APPETITE, NOT DEBT, KILLED WEIL GOTSHAL
Weil, Gotshal & Manges had no debt and US$5.6 million in profit per equity partner, yet it’s winding down after more than 50 partners left for firms that paid more. In a profession that can’t find lawyers for people earning $30,000 a year, that appetite raises the question of what law is supposed to be about.
AI: Ask a Stupid Question, Get a Stupid Answer
Young lawyers who draft documents and form legal opinions by prompting AI, without ever having done the work themselves, lack the understanding to know which questions need to be asked — something AI can’t yet figure out on its own. The result: they rely on bad answers because they don’t know better, and that’s how negligence claims happen.
Survey asks: Are judges happier than lawyers?
A Canadian Judicial Council study found that judges report less than half the anxiety and depression lawyers do, and high satisfaction with their work. Marcel Strigberger’s not surprised: he concludes that considering the pay, the pension and the power, it’s good to be the judge.
Ill Winds That Blow No Good
Photo by Mike Bird at Pexels By Murray Gottheil | October 25, 2026 It is an ill wind that blows no good. – John Heywood I recently wrote what I thought was a rather nifty article about the ills in the legal profession, and concluded, as I often do, that many of them can be traced to […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: AI confesses — six ways I get the law wrong | Lawyer defames law firm, jury awards $50,000 | Scotiabank lists growth areas for lawyers | Borderless AI’s Alberni: multi-jurisdictional compliance without law firms | Court clears class action for $30 billion in illegal tariffs
By Julius Melnitzer | October 22, 2026 AI CONFESSES— SIX WAYS I GET THE LAW WRONG Roshi Sharma of LawBEAM ran output from Harvey, a generative AI platform, through LawBEAM’s own legal AI engine and, Sharma says, found fatal errors of law and fact. Asked to explain, Harvey admitted six failings. In its own words: […]
Stabbing Back in the Law Firm
By Murray Gottheil | October 15, 2026 I liked some of my partners all of the time; most of my partners most of the time; and one or two, almost never. I suspect that my partners, as a group, had similar sentiments about me. The first thing to know about being a partner in a […]
Quebec’s judicial AI guidelines tell judges only what not to do: lawyer
Dmitry Shniger Dmitry Shniger says the joint framework catalogues prohibitions without telling judges how to properly use the tech By Julius Melnitzer | September 16, 2026 Quebec’s new guidelines on the judicial use of generative artificial intelligence are written to discourage judges from using the technology at all, says Dmitry Shniger, a Toronto lawyer whose […]
Collapse of the U.K.’s Woodville a cautionary tale for Canadian law firms
By Julius Melnitzer | September 5, 2026 Woodville Consultants Limited, which called itself a litigation funder and has been widely and wrongfully described as such in the media, has collapsed and is in administration in the United Kingdom. Still, its demise raises serious questions for Canadian law firms who have or are seeking loans. The High Court […]
Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way
By Murray Gottheil | July 24, 2026 “Lead, follow, or get out of the way” is an expression which some attribute to Thomas Payne. Tommy died in 1809, so this is hardly a new turn of speech. And yet, back in my law firm (and I suspect in many others), there were partners who never came […]
I Heard it Through the Gripe Vine
By Julia Volk at Pexels By Murray Gottheil | July 23, 2026 A long time ago, when I had a modicum of influence in a law firm, I used to include a sentence in every offer letter to associates to the effect that we expected our lawyers to be part of the solution to issues […]