The Handbook of Law Firm Mismanagement for the 21st Century

by Kanter, Arnold B.; Hoffman, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780945774570
• ISBN10: 0945774575
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-05-01
• Publisher: Catbird Press

Summary

More competitive, more dependent on computer technology, and somehow even more stressful, the business of law in the 21st Century can now be mismanaged in more ways than ever before. And so Arnold Kanter is back with a whole new array of humorous committee meetings, memos, speeches, and consultants' reports that show lawyers the way of their errors. The lawyers of Kanter's mythical firm, Fairweather, Winters & Sommers, consider the advantages of merging and going virtual; they bicker over a firm website and in front of a morning talk show audience; they try to understand economics and figure out what to do when a big corporate client gets caught being unusually unethical. A sports mogul client argues for drafting law school grads as if they were athletes, and a look into the future finds earth lawyers trolling outer space for new business. And then there's the woeful art of hiring lawyers, which comes in for a good share of lampooning. In Kanter's law firm humor, attorneys don't act like sharks, but rather flounder in a sea of dilemmas. It doesn't get any funnier, or instructive, than this. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Arnold B. Kanter is a Chicago attorney who consults to law firms on management and hiring issues. His humor has appeared in the New York Times, ABA Journal, and in state and local bar journals nationwide Paul Hoffman is an artist living in Greenfield, Mass.

Table of Contents

Introduction--Survival of the Unfittest	p. 9
Law As a Business
Form and Function	p. 10
I Now Pronounce You	p. 15
Now You See It, Now You Don't	p. 20
Nobody's Business	p. 25
Brand New	p. 29
See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil	p. 34
Enough of Mismanagement	p. 39
Foreign Capital	p. 44
Giving the Devil His Due	p. 49
Economically Speaking	p. 55
A Tangled Web We Weave	p. 60
The Last Word	p. 65
Recruitment
A Whole New Ballgame	p. 67
Sex and Practice	p. 73
Lateraling Out	p. 78
Well Schooled	p. 82
Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth	p. 87
Does Anyone Have a Match?	p. 92
Diverse Problems	p. 97
Heaven Can Wait	p. 102
Temporarily Out of Order	p. 107
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies	p. 112
The Last Word	p. 116
Associates
One Size Fits All	p. 118
Justice Beyond	p. 123
Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh	p. 129
Under Your Wing	p. 134
A Game of Chance	p. 140
Dressing for Success	p. 145
Gym Dandy	p. 151
The Black Hole of Belugessi	p. 156
Freedom to Associate	p. 163
Truth and Consequences	p. 168
The Last Word	p. 174
Partners/The Full Firm
The Retiring Type	p. 175
The Party's Over	p. 180
Secure in Our Beliefs	p. 185
The Whole Lawyer	p. 190
Partnership Assets	p. 196
You Can't Tell a Book Group by Its Cover	p. 200
Onward and Ever Upward	p. 206
Kindly Refrain From Feeding the Attorneys	p. 211
Which Solution?	p. 217
The Last Word	p. 222
End of an Era	p. 223
Table of Contents provided by Rittenhouse. All Rights Reserved.