While some clients resisted using associate lawyers during the downturn, refusing to pay hundreds of dollars an hour for inexperienced first- or second-year attorneys, the largest U.S. law firms have managed to send the needleback up again.
It dates back to 2004, when American Needle, an Illinois-based hat maker, brought an antitrust case against NFL, claiming the league was using its monopoly power to muscle it out of its fair share of revenue for caps it made bearing NFL logos.