1 Definitions of what constitute “large” firms are always somewhat arbitrary. Suffice it to say that this aticle deals with American law firms of more than 60 lawyers.Google Scholar

2 See generally Erwin O. Smigel, The Wall Street Lawyer: Professional Organization Man? (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964); Corinne Lathrop Gilb, Hidden Hierarchies: The Professions and Government (New York: Harper & Row, 1966); Jerold S. Auerbach, Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976); and Joel B. Grossman, Lawyers and Judges: The ABA and the Politics of Judicial Selection (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965).Google Scholar

3 Heinz, John P. & Laumann, Edward O., The Legal Profession: Client Interests, Professional Roles, and Social Hierarchies, 76 Mich. L. Rev. 1111 (1978); Laumann, Edward O. & Heinz, John P., Specialization and Prestige in the Legal Profession: The Structure of Deference, 1977 A.B.F. Res. J. 155 (1977).Google Scholar

4 Laumann & Heinz, supra note 3, at 166–67, list rapidity of change scores for legal specialties. The fields composing a large-firm practice score relatively high.Google Scholar

5 Smigel, supra note 2, at 359.Google Scholar

6 Nat'l L.J., Oct. 6, 1980, at 32; id., Oct. 13, 1980, at 34.Google Scholar

7 See, e.g., Cantor, Daniel J., Law Firms Are Getting Bigger … and More Complex, 64 A.B.A.J. 215 (1978).Google Scholar

8 On the rise of professional management in the corporation, see Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1962); and id., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977). For a historical look at hospitals, see Rosemary Stevens, American Medicine and the Public Interest (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971). Also see Eliot Freidson, The Hospital in Modern Society (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963).Google Scholar

9 See, e.g., Charles F. Chamberlayne, The Soul of the Profession, 18 Green Bag 397 (July 1906), cited in Auerbach, supra note 2, at 31 n.44.Google Scholar

10 The definition Smigel cites, supra note 2, at vii, is from Peter M. Blau, Bureaucracy in Modern Society (New York: Random House, 1956).Google Scholar

11 For a discussion of the merits and theoretical underpinnings of a study of organizations in relation to their environments see Arthur L. Stinchcombe, Social Structure and Organizations, in James March, ed., Handbook of Organizations 142 (Chicago: Rand McNally College Publishing Co., 1965); and Aldrich, Howard E. & Pfeffer, Jeffrey, Environments of Organizations, 1976 Ann. Rev. 79. A discussion of the general principles of structural analysis, in which the central focus is how social structures are constructed and transformed over time, is presented in Jean Piaget, Structuralism, trans, and ed. Chaninah Maschler (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), especially at 13.Google Scholar

12 We interviewed lawyers in eight Chicago firms, four of which were studied comprehensively. The data used in this article were generated from 76 topical, in-depth interviews with lawyers who primarily occupy leadership positions in the firms. The interviews were taped and transcribed or reconstructed through notes and verbatim recall. In addition to these interviews, a random cross section of 237 lawyers in four firms were administered a standard face-to-face interview. Details of cross-sectional interviews will be presented as appropriate in the articles to come.Google Scholar

13 There have been some studies of the management of firms that do not contain much sociological content. See, e.g., Kline D. Strong, A Scholastic Approach to Law Firm Management (Salt Lake City: American Press, 1971). A somewhat informal mailed survey of firms conducted in 1954 received less than a 25 percent response rate but includes some interesting observations on large firms. See Roger B. Siddall, A Survey of Large Law Firms in the United States (New York: Vantage Press, private printing, [1955]).Google Scholar

14 Smigel, supra note 2.Google Scholar

15 Id. at vii-viii.Google Scholar

16 Id. at 14.Google Scholar

17 In fairness to Smigel, I should note that he develops a theory of “professional bureaucracy” to describe law firm organization, id. at 275–86; discusses strains and dilemmas facing the organization, at 292–307; and makes predictions about further growth and bureaucratization in firms, at 341–52. Throughout the discussion, however, he treats the consequences of growth and professional bureaucracy as problematic, without confronting growth and bureaucratization as processes that are problematic in themselves.Google Scholar

