefully concealed), and how each, in its own way, deals with management and professional issues in light of its particular heritage and professional style. The range stretches from one firm whose partners resemble barons in a feudal to another whose partners, in good bureaucratic style, serve as governors willing to trade privilege and independence for administrative efficiency. Nelson takes a less optimistic view than did Irwin Smigel in his studies, begun in the late 1950s and published in the mid 1960s. Smigel concluded that large law firms maintained a commitment to the practice of law as something more than a mere business. As lawyers and officers of the Court, they were, he found, paying homage to the highest ideals of the legal system in their professional and public lives. Such elite lawyers, Smigel maintained, would guide America's great businesses along responsible lines of corporate conduct. This, indeed, had been the progressive role envisioned by the original founders of the..arge law firms such as Paul D. Cravath in New York and Reginald Heber Smith in Bos-