The Maturation of Competitive Intelligence in Law Firms

When I was a young lawyer ' and all I ever was as a lawyer was young , having run screaming from the practice, if not the profession, as a fifth-year associate ' I was given a project that didn't have a proper name at the time, but today would fall under the loose heading of “competitive intelligence.” This was many years before that term was commonly used in the legal industry, way back before the Internet came along and kicked over all the tables. I was asked by a partner I often worked for to find out all I could about a client's rival company, which was then represented by a rival law firm in town, one with which we had somewhat friendly but also highly competitive relations. That both our client and the target of my inquiry were greyhound dog racing tracks, populated by Runyonesque characters who proudly referred to themselves as “Dog Men,” probably says more than I'd like to admit about how I was tracking as an associate at a firm that otherwise specialized in corporate tax and mutual fund work.