In February I shared my observations on why small law firms run by seasoned experts are thriving.  The reasons for our growth are obvious: we provide clients whose needs match our offerings deep expertise, strong service and less complexity at a fraction of the price of our friends at big firms.  This has caused more and more lawyers like me to realize that we don’t need to be in a large firm in order to meet the client needs we address, attract business or make a good living.

While this development should not come as a surprise to anyone, it was interesting to see this morning that ALM (American Law Media) has picked up on this trend.  In an article that appears at http://www.law.com/jsp/nj/PubArticleNJ.jsp?id=1202545285843&slreturn=1 their Dana Olson writes:

Some lawyers call it disaggregation, and it reflects a change in the way the legal industry operates. Small firms are flourishing because clients’ demands have evolved over the years. Rather than relying on one firm and paying for a package of legal needs, clients are turning to different firms, and in some cases to legal support businesses, for different tasks. While the economic downturn certainly encouraged clients to search for more cost-effective legal representation, many clients had already come to think that they were throwing money away by sending all their work to big firms.

For more reasons why this is occurring, and other examples of how it has occurred, I encourage you to check out the rest of the article.