18 The concepts of practice and privilege are loosely parallel to concepts Bendix uses to analyze different systems of production and their attendant systems of authority. See Reinhard Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry: Ideologies of Management in the Course of Industrialization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974). As is true of Bendix's work, many of the themes concerning types of organizations come from Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed. Guenther Roth & Claus Wittich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).Google Scholar

19 For a review and critique of definitions of the professions see Margali Sarfatti Larson, The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis x-xviii (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), and citations within.Google Scholar

20 For a general discussion of the impact of professionalism on the organization of American society, including the significance of professionalism for channeling the values and work of the middle class, see Burton J. Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1976).Google Scholar

21 E.g., Stevens has written on the socializing impact of law school on the legal profession that tends to make young lawyers resist specialization. Robert Stevens, Two Cheers for 1870: The American Law School, in Donald Fleming & Bernard Dailyn, eds., Perspectives in American History, vol. 5, Law in American History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971). See also the text at pp. 125–26 infra.Google Scholar

22 Smigel, supra note 2 at 36–140, 150. The definition of dishonorable work is constantly in transition. Large firms increasingly handle criminal defense work, “blue-chip” divorce work, and other fields formerly thought to be improper. See, e.g., the text at pp. 114–15 infra.Google Scholar

23 See Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law 549 et seq. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973). For a report of statistical trends away from solo practice toward firm, government, and corporate legal department practice, see Bette H. Sikes, Clara N. Carson, & Patricia Gorai, eds., The 1971 Lawyer Statistical Report 10–11 table 5 (Chicago: American Bar Foundation, 1971).Google Scholar

24 I Robert T. Swaine, The Cravath Firm and Its Predecessors, 1819–1947 (New York: Ad Press, private printing, 1946).Google Scholar

25 Walter K. Earle, Mr. Shearman and Mr. Sterling and How They Grew (New Haven, Conn.: Carl Purington Rollins Printing-Office of the Yale University Press, 1963).Google Scholar

26 Edgar Lee Masters, Levy Mayer and the New Industrial Era (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1927).Google Scholar

27 The size of New York City firms in earlier years had to be estimated because many New York firms did not list associates in Martindale-Hubbell. Because we estimated size based on partner-associate ratios in 1979, when incoming classes of associates were quite large, the estimates might be slightly exaggerated. However, we take confidence in the findings because the differences in size among firms are large enough to make it unlikely that the rankings are an artifact of how we estimated size.Google Scholar

28 See Bodine, Larry, Mammoth Firm Keeps Steamrolling, Nat'l. L.J., Aug. 13, 1979, at 1.Google Scholar

29 See Briefs: Kutak's Conversion Factor, Am. Law., Sept. 1979, at 6.Google Scholar

30 A similar set of analyses were attempted for New York City firms. However, because of inconsistent practices for listing associates, no satisfactory tables could be assembled.Google Scholar

31 Earle, supra note 25, at 204–7.Google Scholar

32 One example of this is regulatory work for major airlines. At one time firms performed these services for airlines, but as the flow of regulatory work became steady the airlines developed corporate counsel to deal with much of it.Google Scholar

33 When the wage-price freeze was imposed in 1971 it led to a boom of wage-price work by firms. (Comments made in several interviews.) For a study of this incident in the sudden creation of law work, see Robert A. Kagan, Regulatory Justice: Implementing a Wage-Price Freeze (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1978).Google Scholar

34 For example, with the rapid growth of the health industry and the increasing regulation of health care, the health field requires significantly more legal representation than in the past. Other markets develop from new legislation, such as ERISA and energy law.Google Scholar

