TRP 342: [Legal] What Would Private Equity Do? With Brad Blickstein

Most law firm leaders reject private equity on principle. But what if you could use the PE playbook to grow your firm — without taking a single dollar of outside money?

Brad Blickstein is a legal industry futurist, founder of Blickstein Group, and author of What Would Private Equity Do? Unlocking Value in the Law Firm You Already Own. In this episode, Brad joins Scott Love to break down exactly what private equity would do to professionalize business development, pricing, and accountability at a law firm — and why every managing partner should be asking this question whether or not they ever plan to sell.

What you'll learn:

Why you don't need a PE fund to apply the PE playbook — and what that playbook actually looks like

Why pricing is the lowest-hanging fruit at most firms (and why too many decisions are made by instinct)

What "eminence marketing" is — and why it's not the same as pipeline management

Why law firm business development is still largely episodic and partner-dependent — and how to systematize it

The heresy that will make some partners hit pause: "Clients are firm assets, not partner-owned"

Why the origination credit model is the #1 structural barrier to cross-selling — and what to do about it

How PE-backed portfolio companies manage their sales pipeline — and what law firms can learn from it

Why "sales" is a capability, not a dirty word — and how one mentor reframed it forever

What AI-native spin-off firms and firms like Pearson Ferdinand signal about where the market is heading