Continuous corporate legal needs drove the shift to retainer practice

Evidence

Businesses needed skilled hands to solve the thousand and one legal problems that confronted them. A big company like Standard Oil or Sears Roebuck or United States Steel, as it traveled the road from shop or store to interstate giant, had the greatest needs of all. Lawyers had skills that were useful to these big businesses. The legal problems of a large enterprise are many, and they are continuous. Lawyers for big business were not hired for this case or that; rather, they were kept on retainer. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 1227

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Legal profession growth tracked commercial expansion, not litigation demand alone — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 1215; Once court-centered, lawyer work now chiefly keeps clients out of litigation — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 1218; The practice of law shifted from courtroom litigation to transactional work — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3621 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The practice of law shifted from courtroom litigation to transactional work #corroborates (0.80) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3621
• Legal innovations follow new commercial practices as they arise. #expands (0.78) — PAUL R. MILGRO, PAUL R. MILGRO - THE ROLE OF…, 33
• Legal systems change in response to social and technological shifts #expands (0.75) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 118