Law is consulting. The business is selling hours. You can only sell as many hours as you have lawyers. Highly motivated lawyers might bill 2-5x the hours of

Law is consulting. The business is selling hours. You can only sell as many hours as you have lawyers. Highly motivated lawyers might bill 2-5x the hours of less motivated ones, or at a much, much higher rate. The "enterprise value" of a law firm is very near zero because as the partners stop paying attention to everything the company falls apart. Most startups make a product which can be sold largely independent of the number of hours worked by the employees. Certainly in a non-linear fashion. As a result a startup might have a substantial non-zero enterprise value.