Lexington, KY - In an era of mergers among several of the region's top law firms, Louisville-based Greenebaum Doll & McDonald recently announced plans to join forces with Bingham McHale of Indianapolis, Ind. The result is a 250-lawyer firm called Bingham Greenebaum Doll. Bingham's Toby McClamroch and Greenebaum's Phil Scott, co-chair the new firm. Carolyn Brown was named managing partner of its Lexington office. Scott and Brown sat down with Business Lexington's Tom Martin to discuss the merger, as well as the state of the legal industry today.
TM (Tom Martin): In recent years, we have seen a number of law firm mergers in the region. Why did this move make sense for Greenebaum?
PS (Phil Scott): It made sense that we would have the depth, the experience, the talent that is necessary to handle the business affairs of our clients. To recruit the talent that you need to be able to handle matters on behalf of your clients, you have to have certain resources available. And that becomes attractive to the young attorneys that would be coming into the firm, and as you train them, then you have a deeper bench. It's not unlike a football team in many respects: The more good players that I have as a coach, the better chance I have to field a winning team on behalf of our clients.
TM: What does each firm bring to the other that results in that depth?
PS: Both firms look remarkably similar to each other. We have experience and expertise, certainly, in the litigation trial arena, as does the legacy Bingham firm. But the legacy Greenebaum firm has the tax experience and expertise that will fit nicely into working with their clients in Indiana - now our clients in Indiana. And they have an excellent bond group that does municipal bonding. We didn't have that expertise. And so the pieces seem to fit just exceptionally well.
TM: When you're contemplating a merger such as this, to what extent do corporate cultures come into play? How important is that?
PS: It's extremely important. Toby McClamroch and I worked different meetings for probably over a month just to see if our cultures would work before we got into the business aspects. Do our lawyers have the same goals? Do we have the same backgrounds? Are the personalities likely to fit?
We went about this merger basically with two prongs. One was the culture, and the other, of course, was the business details. Toby and I went through them, and the answer obviously came when we merged, because it worked. We've had other discussions over the years with other firms, and sometimes the culture just didn't seem to quite be right.
TM: Carolyn Brown, what is the lay of the land out there for prospective law school grads? What does it look like on the entry level these days?
CB (Carolyn Brown): Well, that's a subject near and dear to my heart, considering I have a son who is a first-year law student. My thought on that is it's challenging. If you want to be assured of employment, you really need to work hard and be at the top of your class, and that's exactly what I've told my son, because I think it is a challenging time for graduating lawyers to find positions. There are opportunities out there, but it's just much tougher than it used to be, and with the economy the way it is, I don't see that turning around in any real short-term period.
TM: Is the economy the main driver behind that scenario or are there other key factors?
CB: I think it's probably a combination of factors. With the use of technology now and the way we try to build on our existing resources, you don't need as many people to throw at projects as you did in the past. We've seen over the years that clients are much more concerned about 'How are you spending my dollars?' and we want to provide the best service we can there. (Clients say) 'We don't want to spend time training young people,' which is understandable. Their goal is to get their project completed, their work done and not to train our young lawyers. So that's another thing, I think, that contributes to some of the slowdown, at least among the larger firms in terms of hiring.
TM: What are prospects for young women entering the profession?
CB: I think the prospects are good. In my career, I have had the good fortune to work at firms where decisions have been based on merit, not gender. In the combined Bingham Greenebaum Doll firm, women serve on the management committee and chair or co-chair practice groups; this is not a new development for either legacy firm. And I expect the role of women in management to continue. I also recognize and hope the young women coming into the profession remember that we owe a debt to the women who came before us and paved the way. I don't think any working woman would deny that it can be a challenge for young lawyers with families to balance professional and personal demands, and in many - but not all - instances, those family demands are more likely to fall on the woman. I think law firms and the business community have made strides in trying to accommodate those needs. However, at the end of the day, attending to the client's needs is and must be the priority of the firm.
TM: Phil Scott, I know you have the benefit of many decades in this profession.
PS: That hurts.
TM: Sorry, but true. How is technology influencing the practice of law today?
PS: You're correct. I have seen a number of things over 40-plus years of practicing law. I had a fascinating discussion with my partners in the early '70s that we needed to get a copier for the office. We had a thermal fax machine. That's how far back we go. And then we did the IBM Mag Cards, and then into the computers. And I can remember for a particular client, we had to file a brief that was about eight or nine pages, and it would be a repetitive thing ... And it would take us almost all night to get the brief done and be ready to go into court the next day. We wouldn't have been served with the summons until the afternoon, say at 5 p.m., that would be a normal thing. Well, we'd work all night and be ready to go then at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. the next morning. Now, because of computers and the various printers and the tools that are available to us, we can get served at 5 p.m. and by 7 p.m., the lawyers that work with us have a 28-page brief ready to go, and they're home having dinner with their families.
We have a huge base of information out there, but the one thing we always have to be very careful about is, you send me an email and you almost expect me to immediately hit reply and provide an answer. And that is terribly dangerous in the legal profession. What clients are engaging us to do is to think and think properly and give them the correct answers. And sometimes the technology is a little quicker than the human mind and the thought process that we have to go through to come up with the right answer. So while technology has changed things and you can be at home to do some things, there's no short cut for good solid thinking on behalf of your clients as you go through these matters.
TM: Are you seeing a change in the behavior of the clientele? People are able to better inform themselves these days.
PS: Certainly. Knowledge has proliferated.
TM: Do you sometimes encounter problems related to the factual quality of the information clients pull down from the Internet?
PS: It can cause challenges. There is so much more knowledge out there. I read somewhere that we doubled our knowledge base in the last seven years. I mean it's incredible what is available to people. You've got to have the talent, you've got to have the experience to go through what is available, sift through it carefully and come up with the right answers.
TM: Carolyn, what trends are you seeing that you consider interesting or exciting?
CB: I think specialization, in terms of areas of practice. That's going to continue, because we have so many more areas of the law developing, little niche areas.
TM: Other than the technology, any present-day trends that are cause for concern?
PS: For many years I tried cases. I would go to court and try a case in front of the jury, and we would go through the entire trial. Today, that has changed remarkably. Whether you're in federal court or state court, there are not of lot of jury trials that take place. And some of the talent, you have to practice things and you have to experience them in order to be able to present a case to a jury. Because there're so few cases actually being tried, I wonder if our profession is going to lose some of those skills. We've for years had at law school the trial court practice and moot court appellate-type arguments and so on. Today, more and more things are going through mediation and other dispute-resolution techniques. But the actual trial of a case, I'm concerned that we're not going to have as many practitioners at the bar in 10 years that maybe have tried 50 cases, much less 250. And I do recall the really talented, wonderful trial lawyers that I was able to see and observe early in my career. I doubt that very many of them are still practicing, certainly, because of age, but I don't see others being able to come up and take their place, because there's just not that many cases going to trial. That comment has been shared by federal judges as well as the state court judges. They are observing the same thing.
TM: Would you say that the trial attorney is in some respects an artist?
PS: Oh, clearly. Whether you want to call him an actor or not, he or she'd better be able to look folks in the eye and gain a rapport with the people that are sitting on the jury. You only have that one chance to create that rapport and it's going to be in a small period of time, and you have to be truthful and you have to be direct, and of course, most of us usually say too much and bore the dickens out of them. So you have to watch that.
TM: The combined firms now have offices in cities in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. Do you see any further expansion on the horizon?
PS: Yes. We are going to adapt to the circumstances our clients find themselves in and where we can deliver the best service to them. We're not going to be bound by the three states that we currently practice in.