Legal Commentary

Commodity Legal Work--The Antichrist?

By Patrick J. Lamb

As many of you know, I was privileged to attend the Association of Corporate Counsel launch of the ACC Value Challenge this past Friday.  The entire program was recorded and is will be available soon on the ACC website.  One of the things that caused me to smile was the repeated reference to "commodity work".  The firms present ran from that label faster than than a political candidate in Mississippi runs from the dreaded "liberal" label.  They did so by trying to distinguish their routine work for clients from the routine work others do for their clients.  Apparently, one gi-normous document production is really not the same as other gi-normous document productions.

The lame efforts to draw distinctions that don't exist got me thinking.  Is "commodity work" a meaningful label?  I think not.  Commodity work originally meant repetitious, paint-by-numbers kind of work such as collections.  The term has evolved over time to mean something more routine, eventually coming to encompass anything that isn't "bet-the-company" work.  The  distinction was become too vague to be meaningful.

Let me suggest a different concept.  Picture a continuum ranging from "everbody-chuckles-and-the-GC-pulls-a-dollar-from-her-wallet-to-settle-the-dispute" on one end to "the-CEO-sweating-bullets" at the other end.  On that continuum, the closer the case is to the perspiration end, the more the client will be willing to invest in the matter.  At the other extreme, short of the time necessary to send the matter to a paralegal to prepare the paperwork, no time or real money will be spent on a matter.  And everywhere in between, the challenge will be to find the right balance between time, money and result.  This approach eliminates the "either-or" debate about whether work is (picture guy in really expensive BigLaw suit turning his head to spit) commodity (gasp!) work or (BigLaw suit dude smiling) bet-the-company. 

I think the Lamb Continuum Theory helps focus the issue on the client's interest--the client doesn't care what label firms apply--and not on the firm's desire to look like they are better than everybody else.  At the end of the day, my law firm colleagues, let's keep our eye on the ball.

Full post as published by In Search of Perfect Client Service on September 29, 2008 (boomark / email).