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The economic crunch has prompted many clients to ask their lawyers for discounted rates or alternative billing structures. Firms that don't respond risk losing both clients and partners, experts say. "We're seeing some lawyers pick up and move their practice to a firm whose billing rates are more in line with their own," said Blane R. Prescott, senior vice president at the law firm consultancy Hildebrandt International.

And some law firms have been positioning themselves to recruit partners prepared to make the jump, according to consultants.

Partners might take their clients elsewhere to help them control costs, or simply to keep the lawyers' own practice alive, they said.