今年主导法律行业的两大话题是人工智能和横向招聘。我倾向于报道前者。但在我为上周四主持的一场律师私人午餐会安排座位表时，对大所律师之间的“抢椅子游戏”有了新的认识。我尽量确保从一家事务所跳槽的律师不会和他们的老上司坐在一起。你知道，为了维持和平。我们在商业内幕网站的“The Long Play”活动中聚在一起，讨论律所重塑在实践中是什么样子，以及这些实验如何改变与客户的关系。
Two stories have dominated the legal industry this year: artificial intelligence and lateral hiring. I tend to report on the first. But I gained a new appreciation for the musical chairs of Big Law while putting together the seating chart for a private lunch of lawyers I hosted last Thursday. I tried to make sure lawyers who had defected from one firm weren't seated next to their old boss. You know, to keep the peace. We came together at Business Insider's The Long Play event to talk about what law firm reinvention looks like in practice and how those experiments are changing relationships with clients.
LexisNexis赞助了这次午餐会；我策划了宾客名单并主持了谈话。我们无法忽视房间里那头21亿美元的大象。几个小时前，美国最负盛名的律所之一魏尔·高特沙尔（Weil Gotshal）宣布，在一批高知名度合伙人集体离职后，计划清算。这家成立95年的机构，因处理美国历史上一些最大的破产案而闻名，却未能找到自救之道。
LexisNexis sponsored the lunch; I curated the guest list and led the conversation. We couldn't ignore the $2.1 billion elephant in the room. Hours earlier, Weil Gotshal, one of the country's most storied law firms, had announced plans to wind down after an exodus of high-profile partners. The 95-year-old institution, which made its name handling some of the biggest bankruptcies in American history, couldn't find a way to save itself.
餐桌上的与会者似乎都同意：人工智能并未导致魏尔倒闭。但该所的崩溃暴露了大律所始终面临的脆弱性。并引发了一个问题：人工智能会让这些弱点雪上加霜吗？还是说，它反而能帮助律所变得不那么脆弱？魏尔的一位发言人未回应置评请求。大律所由极其盈利的机构组成。许多机构经受住了战争、经济衰退以及帮助律师工作的技术发生的根本性转变。
The table seemed to agree: AI didn't kill Weil. But the firm's implosion exposed vulnerabilities that large law firms have always faced. And it raised a question: Could AI make those weaknesses worse? Or could it actually help law firms become less fragile? A spokesperson for Weil did not respond to a request for comment. Big Law is made up of enormously profitable institutions. Many have survived wars, recessions, and tectonic shifts in the technology that helps their lawyers work.
然而，少数几人的离职就可能引发连锁反应，在数月甚至数周内使整个机构垮台。考克斯媒体集团总法律顾问埃里克·戈德伯格认为，律所一直很脆弱。但白热化的横向招聘市场让它们尤其如此。“这真的是一起银行挤兑案例，人们不想成为留在事务所里的那个人，”他谈到魏尔时说。
Yet a handful of departures can set off a chain reaction that threatens to bring the whole thing down in months or weeks. Eric Greenberg, the general counsel of Cox Media Group, argued that law firms have always been vulnerable. But the white-hot lateral market is making them especially so. "This is really a case where you had a run on the bank and people didn't want to be the ones left at the firm," he said of Weil.
Cooley首席创新官大卫·王（David Wang）认为，韦尔（Weil）的案例提醒人们，尽管外界都在谈论技术颠覆法律工作，但大所律师事务所（Big Law）本质上仍是建立在关系之上的生意。明星合伙人之所以拥有不成比例的影响力，是因为他们带来并维系着客户。当一位“带客高手”跳槽时，事务所面临的不只是失去客户和收入的风险，还可能失去多年来对客户业务及双方合作工作的了解。
David Wang, chief innovation officer of Cooley, saw Weil as a reminder that for all the talk about technology upending legal work, Big Law remains a business built on relationships. Star partners have outsize influence because of the clients they bring in and keep happy. When a rainmaker jumps ship, a firm doesn't just risk losing clients and revenue. It can also shed years of knowledge about their businesses and the work they've done together.
