{"id":300,"date":"2012-10-29T19:07:51","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T23:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/?p=300"},"modified":"2013-09-20T19:09:47","modified_gmt":"2013-09-20T23:09:47","slug":"legal-entrepreneurship-looking-beyond-a-book-of-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/2012\/10\/29\/legal-entrepreneurship-looking-beyond-a-book-of-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Entrepreneurship: Looking Beyond a \u201cBook of Business\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"littleblack$book\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by: Zack Bombatch, Staff Writer<\/p>\n

Several law firms want their potential hires to \u201cthink like entrepreneurs.\u201d\u00a0 Translation: firms want to bring on attorneys who have perfected the art of bringing in new business.\u00a0 In fact, www.monster.com reveals that several prestigious firms in the Pittsburgh region require applicants to have a \u201cportable book of business,\u201d sometimes in excess of $300,000.\u00a0 But what should attorneys, ranging from recent graduates to seasoned practitioners, consider \u201centrepreneurial\u201d such that they will land a position with an esteemed firm?\u00a0 Are firms only looking for attorneys who have already attained clients with significant monthly legal needs, or is there something more to being a \u201clegal entrepreneur?\u201d<\/p>\n

The American law firm has emerged as a new animal in the wake of the recent enduring economic recession.\u00a0 Large firms require much more from their attorneys, even their entry-level associates, by mandating their job responsibilities reach beyond assisting in the provision of legal advice and focus more attention of firm-wide business functions.\u00a0 While the legal industry is a service industry, firms now realize that they must contain internal costs that cannot be passed along to their clients.\u00a0 Beyond reducing overhead, firms must now, more than ever, identify areas of society that require legal advice.\u00a0 Instead of reacting to client needs, firms must proactively pursue areas of practice that will generate sustainable revenue streams. \u00a0\u00a0This is not a novel idea; however, the proactive approach to legal counsel now must reach far beyond the next quarter or even fiscal year.\u00a0 It must reach into the next decade to determine where the surges in areas of legal practice will emerge.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In the Pittsburgh area, \u00a0the economic boom in the energy industry has provided many Pittsburgh firms with the opportunities to create centers of excellence in oil and gas law, property law, and a myriad of other energy-related law; however, this boom is cyclical.\u00a0 Eventually, the surge in these interrelated areas of practice will subside.\u00a0 The true entrepreneurial lawyers will be the ones who identify the next areas of law that will ride the wave of the shale industry. The price of natural gas has plummeted to such low levels that companies from across the nation has explored the possibility of setting up shop in the Pittsburgh region.\u00a0 There is a plethora of legal practice to be pursued in the decades to come.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The energy industry projects an increase of 1.5 million jobs by the year 2035 for the shale regions.\u00a0 It is important for attorneys to realize that \u201cdrilling is just the beginning\u201d is not merely a slogan, but a truth of the region.\u00a0 What\u2019s next?\u00a0 Entrepreneurial lawyers will be able to identify the types of businesses that will relocate to their geographical area, those businesses\u2019 future challenges, and the rights and liabilities of businesses and individuals impacted by this new economic activity.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
This entrepreneurial approach to firm growth is not contained to the legal industry.\u00a0 Several Fortune 500 companies enjoy sustainable success by taking risks that some start-up companies with less than ten employees would pursue.\u00a0 A study of Asian business models demonstrates that many companies have adopted a \u201chundred year business plan,\u201d where businesses project the economics boom and busts of the future and structure their plans accordingly in anticipation of these fluctuations.\u00a0 Maybe 100 years is a bit far in advance for the legal community, but it is not outside the realm of possibility for a firm to develop a 10 or 20 year business plan that will provide structure and predictability as the legal industry wades through the ocean of the changing legal needs of the region.<\/div>\n

This approach is not and should not be reserved for large firms.\u00a0 It is likely that medium sized and small law firms who feel the pulse of the region on a very micro level will identify these trends before they even emerge.\u00a0 Legal entrepreneurship may require firms to fundamentally shift their practice areas multiple times over the course of several years, but if properly executed through calculated risks, these adjustments should be rewarded.\u00a0 Failure to look well into the future of the legal industry could put many firms at risk for disaster, especially as a large number of firms have struggled to survive this decade\u2019s economic environment and new legal business arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by: Zack Bombatch, Staff Writer Several law firms want their potential hires to \u201cthink like entrepreneurs.\u201d\u00a0 Translation: firms want to bring on attorneys who have perfected the art of bringing in new business.\u00a0 In fact, www.monster.com reveals that several prestigious firms in the Pittsburgh region require applicants to have a [\u2026] <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-juris-blog","category-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}