When the WSJ Has No Clothes

When the business paper of record (I refer of course to The Wall Street Journal, at least here on this side of the pond, although I'm increasingly fond of the Financial Times), prints a prominent article on its Op-Ed page entitled The End of Big Law, as Arthur Miller might have put it, "attention must be paid."

I'm here to tell you to pay no attention.  Or, if you insist, that it will go deeply unrequited.

The author is Douglas McCollam, described by the Journal as "a former correspondent for BusinessWeek, [and] a contributing writer for The American Lawyer."  So far as Google and I can tell, he has actually written a grand total of one article for BusinessWeek and perhaps two or three for The American Lawyer, the most recent in 2005.

Mr. McCollam's credentials as a domain expert in our industry aside, the article falls quite spectacularly on its own merits, as a truly impressive exercise in the abject failure of critical thinking:

• "For the first time since the Berlin Wall fell, profits dropped..."  The same is surely true of almost every other industry and sector in the economy including, not to make an awkward point, the publishing industry. 
•  "[A] great many members of the American bar fell prey to the same strain of hubris that infected their clients. They embarked on empire building--opening offices from Beijing to Bucharest."   This could also be characterized as participating in the great post-cold-war phenomenon of globalization, or, more simply, as following your clients.  As for "hubris," I have yet to meet a managing partner not exquisitely attuned to the sentiments of their partners and the perceptions of their clients.  As CEO's of multi-hundred million dollar enterprises, they are a modest bunch indeed.
• "[B]ig law firms find themselves just another smokestack industry with too much capacity."  Last time I checked, we were not capital-intensive nor do we have but the most trivial base of fixed assets.
• Finally and perhaps summarily, nothing in the article connects to the headline, "The End of Big Law."  Nothing.

Much of me was loath to, and so I delayed, writing this column.  Indeed, I debated whether it was worth even drawing attention to this misbegotten exercise in tabloid journalism.  Besides, I trust your discernment and analytic skills, to see through such transparently jackleg and misbegotten efforts.

So only a coda on what a wasted opportunity for the WSJ.  Our industry represents 1.4% of GDP--we're 10% the size of healthcare, which has been receiving a bit of ink lately, and I'd like to think we're an economic locus of activity not to be sneezed at--and Murdoch & Co. the editors fumbled it. 

Alas.