New institutions of the knowledge economy: A sociolegal study of equity billing by law firms in Silicon Valley in 1998--1999

The dissertation revolves around a central inquiry. Following a neoinstitutional framework, I explore whether the taking of equity and the roles that lawyers and law firms played in late 1998 and 1999 in Silicon Valley represents a new institution of the knowledge economy. Law firms, conceived as organizations, are embedded in institutional environments that exert specific pressures for developing patterns and practices in response to changes in market conditions. I investigate how lawyers and firms responded to the economic boom in the technology sector, determine the social processes through which firms adopted new patterns and practices, and explore how these innovations diffused across and responded to the profession in which it is embedded.; In order to test the effects that equity billing had on the work that lawyers do and how that work is experienced, it is necessary to find particular historical moments when the economic environment radically challenges assumptions/premises of the traditional model. The dot-com bubble in Silicon Valley provided such a time and place. The study therefore examines a universe comprised of all law firms, with eleven or more lawyers, with an office in Silicon Valley, that were able to accept equity with respect to their representation of emerging growth companies. From Nov. 2000 through Nov. 2001, I conducted 105 semi-structured interviews, which were all taped and transcribed verbatim. I spoke with at least one partner from every law firm in the universe.