Tracking Down the Best
from
July/August 2006
by Bill King
Most directors surely get irritated by their lawyers from time to time—and lawyers, outside and in-house, get just as annoyed at the mistakes made by their boardroom clients. In this sixth annual issue on America’s best corporate law firms, we take a look at both sides of the divide. R ead about the
10 biggest mistakes
that corporate counsel say directors make (one is that they don’t ask enough questions). D irectors get their turn to
sound off about their lawyers
(unexpectedly stiff bills seem to be a problem). And speaking of billable hours,
just how much are lawyers charging
for their time these days? Sorry, but that’s a mystery we were unable to solve, as you’ll read.
This issue focuses too on how the law and its practitioners affect company directors. The
lead story
in our On Board section
, for example, paints a clear warning for those of you mulling a board seat at a joint venture in China. Jet lag’s only the beginning.
As usual, the meat of the issue is the annual rankings of the country’s best law firms,
nationally
and in
25 metropolitan areas
. Some 1,400 board members contributed to the survey, which we did this year in partnership with FTI, a consulting firm based in Baltimore. As you saw on the cover, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom came in first in the national listings for the sixth straight year.
The characteristics that define the best attorneys—and not only at Skadden—make for a particularly interesting story. (See “
Unmasking the Seven Secrets of the Greatest Lawyers
.” ) Perhaps not surprisingly, they include some dramatic extremes. Plaintiffs’ lawyer William Lerach, whom you’d most likely want on your side if you were a plaintiff, looks for ways to torture adversaries. In contrast, Carolyn H. Rosenberg, a directors’-and-officers’-insurance expert at Sachnoff & Weaver, says, “Superstar lawyers are surprisingly affable.” Others cite virtues such as integrity, hard work, and communication skills. My suspicion is that you need a bit of everything, including the ability to turn mean when it’s in the interest of your client.
As we did last year, we also devote space in the issue to the
pro bono work
done by a number of lawyers. This includes laboring on behalf of the Katrina victims and those in Rwanda, the military families who are paying the real price of the Iraq war, and various other people in need of legal help. Year after year, we see that it’s the busiest lawyers in the fastest-track law firms who somehow find the time to make the world a better place.
