Mid-size law firms are getting squeezed from both ends. Big law has the capital to invest in AI and the salaries to attract top talent. Boutiques can specialize tightly and move fast. So where does that leave everyone in the middle?

Melanie Chaney, firm-wide managing partner of Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, has a front-row seat to that question. LCW has grown from 45 attorneys to 120 over the past two decades, and Chaney — just a few months into her tenure leading the firm — is candid about the challenges that come with that position in the market: recruitment, AI costs, and figuring out how junior attorneys develop their skills when the tasks they used to learn on are being automated away.

In this episode of In the Counsel's Chair, she makes the case that mid-size firms still have a real value proposition — but that a long track record i ...