Michael Kim on COVID-19 and the Agile Response of U.S. Law Firms
June 4, 2020
Publication: The American Lawyer
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced law firms to make faster decisions, potentially setting a trend for the future. Kobre & Kim founding partner Michael Kim weighed in on this topic recently with The American Lawyer.
Lockdowns imposed by authorities have disrupted business for both law firms and their clients. The resulting quicker decision-making was not by choice, Kim noted: “The clients themselves were feeling so much pain—from a law firm perspective, when you see clients themselves slicing the prices they’re willing to pay by 10, 15, 20%, it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to tell that you need to make a change.”
Kim also emphasized that, when looking at how open the legal industry is to change, law firms cannot be said to all be unable to prepare for a changing future, pointing to the rise of mid-sized litigation firms such as his own since the last financial crisis.