Pierson Ferdinand, a new law firm recently launched by the managing partners from FisherBroyles, looks to build legacy systems that stay flexible enough to accommodate future needs, and automate as much non-billable work as possible.

After FisherBroyles ramped up quickly to become the first distributed firm in the Am Law 200, it lost roughly half its lawyers to a spinoff. But there's a surprising lack of rancor surrounding the exodus.