Two Law.com veterans who spend their careers interrogating law firm secrets turn the lens on their own industry’s next twenty years, from partner comp black boxes to the real odds of a publicly traded law firm by 2040. On this episode of the Future is Bright, Howard Rosenberg and I sat down with Gina Passarella, Group Chief Content Officer of Law.com, and David Gialanella

What does it take to run a 200-million pound law firm without ever taking outside investment or merging with a bigger name? Roger Bull, managing partner of Burges Salmon, joins Chris Batz and Howard Rosenberg to unpack the five-year strategy his firm just launched, one built on 25 listening sessions with roughly 1,500 people before the partnership board finalized a single objective.

Gary Wingens led Lowenstein Sandler through Lehman Brothers’ collapse and a global pandemic, and now he says AI won’t shrink legal work at all, it will multiply it. Wingens spent thirty-nine years at Lowenstein Sandler, eighteen as managing partner, before stepping into the role of chair, and he built that transition on a principle most leaders resist: he refused to pick his own successor.

The dam is breaking: law firm capital deals are closing faster than regulators can write the rules to stop them. Trish Rich of Holland & Knight and Lucian Pera of Adams & Reese are two ethics lawyers operating at the center of one of the profession’s most consequential shifts, and their deal volume tells the story better than any headline. Trish’s team closed six deals in all of 2025.

As CEO of Aprio Legal, he traded a general counsel role at a thriving family office for the harder, riskier work of acquiring a Phoenix law firm and redesigning how professional services actually work. The result is a historic combination: the first time two Alternative Business Structure firms have merged, bringing together a corporate law firm and a national accounting and …

When permanent capital, AI disruption, and a rapidly fracturing talent market collide inside the legal industry, the old rules for how law firms grow, get funded, and build their next generation of lawyers stop making sense. David Perla, Vice Chair of Burford Capital, joins hosts Chris Batz and Howard Rosenberg to break down why permanent capital is a fundamentally different proposition than traditional private equity for boutiques …

What happens to the modern law firm when AI strips away the advantage of size and leaves judgment as the true measure of value? Robb Patryk joined Chris Batz and Howard Rosenberg to talk about why AI may reset some of the biggest assumptions in the legal industry. If sophisticated legal work no longer depends on armies of lawyers, what actually gives a firm its edge? For Robb, the answer is clear. Sharp judgment, trusted client relationships, and a strategy that knows exactly which …

What does it take to grow a 1,200-lawyer firm through chaos, competition, and industry change without losing the culture and discipline that made it strong in the first place? Hosts Chris Batz and Howard Rosenberg sit down with Chase Simmons, Chair and CEO of Polsinelli, for a thoughtful conversation about leadership under pressure. As the leader of one of the largest full-service U.S.-focused law firms, Chase brings a clear point of view on growth, judgment, and the kind

What happens when accomplished lawyers realize the traditional firm model no longer supports the practice they want to build? James Hacking, founder and CEO of Kindleworth, joins the conversation for a clear-eyed look at why more top lawyers are questioning the traditional big law model and what it takes to build something more aligned, more focused, and …

What if the biggest barrier to justice in America is the legal profession itself and the solution begins by rethinking who is allowed to help people solve their legal problems? Chris Batz and Howard Rosenberg sit down with Natalie Knowlton of Stanford Law School’s Deborah L. Rhode Center about the widening gap between the legal system and the people it is meant to serve.