The American Dream of My Son/Daughter The Lawyer - Maybe Parents Have to Ditch That, Too (along with home ownership)

No, the good times aren't roaring back to the Global Law 100. And they maybe never will. The business of the large law firm might have changed too much for the sector to ever again be what it had been pre-Crash of 2007.

Evidence of no turnaround, reports Kathryn Rubino in Abovethelaw, is that Am Law found that a third of the Global 100 had declines in Revenue Per Lawyer (RPL) in 2015. Overall, the RPL is down for the 100 but that's primarily because of the Dentons Dacheng merger. Only 23 law firms had an increase.

The recent Cravath $180K bump created the illusion that there had been a positive shift in the legal sector. Probably that encouraged the ambitious to consider law school.

The reality is that some firms continue to do well. However, the ability to make money has become a challenge to many large law firms. That's why we are seeing the squeeze on partners. They represent a major expense. And unless they can generate actual revenue and bring in new business, they are being forced out. The first step in that could take the form of having partners "keep timecards" such as is happening at DLA Piper.