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&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans serif&#39;&quot;&gt;Well before last week&amp;#8217;s carnage, there was no shortage of BigLaw boffins speculating on the shape of thing to come (e.g., here). Post-Black Thursday, &amp;#8220;Change&amp;#8221; (but not &amp;#8220;Hope&amp;#8221;) is certainly accelerating &amp;#8212; but toward what? Prognostication, especially of the Cassandra type, remains among the legal industry&amp;#8217;s few hot sectors. Of course, while every pundit has a prescription, in one regard they all agree: there&amp;#8217;s no going back to &amp;#8220;NY to 190!&amp;#8221;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans serif&#39;&quot;&gt;Predictions for a reformed BigLaw range from a (relatively) subtle tweaking of billing practices to a drastic structural teardown. Some of the former camp, including Geoff Howard, managing partner of Bingham McCutchen&amp;#8217;s San Francisco office, and Chuck Fanning of the headhunting firm Major, Lindsey &amp;amp; Africa, are surveyed in the January 2009 &lt;i&gt;California Bar Journal&lt;/i&gt;. In their view, firms will keep up appearances: &amp;#8220;Billable rates never go down . . . Discounts go up. It&amp;#8217;s one of those funny games that get played. A firm&amp;#8217;s not going to lower its rates because that looks bad,&amp;#8221; predicts Fanning. Coupled with these &lt;s&gt;rate cuts&lt;/s&gt; discounts, theorizes Bingham&amp;#8217;s Howard, will be an increase in staff attorney programs. These will &amp;#8220;provide institutional, long-term quality control over electronic discovery document processes, as opposed to using highly paid junior associates.&amp;#8221; In other words, Tom the Temp&amp;#8217;s dystopia writ large.&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans serif&#39;&quot;&gt;If Fanning and Howard are akin to doctors prescribing moderate exercise and cutting back on trans fats, &lt;i&gt;The American Lawyer&amp;#8217;s&lt;/i&gt; Aric Press and LegalOnRamp&amp;#8217;s Paul Lippe are trauma surgeons looking to amputate, and stat.&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans serif&#39;&quot;&gt;In &lt;i&gt;The Coming Law Firm Hiring Crisis&lt;/i&gt;, an article which is surely troubling the sleep of firm recruiters everywhere, Press provides a withering assessment of BigLaw&amp;#8217;s irrational hiring model: &amp;#8220;This is an ugly situation made worse by the peculiar hiring schemes that were tolerable during good times but now are under serious stress &amp;#8230; The market for labor has changed and, for now at least, there&#39;s no normal to which it can return.&amp;#8221; What&amp;#8217;s worse, &amp;#8220;The calendar also tells us that we are about 180 days from the start of summer on-campus recruiting when law firms, who can&#39;t fairly predict what the third quarter of 2009 holds for them, will begin filling up their incoming classes for the fall of 2011. Even in tradition-bound law firm land, this seems a bit much.&amp;#8221; (The specifics of what Press&amp;#8217;s rationalized legal labor market would look like are discussed by Vera here.)&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans serif&#39;&quot;&gt;Paul Lippe, founder of the networking and info-sharing site LegalOnRamp, does not traffic in vague generalities about the future. In his &lt;i&gt;2011 Scenario and the End of Leverage&lt;/i&gt;, Lippe briskly breaks down hypothetical current and future law firm bills, thereby illustrating the sort of &amp;#8216;substantial restructuring&amp;#8217; the industry will have to face:&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans serif&#39;&quot;&gt;A 2008 bill for &lt;b&gt;$1,000,000&lt;/b&gt; might include $450,000 for partner time, $500,000 for associate time, and $50,000 of &amp;#8216;other.&amp;#8217;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans serif&#39;&quot;&gt;In 2011 (when Lippe assumes the recession will be over), a bill for an identical project would total &lt;b&gt;$800,000&lt;/b&gt;($450,000 of partner time, $250,000 of associate time and $100,000 of &amp;#8216;other.&amp;#8217;)&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans serif&#39;&quot;&gt;The $200,000 difference is explained as follows: hard-bargaining clients; increased outsourcing; increased use of &amp;#8216;proto associates&amp;#8217; (e.g., contract attorneys); and [GULP] &amp;#8220;some associate time &amp;#8230; replaced by technology.&amp;#8221;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans serif&#39;&quot;&gt;The conclusion: &amp;#8220;The 2011 scenario locks in a 20 percent drop in firm revenues. That&#39;s right. So firms will have to find ways to cut at least 40 percent of overhead to maintain profits.&amp;#8221;&lt;p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: &#39;Arial&#39;,&#39;sans serif&#39;&quot;&gt;-posted by brian&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;

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Well before last week’s carnage, there was no shortage of BigLaw boffins speculating on the shape of thing to come (e.g. , here).

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