Power of attorney.

• Author: Barrett, Paul

Power of Attorney.

Mark Stevens.McGraw-Hill, $17.95 The practice of blue-chip law, my first-year civil procedure professor told us, is mostly boredom. A respected teacher and judge in the last semester of a 50-year career, he assured us we'd get used to it. After all, non-lawyers would think we were doing something important, and our Ivy League degrees would guarantee good pay.

The only thing to fear, hewarned, is lawyers who want to turn the profession into a mere business. "There are worse things than boredom,' he declared, bony forefinger held high. "There is perfidy and greed.'

Having already heard about WallStreet salaries, most of us were keeping an open mind on greed. But Mark Stevens reports in Power of Attorney that the tweedy old bird was onto something. Crass capitalism, Stevens writes, has invaded the once serene realm of corporate law.

In the good old boring days, prominentfirms enjoyed virtual monopoly status in representing flocks of sheep-like companies and banks. In-house counsels were weaklings whose job was to nod yes, yes, while the meters kept running up, up. These captive relationships enabled established legal practices to "all but ignore such boorish concerns as efficiency, productivity, marketing, and competition,' Stevens writes.

Today, huge firms gobble upsmaller ones and shamelessly raid competitors for top lawyers and clients. Taking cues from Madison Avenue rather the Old Boy Network, the new breed uses marketing flash to lure customers, and scatters field offices like a fried-chicken chain. Disappearing from the culture of corporate law are loyalty to the firm and aspirations to academic accomplishment or public service. Traditionalists fight a futile rear-guard battle, mourning a loss of quality and dignity.

Stevens, who has written widelyabout business, provides a useful, if sketchy, outline of this transformation. What the book lacks in depth, it makes up for in bluntness. The author persuaded a wide circle of heavyweight lawyers to accuse each other of complacency, avarice and worse. The pin-striped bitching provides a certain perverse entertainment.

A major target of these attacks,and Stevens' prime example of the marauding new mega-firm, is Finley, Kumble, which began with eight lawyers in 1968 and is heading toward 700 today. The New York-based firm unapologetically snatches competitor's long-time clients, promising cheaper, more comprehensive service from offices spread out across the country and the...