One of the news stories making the rounds in the legal world is the story of the screwed up excel spreadsheet in the Barclay’s - Lehman deal. In short, as the story goes, an associate and a law clerk made a formatting mistake in a giant excel spreadsheet, causing Barclay’s to buy millions in Lehman assets it did not want to buy. Barclay’s is now looking for relief from a bankruptcy judge. This story is passed around as a cautionary tale about the dangers of technology, the dangers of associates, or the dangers of associates using technology.
Doesn’t that kind of miss the point though: where are all the partners?
I’m not defending the associate and law clerk involved. I’m just saying: when a law firm really blows a gajillion dollar deal like this, it might be nice for someone to take responsibility besides the two lowest paid people in the room.
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