Unlike business persons, lawyers are often confined by ethical rules that are linked to their license to practice law. For example, lawyers, generally, cannot combine operations with non-lawyers. Lawyers cannot engage in certain kinds of advertising and are, in general, not allowed to split fees with other lawyers. Read more >>

As the economy worsens and savings disappears, the traditional one breadwinner model has accelerated its decline. This means that the option that women have had to leave the work force in favor of child-rearing is fast becoming less of an option. At the same time, it cannot be denied that the traditional Law Firm Model has been no friend to women. Relatively few women have been able to last long enough to achieve partnership, and for many who have, they have been forced to make significant personal sacrifices. Read more >>

Does the Inter-Firm Collaboration Model potentially provide a higher quality of service than the Traditional Law Firm Model? In certain respects, this is an unfair question, because whether or not a client receives an excellent quality of service depends, first and foremost, on the quality of the attorney (or attorneys) involved, but in terms of which model may be better positioned to attract new talent, to exploit experience, and be more efficient and cost effective, the momentum may be shifting more in favor of the IFC Model. Read more >>

On 12/28/08, we posted our first installment about a new law firm practice model called the Inter-Firm Collaboration Model, or IFC Model for short, which purports to be a more efficient and less costly model of organization than the traditional law firm. As described in that post, the object of the IFC Model is to harness the efficiencies, and low-overhead characteristics, of modern solo-practices, to create a more flexible and dynamic type of law practice capable of servicing larger scale clients.
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The U.S. economic meltdown has a silver lining after all: Businesses used to spending money fueled by easy credit are now going to have to reconsider basic operational questions, with the view to reducing costs and increasing efficiency. Costs associated with legal services should not escape their notice. As of this writing, it is not unusual for traditional law firms to charge more than $500.00 per attorney hour, and tens of thousands of dollars per month. Just as these times invite the rethinking of our basic economic assumptions so too does it invite a consideration of alternatives to the way in which legal services are provided. Read more >>