Whose Client is it Anyway?
Photo by Ogo Johnson: at Pexels By Murray Gottheil | December 3, 2025 The people who make the most money in law firms are not necessarily the smartest lawyers, or the most strategic lawyers, or even the highest-billing lawyers. It’s the lawyers who bring in clients who rake in the largest slice of the profit pie. […]
True legal library confessions: Much overdue about nothing
By Marcel Strigberger | December 1, 2025 Did I commit a crime? If so, I want to come clean. Which gets me to a book entitled The Law of Horses, Including the Law of Innkeepers, Veterinary Surgeons, &c., by one George Henry Hewitt Oliphant. Shortly after being called to the Bar in the mid-1970s, I borrowed the […]
Moving on Up
Photo by Kampus at Pexels By Murray Gottheil | November 24, 2025 One of my former partners checked out my profile on LinkedIn the other day. Since he is a litigator, my paranoid streak – honed to perfection during my 40-year career – got me thinking that perhaps he was trying to find an address for […]
Three certainties: bureaucracy, taxes and bagels
By Marcel Strigberger | November 13, 2025 A sudden impulse struck me recently at my nearby Sobey’s supermarket, causing me to buy a package of bagel chips. For the uninitiated, this product consists of about one bagel or so, toasted, thinly sliced, and packaged. Unlike its one-piece version, which sells for about a dollar, this […]
Partnership, Not the Holy Grail, Part 9: She Left The Suds In the Bucket and the Clothes Hanging Out on the Line
Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev at Pexels By Murray Gottheil | November 12, 2025 Getting into a partnership can be exciting. Staying in one is often more of a mixed bag. But exiting a partnership? Now we have something to talk about! Some of my best client work involved partnership break-ups. They can become very nasty, very […]
The Corporation—Neither a Soul to Be Damned nor an Ass to Be Kicked
By Marcel Strigberger | November 4. 2025 Just one more thing … There’s something that bothers me – – – Columbo I shall start off by quoting Shakespeare: “Fie on the company!” Well, to be accurate, the bard did say the fie part. Now retired from practice, I am reflecting on what it is about […]
Partnership, Not the Holy Grail, Part Eight: All for One, but Me for Me
Photo by Pexels By Murray Gottheil | November 3, 2025 Back in the days when everything seemed to be a binary choice, I was a young man who saw many things in black and white. At the time, I would classify law firms as being one of two types. Type One were “real” partnerships, where people […]
The Road Less Travelled
Yesterday, I took a walk in the woods on a road abandoned long ago. It reminded me of the journey we take in life. Sometimes the road is clear, and other times we must look a little harder for the right road. Its outline may be there, but we might have to climb over a […]
The world of uncivil litigation
By Marcel Strigberger | October 9, 2025 Can hotheads keep lawyers busy? A 50ish gentleman visited a restaurant with his son in Seville, Spain. They ordered two sandwiches. Dad asked for mayo. Waiter said they were out. This did not sit well with Dad. He left, returned with a bottle of gasoline, and set the bar […]
Partnership – Not the Holy Grail, Part Seven: One Size Does Not Fit All
Photo by Pexels By Murray Gottheil | October 7, 2025 We all know people in wonderful marriages. We also know people in terrible marriages. Sometimes we attribute this to them having been so desperate to have a life partner that they rushed into things without taking the time to get to know their partner, or even […]