Client Pledges Fealty to Ex-Milbank Partner Shunning BigLaw ‘Profit Model’
Gregory Evans is leaving a partnership at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy to start a new high-stakes litigation law firm that disdains the BigLaw “profit model.”
He already has at least one corporate client, the National Law Journal reports. Don McConnell, chief environmental lawyer at Sherwin-Williams, issued a prepared statement pledging that Evans will get his company’s business.
“Greg can pretty much go anywhere to practice law and we will follow him,” McConnell said. “It’s all about Greg and his abilities, not the fancy firm and its high prices. In our environmental cases, we need people like Greg who put us first and get us the best results. Often, big firms just seem to get in the way of this kind of extremely valuable relationship.”
Evans also had harsh words for the traditional billing methods of law firms. He told the NLJ that he has seen throughout the legal industry a reluctance to embrace a new model of representing the legal interests of businesses. “I want to, in this model, connect more closely with my clients and avoid the unbearable tension at times between a big firm profit model and the needs of businesses that are suffering through difficult economic times,” he said.
Evans’ Los Angeles firm, the Integer Law Corp., will consider alternative billing methods such as contingency or partial contingency fees, reduced billing rates and performance-based bonuses, the NLJ story says.