35 Stinchcombe, supra note 11, at 153–64.Google Scholar

36 Ceteris paribus other factors may limit the expansion of person-oriented specialties in large firms. The high overhead cost of large-firm practice narrows the range of individuals who can afford to pay for large-firm services. Hence, the large-firm practice in personal service areas may, in the words of a probate lawyer I spoke with, take on a “Gucci-like” quality, serving a small, high-priced market.Google Scholar

37 Smigel, supra note 2, at 150.Google Scholar

38 Arthur L. Stinchcombe, Norms of Exchange, in William Starbuck, ed., Handbook on Organizational Design 37 (forthcoming). Stinchcombe describes these as the characteristics of exchange among parties in a fiduciary relationship.Google Scholar

39 The one-case, one-transaction quality of the lawyer-client relationship depends on the scope of the matter involved. For example, a very large piece of litigation, because of the time interval it entails, may take on a look of continuity. The important question is whether the lawyer-client relationship continues in a significant way after the conclusion of the case.Google Scholar

40 Some qualifications may be appropriate here. Many of the fields I have labeled market specialties are thought to include fiduciary relationships, such as the role of an attorney in the probate of an estate. To that extent my usage of the term fiduciary may depart from the common legal vernacular. Also, it is interesting to note that, in his analysis of counsel to corporations, Slovak draws a similar distinction between the lawyer's role as a fiduciary versus the role as special agent. He defines the difference with respect to in-house counsel versus counsel in an outside firm. I see the difference as more pervasive, extending throughout relationships between outside counsel and clients. See Slovak, Jeffrey S., Working for Corporate Actors: Social Change and Elite Attorneys in Chicago, 1979 A.B.F. Res. J. 456, 494, 498.Google Scholar

41 E.g., a partner in litigation suggested the importance of his activities in the American College of Trial Lawyers as a means of learning the reputations of litigators as well as for maintaining his own visibility. Similarly, the leading partner of a firm saw significance in the public reputation lawyers in the firm developed by participation in professional associations and civic affairs. Another partner leading a section of a firm spoke of the value of visibility in representing certain cultural and educational institutions to getting other business. I do not mean to suggest that these external forums exclusively dominate the legal marketplace. Institutional ties among firms are still an important aspect of referrals for large firms. For example, a New York firm may regularly use a particular Chicago firm when it needs local counsel in Chicago.Google Scholar

42 Talcott Parsons, A Sociologist Looks at the Legal Profession, in Talcott Parsons, Essays on Sociological Theory 370 (rev. ed. New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1954).Google Scholar

43 I would argue that the distinction between growth by general service versus special representation is a very useful way of bringing together a number of developments within and outside of large law firms. Before leaving the discussion, however, it may be useful to put my proposition in perspective. The two forms of growth are, to a certain extent, conscious strategies followed by firms. My interviews with lawyers in leadership positions in firms evidence an awareness of different ways to develop clientele. But the distinction between the two styles of growth is not meant to be defined solely in terms of an attorney's state of mind. It is offered, instead, as a way of summarizing observable tendencies by firms. Also, when discussing a series of complicated and interrelated events across the sweep of the profession, there may be a tendency to sound a bit teleological, as though the events seem to have an inner consistency or plan. The growth of firms has not been so ordered. If my narrative gives that impression, it should be seen as an idiom of explanation. Finally, it is worth emphasizing that while the two paths of growth may give rise to different types of firms, it is not strictly a distinction between firms but between two processes by which firms develop. The mixture of styles in any particular firm will, however, affect its character.Google Scholar

44 Chandler, Strategy, supra note 8, at 9–11.Google Scholar

45 Id. at 11.Google Scholar

46 The terms entrepreneurs, managers, and workers are consistent with Parson's definition of institutional, managerial, and core roles in organizations. Talcott Parsons, Structure and Process in Modern Societies (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1960).Google Scholar

