By Murray Gottheil | March 9, 2025 Photo by Max Fischer at Pexels At My First Rodeo Client (C): We need to close this transaction in two weeks. Murray (M): That is impossible. C: The vendor said that his lawyer told him that deadline is perfectly reasonable. Why are you creating roadblocks? If you cannot get […]
By Murray Gottheil | February 13, 2024 Imagine the following scenario: Jordan is a third year associate with Big Law targets. He typically achieves that target and receives a bonus of $18,000. He is also paid 10% of the billed and collected business that he brings in. Despite the “reasonableness” of the target, Jordan is […]
By Murray Gottheil | February 10, 2025 Back in the day, before I became as warm, compassionate, empathetic, and all-around loveable as I am today, I had a reputation as someone who did not suffer fools gladly. There were even a few people around the office who found me to be intimidating. Of course, self-awareness not […]
By Murray Gottheil | January 23, 2025 In law firms, more zeros are better than fewer zeros. For example, announcing, “Look at me! I just closed a $100,000,000 acquisition” impresses your colleagues more than saying, “I just did a deal worth $10,000,000.” A deal that was only worth $965,000 is not even worth mentioning. Frankly, it is almost […]
By Murray Gottheil | January 15, 2025 Lawyers struggle to attract talent who are both capable and a good fit for a firm’s culture. If only there were consultants whom firms could retain and candidates could work with who understand the market, the culture in different firms and practice groups, the current salaries being paid by […]
By Murray Gottheil | January 6, 2025 I’m not sure I can say there is a clean line between me as an individual and me as a lawyer – Anita Hill Retiring may be difficult for many lawyers, because too often lawyering is not only what we do, but who we are. You cannot retire from […]
By Murray Gottheil | December 18, 2024 Husband: “Green Acres is the place to be . . . keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.” Wife: “New York is where I’d rather stay. I get allergic smelling hay. I just adore a penthouse view. Dah-ling, I love you, but give me Park Avenue.” – Lyrics by Vic […]
By Murray Gottheil | December 10, 2024 Way back in 1997, my firm had an existential crisis when our three largest rainmakers decided to ditch private practice to chase the really big money. And of course, they all wanted their capital back. At the same time. So, brilliant lawyer that I was, after surviving that crisis, […]
By Murray Gottheil | December 9, 2024 This is Part Four of my series on retiring from the legal profession. In the first three parts, I did not even mention “the Number”. We all know what the Number is: the amount of investments that you supposedly require so that you can retire. I spent many years […]
By Murray Gottheil | December 7, 2024 In Part One, I told you to figure out what you want your retirement to look like. In Part Two I advised you to get to know yourself. This time, a cautionary note. You need to figure out if you really want to retire or whether you are just […]