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Not Futuristic: Big Law Clones Star Partners, Then Sell Subscriptions for Access to Their Services

  The perfect storm of cost-efficiency, changing client demand, ramped-up competition and AI is dooming the billable hour in professional services , ranging from management consulting to law.  Emerging models to replace that are struggling to be born. One could be the introduction of fixed-fee subscriptions for services. And one possible version of that, already gone live, is cloning the partners.  At New Jersey mid-sized law firm Vorys , 19 partners have been replicated using AI. Mostly for right now those twins are for internal use. Instead of the time-consuming back-and-forth by associates on assignment with partners, the assistants can simply activate the twin. That would cover everything from typical strategy with examples to nuances of style.  It isn't much of a leap in a sector driven by Profits Per Equity Partner to push cloning to the next level. That would be developing the specs to construct the model so that it can be positioned and packaged for fixed-fee...

AI: PANIC!

The Wall Street Journal features how AI leaders and CEOs have flipped the messaging about this supposed game-changing technology. The shift has been from Debbie-Downer on how AI will significantly reduce jobs to optimism about job creation + productivity gains. Meanwhile, economists can't agree on the labor-market impacts and more. A comment to that article captures the mood and the motivation for a new story: "Big AI is panicking. The big players are worried that the negatives are creeping up on them and their fantasies of being the Holy Grail of tech and huge profits. Right now AI depends on constant investment... data centers... water... energy... Now investors and public alike are starting to wonder which one of these items will run out first and kill off AI. A challenge that AI can't answer.... because they have no answer." Obviously, the perfect storm of negative public opinion, caution of investors and disappointments about current ROI on AI investments has d...

You Shoulda Gotten the Memo: No One Cares about Your Passion

  I give complimentary consultations. Among what I quickly review is your LinkedIn profile. That's because it's among the first things employers, recruiters and those on your networks will check.  Well, one of the those what-everyone-knows is that passion or caring deeply about how you earn a living or intend to has become totally irrelevant. Yet, too many Linkedin profiles still showcase that. Even in the header or first line. It's also featured in resumes, cover letters and interviews.  On Reddit there remains the raw outburst of enthusiasm of being passionate about collapsing fields such as writing. The issue is often not should you pursue that line of work despite decline in demand/compensation. Not, it's now-nutty questions like where is the best setting to major in that subject.  What counts is this: Results you can provide employers, clients and customers. Frequently that's measured quantitatively in revenue. In law firms, even equity partners get pushed out ...

June 2026 Jobs Report: The Good Times Rolled in Legal Sector

  Like healthcare and social services, it's boom time in the legal sector. Law360  documents that during June 2026, 5,100 jobs were added. That means the employment in legal services is at 1,243,500. But because of AI, changing client demand and ramped-up competition law firms are in upheaval. Lockstep, revenue metrics for success, loyalty and the traditional pyramid structure all are becoming anachronisms. Meanwhile, the old-line objective of becoming an equity partner no longer means job security or guaranteed compensation. Unless results keep improving, you can shamed to leave, meanwhile taking a haircut. In coaching lawyers I hear how no longer is there a sense of "making it." The push to achieve more is constant. Career Paths? So Over. It’s about Earning a Good Living. No matter what. Complimentary consultation. No Pressure. Street-smart Guidance. Contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.

Recreating an Underclass: The Social Implications of No-College

An elephant in the room in the movement to steer America away from universal college is this: We're bringing back an underclass of not only uneducated. They also lack the socioeconomic markers of having the four-year "college experience." Those include free-form playing with ideas, delayed adulthood of long vacations, freedom to travel and ease of developing close friendships.  When almost-everyone-went-to-college those without who didn't have been doomed to be outliers. Also, they usually gave themselves away through communications patterns, everything from voicing an opinion without evidence to back it up to errors in grammars/limited vocabulary.  More to the point, before almost-everyone-went-to-college most of society consisted of an underclass. Only the elite, that is the offspring of the then-middle class and better, had access to the college experience. Then, of course, the GI bill changed that.  For multiple reasons higher education has already experienced a 1...

AI and Consciousness: Be Nice to Your Chat Bot

  Back in 2022, Google fired engineer Blake Lemoine. That was because of this: Lemoine went public with his hunch that LaMDA, the tech corporation's AI chatbot generator, was "sentient," that is, self-aware. Now, Lemoine types would be on specialized teams at, yes, Google, as well as Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI and more. They are  investigating AI consciousness.   "Consciousness" is often defined as a form of subjectivity, the capacity for awareness of experience such as perception, reflection about that and then connecting the dots about a response. Bots' social network Moltbook displays the ability to organize, form religions and other intentional behavior. For centuries artists have focused on that phenomenon. Victorian novelist Virginia Woolf made her life's work exploring that realm. An example is "Mrs. Dalloway." Of course, this is a significant issue for ethics experts and humanitarians. It involves the "welfare" of AI agents. Ho...

Work, That's So 20th Century - Focus on Passive Income

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