Under recessionary pricing pressures, the future of law firm economics, writes Dan Slate – "At Law Firms, Reconsidering the Model for Associates' Pay," NYT, April 1, 2010 F10 — is changing in the US. In prospective, there may be in waiting a far more competitive landscape for law graduates hired by law firms. The assumption is that too many of the incoming associates are overpaid under the current system, though not on an absolute basis. The law firms’ attitude is changing accordingly, as firms restructure their associate programs, rethink their ways of hiring, training and compensating associates —- much alike business minded organizations, firms began experimenting with tiered associate programs and investment of resources on best recruits graduates identified as “partner potential” for their skill sets, at hiring.  Whether the law firms’ new associative programs will  be sustainable over the long term may be debatable, but “change they will”  declared Christopher Boies , head of the corporate group at Boies, Schiller & Flexner, one of America’s top firms.

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