Georgetown Law Conference on The Future of the Global Law Firm

In less than three weeks, on Thursday and Friday April 17 and 18, the Georgetown Law School Center for the Study of the Legal Profession will host the symposium, "The Future of the Global Law Firm." The Symposium will be at the Law School (a few blocks from the Capitol in Washington, DC) and a wide and distinguished array of managing partners, other practitioners, and academics will be in attendance, from the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia.

It's not too late to register, and I urge those of you with an interest in this subject to do so. Attendance is free.

Partly that's because I ended up instigating this conference with what I thought was an innocent email about a year ago, but mostly it's of course because of the depth of the content and the quality and credentials of those who will be on panels at the symposium and in attendance.

The registration form is here, and the final schedule is here. 

Among the other topics which will be discussed are:

• The emerging dynamics of global competition.
  
• Ownership and capital structure, including the possibility and the desirability of outside (that is, non-lawyer) investment in law firms.
• Ethics and professional values.
• Perspectives from corporate law and finance.
• Organizational and cultural dynamics, and
• Lessons from other professional service firms.

The symposium will conclude at lunch on Friday with a panel on the globalization of routine legal work, a/k/a outsourcing.

The impetus for the Symposium is this:

The Center has published an article in The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics (21 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 61 [2008]) which discusses whether ethics rules in the United States should be changed to permit law firms to raise money from outside equity investors. The aim of the paper is to stimulate discussion of the potential effects of pending legislation in the United Kingdom that would permit law firms to become publicly-traded enterprises.

The UK legislation is expected to go into effect next year. "This reform could have profound effects on global law practice, and raise fundamental questions about the basic identity of the legal profession," said Center Co-Director Mitt Regan, a Professor at Georgetown who teaches courses on ethics, law firms and the legal profession. "Surprisingly, there has been little public discussion on this side of the Atlantic of the potentially significant impact of this development. We're trying to get that discussion started." At a minimum, he noted, law firms with offices in London will need to consider how to structure their practices so that the UK legislation does not cause the firm to be in violation of ethics rules in this country.

The paper consists of correspondence among Professor Regan; Bruce MacEwen, an expert on law firm economics and editor of the online publication Adam Smith, Esq.; and Professor Larry Ribstein of the University of Illinois Law School, an expert on partnership law. Current ethics rules in every state forbid any non-lawyers from having an ownership interest in a law firm. Beginning with an inquiry by Mr. MacEwen, the participants in the exchange first discuss whether these rules would permit firms to sell financial instruments such as derivatives whose value is based on the firms' profitability. The discussants then move on to the broader subject of the arguments for and against allowing firms to raise money in the stock market.

Mr. MacEwen and Professor Ribstein generally support permitting firms to attract equity investors. Professor Regan is more ambivalent, but says that participating in the exchange made him appreciate that the question is far closer than most people realize.

Again, I invite you to look at the agenda for the Symposium, which promises to be fascinating.

Most important, I hope to see you there! Please shoot me an email if you plan to attend.