WILLIAM T. REID, IV AND LISA S. TSAI INTERVIEWED BY THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL
October 25, 2022 – Reid Collins’ Founding Partners William T. Reid IV and Lisa S. Tsai are the subjects of a feature profile in The National Law Journal. In “Reid and Tsai Talk Diversity, Suing Law Firms and Judicial Bias,” the latest installment in the NLJ’s spotlight series on the leaders of the U.S. plaintiffs’ bar, they discuss current developments in financial and securities litigation, the challenges of building a diverse team, breaking the industry taboo of suing law firms for malpractice, and the differences between plaintiff and defense work, among other trends.
Speaking to the firm’s effort to hire more women and minority attorneys, Tsai emphasized culture: “it’s one thing to be able to recruit …and it’s another thing to be able to retain…the question is, what kind of institution do you have? …[W]hat kind of meaning resides in the work that can really help retain your folks?” Reid was candid about the landscape, saying “We’ve looked high and low for a long time, and now we’ve finally gotten traction. We have some really great young women lawyers in this firm.”
Reid’s thoughts about plaintiffs’ practice and breaking new ground as one of the nation’s leaders in bringing legal malpractice cases: “I think there’s a double standard…I don’t think that judges and courts react the same way to plaintiffs’ lawyers as they do to defense lawyers… there is a perception…that somehow plaintiffs’ lawyers are unethical.” He further underlined the flaws in that view: “One of our national calling cards is the pursuit of claims against Big Law firms…. When I started doing legal malpractice claims 22 years ago – and even to this day for a certain vintage lawyer and judge – the pursuit of a claim against a law firm was viewed to be maybe not unethical, but certainly distasteful. There has been an absolute evolution in that… [this new] wave of litigation brought against law firms [is] not because lawyers are any more negligent today than 20 years ago.”
When asked about trends in the business of law, both Tsai and Reid cited their business model’s relationship to the economy at large. “In our particular space as we are approaching…a recession or recessionary time…There’s going to be some failures and there’s going to be insolvency…. You’re going to [see] claims for large losses,” said Tsai.
Click here to view the full article.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.