Posted by Margaret Daisley
A May 25th story in The Recorder (ALM’s San Francisco newspaper) focuses on the efforts of a several small firms – Carroll, Burdick & McDonough; Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass; Farella Braun & Martel – to be proactive in archiving the firm’s history. Although reporter Marie-Anne Hogarth writes that “documenting the past is especially important to smaller firms, whose size makes them more vulnerable to loss of identity in a consolidating legal marketplace,” the same could be said about all firms, large, medium, and small. Marketing departments have gotten involved in the small firms’ efforts—even hosting lunches in which partners pass along stories about the firm and their experiences. Oral history, photographs, building permits, a cookbook (yes, a partner at Coblentz wrote one called “Torts and Tarts”), all become valuable fodder for the coffee table book or documentary that might be commissioned for the firm’s significant anniversary.
Yes – documentaries and coffee table books are in. Boring text-only histories are so passé – thanks, in part, to the influence of companies such as The History Factory, a “heritage management” company that was responsible for Shearman & Sterling’s remarkable book and accompanying traveling exhibit that were produced in celebration of the firm’s 125th anniversary a few years back. The History Factory now offers a free quarterly e-newsletter, and the current issue has a great article about the importance of documenting merger transactions, with suggestions about how to go about it. The previous issue – the first – had to do with how to archive photographs. Sorry I can’t provide a link to the newsletter. You’ll just have to subscribe. But it’s free.
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