47 Some of our interviews have suggested that the real “shakers and movers” of firms occasionally are not on the formal governing committee. This would appear to be the exception rather than the rule.Google Scholar

48 A more detailed analysis of careers within large firms will be presented in succeeding publications. For now, the general beliefs about the careers of leaders will suffice.Google Scholar

49 Smigel, supra note 2, at 211–15. Personal interviews make a similar point.Google Scholar

50 Part of this reluctance to speak about the planning function may stem from, as one of this respondent's partners suggested, “the feeling by most of us that we've gotten bigger than we really wanted to be.”.Google Scholar

51 For a complete history of the career of Paul Cravath see Swaine, supra note 24. For a discussion of Sloan's role in developing the multidivisional corporation, see Chandler, Strategy, supra note 8, at 130.Google Scholar

52 1 Swaine, supra note 24, at 573.Google Scholar

53 Id. at 573.Google Scholar

54 Id. at 575.Google Scholar

55 2 id. at 10.Google Scholar

56 Id. at 9.Google Scholar

57 Id. at 11, 12.Google Scholar

58 Id. at 5. As Smigel has pointed out, however, supra note 2, at 65–67, the early hiring policies of many large firms discriminated against Jews. Cravath's merit system may have been similarly circumscribed.Google Scholar

59 The practice of the firm Cravath molded has taken a somewhat different tack in recent years. Beginning in the later Cravath years the firm did a considerable amount of litigation, which has become more prominent. For example, Cravath currently represents IBM in a widely publicized, mammoth antitrust action.Google Scholar

60 See, e.g., Reuben Fights Kirkland & Ellis for Lawyers, Clients, Am. Law., Aug. 11, 1978, at 1; and Crowell & Mooring Debuts Friday, Legal Times of Washington, May 28, 1979, at 7 Google Scholar

61 The above departures all seemed to involve the departure of clients with the lawyers representing them. With the possible exception of the Reuben-Kirkland split, they also involved lawyers with specialties I have terms special representation fields.Google Scholar

62 Smigel, supra note 2, at 258.Google Scholar

63 Id. at 36–69.Google Scholar

64 Expansion into new fields of law is another matter. It is frequently necessary for firms to hire a partner from government or elsewhere to “start up” a new area in the firm's practice.Google Scholar

65 The proportions of minorities in large firms is probably less than their proportion in the profession as a whole. The fate of women is less clear. The large firms in which I interviewed have hired a significant proportion of women in recent years.Google Scholar

66 Stevens, supra note 21.Google Scholar

67 For a display of a wide variety of disclaimers, see the Employer Directory for the Use of Harvard Law School Students, comp., Office of Placement and Counseling (Fall 1978).Google Scholar

68 Remarks of Sheli Rosenberg at the Chicago Council of Lawyers' Conference on Law Firms, Oct. 1978. This point has also been supported in a number of interviews.Google Scholar

69 See table 1 infra.Google Scholar

70 For a detailed discussion of various types of collegial organizations, see 1 Weber, supra note 18, at 271–82.Google Scholar

71 There are exceptions in which management positions are elective. The electoral procedures vary from one-man-one-vote to voting by partnership shares to voting by age cohorts.Google Scholar

72 For a discussion of variations in the organization of work and of some variables affecting how work is organized see Charles B. Perrow, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View (Monterey, Cal.: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co., 1970); and Stinchcombe, Arthur L., Bureaucratic and Craft Administration of Production: A Comparative Study, 4 Ad. Sci. Q. 168 (1959).Google Scholar

73 Some argue that professionals in large organizations have become alienated from the work they do. See, e.g., Martin Oppenheimer, The Proletarianization of the Professional (Sociological Review Monograph No. 20, University of Keele [Scotland], 1973). It is not clear to what extent this is an accurate assessment for lawyers in large firms. Massive litigation and other large, coordinated projects may introduce a new level of the division of labor in the firm, but the craft organization of practice remains the basic form of production in the firm. Data on the work processes and attitudes of lawyers in firms that will inform the question have been collected and will be analyzed. My general hypothesis is that it is not necessary to the continually expanded profitability of the firm to radically alter the professional work process. Therefore, in radical parlance, it may be possible to produce continually expanding surplus for firms without a radical transformation of the work process itself.Google Scholar

