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Will Law Firms’ NY Obsession Continue After Wall Street Meltdown?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 5, 2008, 3:26 pm CST

The Wall Street meltdown poses a lot of intriguing questions for law firms. Will their obsession with New York continue? Will the big firms have to lower their billing rates, giving upstart firms in the city an edge?

The New York Law Journal poses the questions but lawyers and experts interviewed appeared to agree the obsession will continue, and bigger may be better.

Ward Bower of legal consulting firm Altman Weil said firms with large New York offices will be better positioned to compete for business and more likely to be less dependent on any one client to survive.

“It exposes the vulnerability of firms that are trying to replicate that kind of geographic footprint,” Bower told the publication. “They need to get really big, really fast.”

Among the firms seeking to expand in New York is San Francisco-based Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. Firm chairman Ralph Baxter told the New York Law Journal that Orrick is still committed to New York. Still, Baxter predicted tough times ahead, particularly for smaller firms, using the word “Darwinian” to describe the likely shakeout.

“There will be fewer, larger banks and fewer, larger law firms,” he said. “Some firms should shrink, and focus.” For Orrick, “there will be some adjustment,” he said. “But there’s really no way to be an American-origin firm that has anything to do with capital markets and finance without being in New York in a serious way.”