Michael Heller, Professor of Property et al here at Columbia (and probably one of the best professors I have ever had) is well known for his accalimed tragedy of the anti-commons theories. Where as the tragedy of the commons can be basbarically boiled down to the premis that rational individuals, acting separately, may collectively over-utilize a scarce resource, the tragedy of the anti commons, for those who have not had the benefit of reading some of Heller's work, boils down to the idea that individuals may under-utilize a resource. For example, if too many different individuals hold patents for various inputs necessary for a certain drug's production, the drug maker may not be able to bargain and acquire every patent that he needs and thus, the drug is not produced.

Here, our resource is us. The resource is all lawyers' technical expertise/time/etc. I really do take to heart Eben's comments regarding his aversion to Biglaw and why we should all strive to charter our own courses and find meaningful work. However, what if we, as in all lawyers, suddenly (hypothetically speaking) took this advice and opened independent, indiviudal law firms. No more big firms, just small, one person (or maybe a two person partnership). Applying Heller's anti-commons theory: would this scenario not show the harms possible of reversing the flow of the biglaw fountain? Some big firms built their practices on the grounds of being the best at something. For exmaple, if you break up Firm X, ranked number one in M&A work by Vault or some such ranking, would it not be the case that a valuable pool of knowledge, experience and expertise (and logistical infrastructure for that matter) would be lost?

I do not purport to have the answers. However, my intuition tells me that in many cases, the individual parts do NOT equal the sum. If I am a drug maker and I had to run around to 35 different law shops to get the service I would normally be able to get from one big law firm, I would not be running to embrace the call for all lawyers to chart their own courses independently.

Now remember, this is just a hypo so please do not bother rebutting with: well not every lawyer would open an independent shop etc. BUT, any comments or additional hypos are welcome and appreciated. -- AdamGold? - 12 Apr 2008

I think a key point is that lawyering is collaborative. I don't think that hanging your own shingle and attempting to do an M&A deal by yourself is going to work. Could a small specialized partnership between you and a few of your merger-loving friends pull it off? Could you, working indpendantly, bring other independant lawyers onto the team for the project?

While it easier to envision smaller offices providing a better work environmnent, in many ways size has nothing to do with the problems of large corporate firms. Anywhere that destroys your autonomy is likely a bad place to work, whether it be Cravath or your overbearing uncle's electronics store. The point, I think, is not to go small, but to go independant, even if independance means a collaborative relationship with your partners and colleagues.

-- AdamCarlis - 12 Apr 2008