New attorneys often leave law school with a lot of ideas about how the legal system works, but they typically don’t know much about the business of being a lawyer.

How do law firms make money? How do they govern themselves? And what trends are shaping the law firms where they will work?

On this episode of On the Merits, Bloomberg Law’s Roy Strom spoke with Kevin Burke, a former chairman at Hinshaw & Culbertson who’s now teaching law students the answers to these and other questions about the industry they soon will join.

Burke's course at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law focuses on the nuts and bolts of law firm financials, operations, and marketing. His students also explore the future of legal practice.

Burke tells Roy that students today are more interested than ever to understand the workplaces where they will make their careers. They're also surprisingly optimistic about what artificial intelligence might mean for their work lives.

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