74 Fried, Charles, The Lawyer as Friend: The Moral Foundations of the Lawyer-Client Relation, 85 Yale L.J. 1060 (1976). See also the quote at p. 115 supra.Google Scholar

75 See Parsons, supra note 42.Google Scholar

76 See 1 Weber, supra note 18, at 24–25.Google Scholar

77 Chandler, Strategy, supra note 8, at 299–323.Google Scholar

78 Sikes et al., supra note 23.Google Scholar

79 There are a number of relatively fixed factors to sustain the corporate practice. Independent outside counsel are necessary for some kinds of corporate work, particularly in light of the regulatory climate for securities work. Also, some clients have less economic incentive for internalizing legal work, either because they can pass the charges on to their clients directly or because they are a budgetary institution (such as a public utility).Google Scholar

80 For example, as was previously noted, firms in different cities will exchange client referrals for work located in the city of their counterpart.Google Scholar

81 Am. Law., Aug. 1980, at 3, noted that the Chicago firm of Sidley & Austin encountered difficulties with conflicts of interest when considering a merger with firms in Los Angeles.Google Scholar

82 E.g., the major portion of the Washington office of the Cleveland firm of Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue split from the parent firm.Google Scholar

83 2 Weber, supra note 18, at 895.Google Scholar

84 Id. at 775–76.Google Scholar

85 See Barlow Christensen, Specialization (Tentative draft 1967); Richard Zehnle, Specialization in the Legal Profession: An Analysis of Current Proposals (Chicago: American Bar Foundation, 1975).Google Scholar

86 See Laumann & Heinz, supra note 3.Google Scholar

87 See Jerome E. Carlin, Lawyers on Their Own: A Study of Individual Practitioners in Chicago 203 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1962); Terence C. Halliday, Inns, Courts and Honoratiores: Legal Associations and the Rationalization of the Judiciary, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, Aug. 1976.Google Scholar

88 See also Gilb, supra note 2, at 112–40, 153–56.Google Scholar

89 John P. Heinz & Edward O. Laumann, Chicago Lawyers: The Professions of the Bar (forthcoming) find that high-prestige specialists tend to favor the merit selection of judges and no-fault insurance, value positions that are rational by Weber's standards. Although no data have been tabulated, the cross-sectional interviews with lawyers conducted for purposes of this study indicate almost uniform support for the rationalization of law in various forms, including suggestions to pass uniform state laws on real estate, the simplification of tax law, procedures to expedite and make litigation less expensive, and the like.Google Scholar

90 1 & 2 Weber, supra note 18, at 334, 377, 813–14. It should be noted that Weber seems to be inconsistent in his analysis of the relationship between law and economic development, saying in some passages that conditions of commerce in large part determine the character of law and the legal profession, id. at 334, 775, while saying elsewhere that economic factors are less important in shaping law than politics and traditions of legal technique, id. at 654–55. This has given rise to an exegetical argument over the correct interpretation. See Trubek, David, Max Weber on Law and the Rise of Capitalism, 1972 Wis. L. Rev. 720.Google Scholar

91 Pp. 134–35 supra.Google Scholar

92 See Morton J. Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law, 1780–1860 (Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press, 1977).Google Scholar

93 Stinchcombe, supra note 72.Google Scholar

94 Laumann, Edward O. & Heinz, John P., The Organization of Lawyers' Work: Size, Intensity, and Co-Practice of the Fields of Law, 1979 A.B.F. Res. J. 217.Google Scholar

95 This is similar to the concept of slippage in organizations suggested by Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

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