Big Law Firms Raise Profits by Showing Some Partners the Door

In corporate America, when a chief executive decides to cut expenses by reducing head count, it’s done. Not so at the nation’s biggest and richest law firms, which often face a delicate balance between financial necessity and their management structure as partnerships. “The partnership view is, ‘We’re all in this together, I can’t fire this guy. He was my best man, it’s too personal,’ ” says Joel Henning, a law firm consultant in Chicago. “But that’s changing, and law firms are moving more toward the management model.”