{"id":29337,"date":"2023-11-14T13:43:59","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T18:43:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/?p=1014162"},"modified":"2023-11-14T13:43:59","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T18:43:59","slug":"top-30-biglaw-firms-leader-thinks-ai-will-help-his-firm-soar-to-the-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/legal-innovation-center\/2023\/11\/14\/top-30-biglaw-firms-leader-thinks-ai-will-help-his-firm-soar-to-the-top\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 30 Biglaw Firm’s Leader Thinks AI Will Help His Firm Soar To The Top"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AIBiglaw firms are always looking for more — more money, more prestige, more power. But how can a firm achieve more without making any significant changes to its current model? That’s what Cleary Gottlieb is going to try to figure out.<\/p>\n

Cleary is one of the most successful firms in the country. The firm brought in $1,393,989,000 gross revenue in 2022, putting it at No. 30 in the most recent Am Law 100 ranking. According to Michael Gerstenzang, the firm’s managing partner, being a Top 30 firm is no longer good enough for Cleary. Bloomberg Law<\/a> has more Gerstenzang’s “ambitious” plans:<\/p>\n

Gerstenzang\u2019s ambitious goal is to land Cleary among the Top 20 firms by gross revenue, a feat that would require a leap of roughly $500 million from last year. That would mean a 36% gain from last year, when Cleary ranked No. 30 among US firms in gross revenue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One solution could be for Cleary to introduce a nonequity partner tier as a way to offer more money to its highest earners, but Gerstenzang said the firm had already turned away from such a plan back in 2020.<\/p>\n

Cleary decided its \u201cculture\u201d wasn\u2019t prepared to be as \u201cdisciplined or ruthless\u201d to manage out non-performing income partners, he said. It also had concerns a large non-equity tier could deteriorate its reputation for consistent, high quality work across its practices.<\/p>\n

Still, he said the financial data show \u201chow successful managing a big pool of nonequity partners can be.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Could times be changing at Cleary Gottlieb? Possibly. “I want us to be higher in everything, but we also have to recognize there are different models,\u201d Gerstenzang told Bloomberg. \u201cI\u2019m not that worried about the competition for talent given where we are today. We need to do better, we can do better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tabling the nonequity partner issue, for the time being, it looks like the model Gerstenzang wants to focus on moving toward is value-based billing over the billable hour, and he wants to use artificial intelligence to get there. \u201cIt will be beneficial for clients and law firms to shift toward value-based billing,\u201d he said. \u201cGenerative AI is going to be helpful to move us toward that model.\u201d<\/p>\n

It looks like Cleary Gottlieb is putting a lot of faith into the power of generative AI. Can it help one of the most successful firms in the country move up 10 places in the Am Law 100? Can it help the legal profession leave the billable hour in the dust? It sure seems like this might be one big AI hallucination… but hopefully it’ll work.<\/p>\n

Cleary Leader Confident Amid Law Firm \u2018Frothiness,\u2019 AI Adoption<\/a> [Bloomberg Law]<\/p>\n

\n

\"StaciStaci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Threads<\/a> or connect with her on LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cleary Gottlieb’s managing partner wants the firm to move up in the Am Law 100 ranking. Can AI help get the job done?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":525765,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[279],"tags":[9509,102,11235,3014,11238,11241,124,2218,7],"class_list":["post-29337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biglaw","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-biglaw","tag-cleary","tag-cleary-gottlieb","tag-cleary-gottlieb-steen-hamilton","tag-law-firm-profits","tag-money","tag-partner-issues","tag-technology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTop 30 Biglaw Firm's Leader Thinks AI Will Help His Firm Soar To The Top - Above The Law's Legal Tech Non-Event<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/legal-innovation-center\/2023\/11\/14\/top-30-biglaw-firms-leader-thinks-ai-will-help-his-firm-soar-to-the-top\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Top 30 Biglaw Firm's Leader Thinks AI Will Help His Firm Soar To The Top - Above The Law's Legal Tech Non-Event\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Cleary Gottlieb's managing partner wants the firm to move up in the Am Law 100 ranking. 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