The dog days of summer in the northern hemisphere normally witness little by way of legal profession press coverage.
The most lawyers and law firms can expect are pages of suggestions from specialist journalists on the paperbacks a stressed out partner or general counsel might find temporarily diverts the mind from time sheets, profit margins and legal budgets.
This August, however, the profession’s tom-tom has been thumping with three important tales.
First, there has been at least a partial resolution of the titanic battle between technology’s east and west, with the surfer shorts-bedecked California boys at Apple victorious in their patent battle with the white shirts, ties and spectacles mob of South Korea’s Samsung.
The litigation itself is probably not finished, as it would take a brave punter to place a bet on the Koreans not appealing. And how much significance the case has for intellectual property law in cyberspace is undoubtedly a discussion that could run for as long as it takes Curiosity to circumnavigate Mars. But if nothing else, the trial has provided summer entertainment for those reading their mobile devices – or old fashioned newspapers – from deck chair positions. And that’s in no small part thanks to the robust and at times almost cavalier interjections from trial judge Lucy Koh.

Ancient tragedy

Nonetheless, Apple v Samsung is still essentially a ‘silly season’ story. Potentially of far more profound consequence to the global legal profession are two more developments from the past weeks.
The continuing saga of the demise of Dewey & LeBeouf reads like an ancient tragedy, with the classic flaw of hubris at its heart. The last month has seen the administrators cut a deal with former partners, which sees the lawyers forking out some $70 million in a bankruptcy arrangement that will partially placate the firm’s creditors.
Some ex-partners will have individually to cough up $3.5m – and no matter how well-covered lawyer fat cats are, it will be only the most overweight felines that can absorb that figure without wincing. Whether the cocktail of circumstances that drove Dewey to the wall were specific to that firm is a question occupying many global law firm management meetings.
The uncomfortable unofficial betting is that the insolvency specialists could be troubled by another law firm in the next year or so.

Ownership earthquake

But the real August legal profession earthquake came from London, where the Solicitors Regulation Authority granted two important alternative business structure licences. One was the first multiple licence, awarded to Irwin Mitchell and notable for its potential in taking the model outside the English jurisdiction as the firm has offices in Scotland and Spain.
Several days later, the SRA gave the nod to the first private equity-backed practice, London-based Paribis Law. This – along with an earlier licence to high street retail chain The Co-op – is the move that so many in the legal profession feared, as it removes law firm ownership from the hands of lawyers.
Many in the US and continental Europe look aghast at these developments, but their protestations may begin to bear a striking resemblance to King Cnut’s battle against the waves.