Should we mandate doing well by doing good?

• Author: Fox, Lawrence J.
• Position: Professional Challenges in Large Firm Practices

I hold, right here in my hand, the legal profession's playbook. All on one sheet of paper--an insert to the AmLaw 100 issue of The American Lawyer (1)--it is all summed up, revealed in a stark fashion, the profession's bragging rights and the profession's shame.

Consider the listed achievements, beginning with law firm revenue-per-lawyer. The American law firm has broken through a barrier not unlike a three-minute, thirty-second mile. And it did it as if it were not there. Currently, there are four law firms with revenues of $1,000,000 per lawyer, and in the top 100 the revenue-per-lawyer averages $650,000. Just think what it takes to break that barrier, to achieve these results. You not only have to be charging a lofty hourly rate across an entire law firm, but you have to be generating an unfathomable number of hours. Finally, you have to convince clients that your lawyers are entitled to exalted rates not for a brilliant inspiration or a breakthrough idea, but for 2,000 or 2,500 or 3,000 hours per year spent sifting documents, digesting depositions, and right-clicking in front of a computer screen. What an achievement!

Next, consider a second metric, the most important of them all. What are the profits-per-partner of the top 100 law firms in America? For thirty-two of them that number exceeds $1,000,000. These are not the earnings of a couple of superstars or firm leaders, the greatest of the rainmakers. This figure represents an average across of 100, 200, or in some cases, even 300 lawyers. An average! Undoubtedly, firms play some games in trying to report higher figures. They do not count dollar partners whose incomes are lower. They also play with expenses. But even after these adjustments, the numbers are truly stunning. Where, I ask you, is it written that you can have a business where that many people make that much money each year? Yet that is the health and wealth of the great American law firm.

These statistics reflect real achievement. Moreover, I have no quarrel with well-paid lawyers. Indeed, I celebrate the economic success of this tier of the profession. I have been a happy beneficiary of this extraordinary turn of events. So what is the shame? You would think with such bounty, with such munificent wealth, with such financial achievement, the contribution of the lawyers at these firms--above all other lawyers in America--to pro bono services would also be measured by stratospheric statistics. They've got the talent...