re: O-T lawyers… what happened to McGlinchey Stafford?

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The Thibeaux 25% Firm is what happened…

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Hey now!!! That’s my man, Omar!!! He is a good dude. Good man.

Isn't TW just a couple rainmakers with all the equity, and then everyone else is just a glorified associate regardless of title? I know people who have worked there and left. That's what they told me.

McGlinchey has had problems for a while. Arguably since the 90s, if you know your law firm history. I do suspect going overboard on DEI had a role in this. Also, the mention of collections problems suggests a lot of high volume insurance work with third party AI billing applications cutting bills way down. There is going to come a day of reckoning on that when policy holders realize their counsel is totally hamstrung with ridiculous billing "guidelines."

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I agree that AI is a huge threat to lawyers. I have a friend that wanted to sue someone. He used AI to draft his petition. He sent it to me to look it over before he filed it. It was damn good and just needed a little polishing.

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Yeah I've just tested random AIs generating random documents and they're pretty good. With so many documents scanned online, it can even be pretty jurisdiction specific. Clearly not something a (decent, at least) lawyer would file, but for pro se? YUGE upgrade over what I've seen in my time.

But the hard part is the next part.

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I could see today’s lawyers handling a higher caseload with fewer staff.

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THIS is going to be the first step.

I think then you see ripples with doc review and major discovery review. Also, companies who are paying these firms will have their own AIs doing the same work to give them a lot of oversight into the time needed and quality of output. There will oversight on these firms like they couldn't believe. No more double/triple billing and all the faxing back and forth at mediation like I've heard stories about in the 90s. No more margin on things like paper or secretarial work.

Once AIs become more formalized/standardized, and there is an industry-wide accepted option or 2, those AIs are going to wreck shop on transactional work, contract ligation, etc. The documents will all be made pursuant to the AI standardizations and the AIs will have a standardized review process. There will probably be a favored segment of accepted arbitrators for ancillary disputes. It will take some time to get formalized and standardized but there is no reason why this sort of work will require much humanity.

While this is the most complicated area for your less capable lawyers (which is why the big firms do it), this is the easiest stuff for AI. This kind of machine learning on the same stuff over and over again is where AI thrives. This has the same applicability over patent laws, regulatory law,e tc.

*ETA: and AI-impacts on driving will eventually gut the PI and insurance defense industries. The more robots we have driving, the fewer collisions will result.

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No more margin on things like paper or secretarial work.

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A lot of lawyers had a profit center in the IBM copier back in the day.

I haven’t billed for copying (except huge runs, which I third-party) or anything remotely like it for decades.

Also AI bill review is happening now, and you are graded against other firms.

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The people paying the lawyers now will be able to create a system to largely remove the lawyers from the process.

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I doubt this. You get paid for your judgment.

AI will be overused for a time until someone drops a multi-million or billion dollar ball with it. The lawyers left standing will clean up then.

I remember back when they were Rubin, Curry, Calvin, and Joseph

When I was a kid, my mom worked there (for Curry) and Mike Rubin used to let me hang out around the offices. He drew cool cartoons and had a good sense of humor.

When I got into college, after they merged with McGlinchey, I worked the library there and was their host/signing entertainment for their Christmas parties.

AI/computerized bill review has been happening for a while.

I don’t see AI in this firm’s mess. I think they got over their skis trying to become prestigious nationwide and once that daughter’s book of business left they decided to close shop.

I think there is a lot of wishful thinking for AI’s impacts on white collar work, especially lawyers.

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18 offices and 160 employees… firms that size don’t just fall apart.

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Hard to imagine there was still not significant value left to maintain a firm that with that many offices and employees that services many different industries, at least according their website. Like others have said, they have been making a bunch of moves indicative of a firm that was still growing, not about to fall apart.

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A lot of lawyers had a profit center in the IBM copier back in the day.

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I’m in house. I came on board with a new company six years ago. One of the first decisions I made was firing outside counsel who was charging for copies and passing along the west law bill.