Legal Commentary

And This Is How PR Works

By Patrick J. Lamb

Earlier today, I wrote about the "efforts" of Reed Smith, Mayer Brown and O'Melveny to "transform" themselves by offering their clients alternative fees.  The reality is that the firms weren't really doing anything.  They simply had formed committees to look at alternative fees.  Of course, anyone who has ever been in a big firm knows that committees are formed when somebody needs a place to send an idea so it will die.  My cynical view was these moves were simply PR.

Now a striking example of how the PR machine works.  Ashby Jones of the Wall Street Journal Law Blog wrote a post today, Is The Billable Hour Dying? Here's More Evidence That It Might Be. This, of course, begs the question of whether forming committees to look at an idea is evidence that the status quo is changing.  How happy do you think the marketing pros at Mayer Brown and Reed Smith are at the moment?  They haven't actually quoted a single alternative fee and the Wall Street Journal is now treating them committed players in the area.

Ashby Jones is a terrific reporter, but he got this one wrong.  The story about Merck actually doing something with its firms is a story.  Forming committees to "study" the issue is not a story.  The only real story would be to identify those firms that are not, at this moment, studying the use of alternative fees.  The story there would be whether those firms have what is needed to survive.

Full post as published by In Search of Perfect Client Service on September 18, 2009 (boomark / email).