‘Nobody knows anything’ – Goldman is more right than Maister

As journalists and managing partners hit reporting season the understandable urge rises once more to make sense of the legal world. Nearly six years since Lehman Brothers’ collapse did something substantive to the law game, what lessons can be learned?

Fewer than you would think. The famous line from veteran screenwriter William Goldman (pictured) that ‘nobody knows anything’ about success or failure in the movie business could equally apply to the legal business for all the discernible patterns seen in recent years.