Is Big Law dead?

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A few years ago I was chatting with a local attorney whom I’d gotten to know in my technology reporting days. He and a few colleagues were leaving their big law firm to start a Baltimore office of another firm.

His entrepreneurial ambitions intrigued me, as did his reasons for wanting to strike out on his own — pressure to bill hours, a desire to work more closely and strategically with smaller clients. They seemed fairly universal, not just unique to the practice of law (at least if you substitute in “pressure to close sales” for “pressure to bill hours”).

A recent article at Slate breaks down the legal business model in post-economic meltdown terms and paints a pretty stark portrait of a model “in which the nation’s largest law firms turn the top law students into billable-hour-crazed associates and, sometimes, partners.”

This comes at a time when firms are forced to change to better accommodate businesses with global reach. One result, according to the article, is that “companies below the $100 million-revenue level that can’t or don’t want to pay Big Law rates are being squeezed.”

It’s a revealing read, not least because, as the cliche goes, you know the economy is bad (double-dip recession, anyone?) when even the lawyers are feeling the pain. We’ve all read about trends in outsourcing and clients wanting to move away from the billable hour, but the assertion that Big Law is increasingly catering to a “niche group” would seem to hold significant ramifications for a variety of industries.

So what do you think? Is the field as “rife with upheaval” as the Slate article contends?