“One-Firm” Firm Revisited: Latham & Watkins

Los Angeles-based megafirm Latham & Watkins was featured in David Maister’s blog post revisiting the topic he wrote about in 1985 for Sloan Management Review – “The One-Firm Firm.” In the 1985 article, he identified a strategy common to leading firms across a broad array of professions — creating institutional loyalty and team focus. One strategy for creating that loyalty and focus, as Maister writes, is to create good alumni networks for departing laterals. And Latham & Watkins has done just that.

    

According to Maister, “In the mid-1990s, Latham made a calculation about how much of then current business came directly or indirectly from alums. The figure was approaching 50 percent. And it was great business — name-brand clients, often premium rates, quicker bill collection, pleasant dealings, and so on. Moreover, the clients benefited because the alums had a special feel for the firm, including knowledge of strengths and weaknesses. In some cases, alternative risk/reward billing arrangements could be worked out because of the built-in trust factor.”

    

There’s much more in his blog post, which is also available in PDF format. And there’s much more information about Latham & Watkins available in the ALM Research Online database in the Law Firm Reports section, where 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year reports contain the compiled information from surveys and rankings having to do with financials and demographics, and from published reports of the firm’s lateral partner moves to and from the firm, technology purchases, client representation, and more. Reports are available free to subscribers, and on a pay-per-view basis for non-subscribers.