德贝沃斯与普林普顿律师事务所（Debevoise & Plimpton）合伙人、人工智能业务负责人阿维·格瑟（Avi Gesser）认为，技术可能成为律所的止血带。它未必能阻止律师离职，但或许能在律师离开时防止事务所“失血过多”。该所正越来越多地开发工具，以捕捉诉讼律师脑中锁存的专业知识。其赌注是，德贝沃斯能将这些知识转化为属于事务所的资产。
Avi Gesser, a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton who leads the firm's artificial intelligence practice, suggested that the technology could act as a tourniquet for law firms. It might not stop a lawyer from leaving, but it could keep the firm from bleeding out when they do. His firm is increasingly building tools to capture the expertise locked in the heads of its litigators. The bet is that Debevoise can turn that knowledge into an asset belonging to the firm.
格林伯格（Greenberg）提供了一种思考这可能如何影响客户忠诚度的方式。“过去是，‘我得跟着这个人。我喜欢他，他了解我的业务，’”他说。“现在是，‘我喜欢他们，而事务所了解我的业务。’”但这里有一个问题。律师为何会自愿放弃让自己具有价值的东西？执业法律学会（Practising Law Institute）主席莎伦·克兰（Sharon Crane）正提出了这一担忧。
Greenberg offered a way of thinking about how this might affect client loyalty. "It used to be, 'I got to stick with this person. I love him, and he knows my stuff,'" he said. "Now it's, 'I love them, and the firm knows my stuff.'" There's one problem. Why would a lawyer willingly give away the very thing that makes them valuable? Sharon Crane, the president of the Practising Law Institute, raised exactly that concern.
“我一旦把所知道的一切都告诉你，然后如果我离开，我能带走什么？”她问道。格瑟指出，合伙人未必会因为花时间教事务所的系统了解他们所知道的一切而获得报酬。要让这套机制运转，事务所将不得不重新思考如何奖励这项工作。皮尔斯伯里律师事务所（Pillsbury）首席人工智能官奥兹·本阿姆拉姆（Oz Benamram）又提出了一个新问题。
"Once I give you everything I know, then if I leave, what do I take with me?" she asked. Gesser pointed out that partners aren't necessarily compensated for spending time teaching the firm's systems everything they know. For firms to make this work, they'll have to rethink how they reward that work. Oz Benamram, chief AI officer at the law firm Pillsbury, added another wrinkle.
合伙人协议可能也需要重写。离职合伙人可能希望将基于其专业知识建立的“操作手册”带走。而客户也可能对这些知识主张权利。随后，克莱戈特利布律师事务所（Cleary Gottlieb）高级合伙人迈克尔·格斯滕赞（Michael Gerstenzang）提出了一个新的转折。
Partner agreements may need a rewrite, too. Departing partners might want to take the playbooks built from their expertise with them. And clients could stake a claim to that knowledge, too. Then Michael Gerstenzang, the senior partner at Cleary Gottlieb, introduced a twist.
人工智能可能会让律师事务所对个别律师的依赖降低。但它也可能让那些律师对事务所的依赖降低。想象一下，你是克莱戈特利布律师事务所的一位顶级并购合伙人。你在商界拥有深厚的人脉。你为事务所带来了最大的交易。但你无法独自完成这些交易。你需要税务专家来构建交易结构，需要反垄断专家来评估监管风险，还需要雇佣律师来处理薪酬问题。
AI might make law firms less dependent on their individual lawyers. But it could also make those lawyers less dependent on the firms. Imagine you're a top M&A partner at Cleary Gottlieb. You have deep ties in the corporate world. You bring its biggest deals to the firm. But you can't execute those deals alone. You need tax specialists to structure transactions, antitrust experts to evaluate regulatory risks, and employment lawyers to handle compensation issues.
“这是一项团队运动，”格斯滕赞说。在大型律师事务所工作最大的优势之一，就是所有这些专业知识都集于一身。格斯滕赞不确定这一优势是否会持续。他设想了一个未来：在那个未来里，这位并购律师可以利用人工智能来处理过去依赖同事完成的部分专业工作。突然间，大型律师事务所的基础设施可能看起来不再那么不可或缺。
"It's a team sport," Gerstenzang said. One of the biggest advantages of working at a large law firm is having all that expertise under one roof. Gerstenzang isn't sure that advantage will last. He imagines a future in which that M&A lawyer can use artificial intelligence to handle some of the specialized work they used to rely on colleagues to perform. Suddenly, the infrastructure of a large law firm might not look quite so indispensable.
这让大所律师行业陷入了一个悖论：同一种技术，既可能让律师事务所更难离开，也可能让其最有价值的律师更容易离职。
Which leaves Big Law with a paradox: The same technology that could make law firms harder to leave might make it easier for their most valuable lawyers to walk away.