Outside The Box

The Lawyerless Law Firm

           Dirk deRoos is a lawyer with a tremendous sense of humor. He doesn’t tell jokes, he just has a natural wit like Robin Williams. I had occasion to work with Dirk on a due diligence investigation that we were running for Prudential Bache. He was a member of the Litigation Department who had been called in when the team of lawyers working on the matter encountered a whistle-blower who wanted to spill the beans on the company that was being investigated.

           We had requested to review the Lawyers’ Responses to Auditors’ Requests for Information, and the Company furnished letters from law firms in 49 states. When we pointed out that one letter was missing, they apologized and gave it to us. Because of the failure to furnish the letter with the others, we called the plaintiff in an innocuous looking lawsuit described in the letter. The suit never would have attracted our attention if the letter had been furnished with the others. It looked like a simple employment dispute. But the plaintiff turned out to be a disgruntled employee who thought he had the goods on the company, which he thought was doing something illegal.

           At the time Kutak Rock was going through reorganization. It was abandoning the practice of compensating all lawyers at the same level equally, and going to a merit-based system like other law firms. The Compensation Committee was charged with the responsibility of determining how the pot would be divided. The report was anxiously awaited, but it didn't come and didn't come.

           Dirk and I began a humorous repartee about lawyers being superfluous in law firms, because everything could be done by paralegals and automated word processing equipment. It was a discussion that built on itself, one wisecrack at a time. Over time, we had constructed a framework for what we  called The Lawyerless Law Firm.

           We decided to write it up and circulate it to the firm as the report of the Compensation Committee. It looked official, with a covering memorandum signed ”K,” Bob’s way of signing memorandums. We identified lawyers as the biggest expense a law firm had, and discussed how profitable the firm could be without them. We had it reproduced and put it in the mail room with instructions to deliver it to all attorneys in all offices. The lawyers in Omaha, who got the memo first, didn't think about the fact that it might be distributed in other cities, and it landed on the desk of over 200 lawyers in the firm.

           It brought lots of laughter to the firm, and generated intense curiosity about who had faked the report. I never told a soul who was responsible for this until now, more than 20 years later. I doubt that Dirk told anyone either.

           The lawyerless law firm—it’s still a great concept.