BOOK REVIEW
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-1714.1992.tb00662.x |
| Date | 01 September 1992 |
| Published date | 01 September 1992 |
BOOK
REVIEW
NEW
TOPICS
FOR
RESEARCH
IN
LEGAL
STUDIES:
THE
ROLE
OF
CORPORATE COUNSEL.
THE
NEW CORPORATE
COUNSEL,
SALLY
GUNZ.
For more than
100
years, from roughly
1870
to
1970,
the practice
of law
in
the
United States was remarkable largely for its constancy.
Because the legal industry was
so
stable, there was little for scholars
to notice or study.
It
is hardly surprising therefore that during this
period lawyers studied the law, but not the legal profession. What
little scholarly attention the legal industry did receive was from
academics in other fields, primarily historians and socio1ogists.l
Over the last twenty years, however, enormous change has racked
the profession. Commentators now use terms such
as
“extraordinary
flux,”2 “under siege,’13 “dramatic change,”* “anxiety and di~may”~ to
describe this erstwhile stable industry.
A
desire to understand the
causes and impact of this turmoil has sparked a new interest among
lawyers in research on the legal profession.
No
less illustrious a
Among the historical works on the legal industry in
this
period
is
JAMES
HURST,
THE
GROWTH
OF
AMERICAN LAW: THE LAW MAKERS (1950). Sociological works include
ERWIN SMIGEL, THE WALL STREET LAWYER (1964) and Jack Ladinsky,
Career Lawyers,
Law Practice and Legal Institutions,
28 AM. SOC. REV. 47 (1963).
Ronald Gilson
&
Robert
Mnookin,
Sharing Among the Human Capitalists:
An
Economic Inquiry
into
the Corporate Law Firm and How Partners Split Profits,
37
STAN.
L. REV.
313
(1985).
Robert Hillman,
Law
Firms
and Their Partners: The Law and Ethics ojGrabbing
and Leaving.
67 TEX. L. REV.
1
(1988).
Ronald Gilson
&
Robert Mnookin.
Corning
of
Age
in
a Corporate Law Firm: The
Economics
of
Associate Career Patterns,
41 STAN. L. REV. 567 (1989).
MARC GALANTER
&
THOMAS
PALAY,
TOURNAMENT
OF
LAWYERS: THE TRANSFOR-
MATION
OF
THE
BIG
LAW FIRM (1991).
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