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In Search of Perfect Client Service 
Why Lawyers Seem To Stumble. Blawg from attorney Patrick Lamb
Post Frequency: 2.4/day Last Entry: November 20, 2009 at 17:35:45 Recent Entries: 314
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DejaVu all over: bad habits are hard to break
Posted on November 20, 2009ACC's Susan Hackett just posted Are Firms Tone Deaf? Why Push For Rate Increases In 2010? Almost exactly one year ago, I asked the same question in my post The Economy And Rate Increases: Someone Is Not Listening. I had raised the issue in early October 2008...
Are best practices really best?
Posted on November 19, 2009Law firms frequently strive to identify and adapt "best practices" in whatever area is under examination. I used to think that this approach was laudable. Not anymore. The Harvard Business Review just posted Why Do We Ignore Best Practices?, which suggests some reasons why companies (firms) ignore best practices...
Richard Susskind interviews Rio Tinto Managing Attorney: A Look Into The Future?
Posted on November 17, 2009During today's panel discussion with Richard Susskind, he mentioned that he had recorded an interview with Leah Cooper, the Managing Attorney of Rio Tinto. Fantastic discussion of Rio Tinto's outsourcing of a significant amount of work. Well worth a listen.
Designating Someone To Argue "Con"
Posted on November 17, 2009Did you ever notice how decisions seem to gain a momentum of their own? A managing partner becomes enamored of an idea, and no one else spends time thinking about it. Or, as is more frequently the case, a tough question, such as "Are we at the top of our game, or are we in decline?" never gets asked because the answer is assumed...
Change and organizational risk
Posted on November 17, 2009One of the explanations often offered by managing partners to explain why lawyers (really, their organizations) are so slow to change is lawyers' well-establish aversion to risk. Change involves risk, to be sure, though the assumption implicit in the statement--that the status quo does not involve risk--is demonstrably untrue...
Example of WWGD? in action
Posted on November 16, 2009I strongly endorsed a new book by Jeff Jarvis, What Would Google Do? If you want to see Googley thinking in action, check out Michelle Golden's post, Think Your Clients Use Your Firm's Website? Here's the advice: Firms also talk about putting valuable content and tools behind this client-only wall...
The Chain Of Command Does Not Need "Yes Men"
Posted on November 16, 2009I am hired by my client to represent them. Doing so to the best of my ability requires me to give them my best judgment on the issues related to the matter I am handling. There is nothing in the lawyer-client relationship that requires them to follow my advice...
Self-critical analysis is needed now more than ever
Posted on November 16, 2009"When you are at the top of the world, the most powerful nation on earth, the most successful company in your industry, the best player in your game, your very power and success might cover up the fact that you're already on the path to decline...
Preservation Of The Past Is Not A Strategy
Posted on November 10, 2009In my recent post, Want To Think About The Future Of Law?. I referenced Jeff Jarvis' fantastic new book, What Would Google Do? Listening to my tape of the book this morning, Jarvis made two great points. One is what the calls the "cash cow in the coal mine," a play on the idea of the canary in the goal mine, an early warning indicator...
Want to think about the future of law?
Posted on November 09, 2009If you want to stimulate your mind to think about the future of the practice of law, read (or listen, as I am) What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis , who also writes the blog, Buzz Machine. And if you really want to expand your mind, read Small Is The New Big by Seth Godin right after...
Zeughauser Group's Attack On ACC Value Index Misses The Boat
Posted on November 09, 2009The ACC Value Index, a new tool for in-house lawyers to rate law firms, has caused endless consternation among law firms. First, it was the marketers, thinking it unfair that the system was closed to the firms. "What if someone says something bad about us?," they worried...
The Difference Between Ownership and Management
Posted on November 05, 2009I was recently having a discussion with a friend of mine who is the Managing Partner of a firm I love and greatly respect. We were talking about Valorem's Advisory Board and what a great experience its been for us. She lamented that she would love to create a similar board for her firm, but had run into resistance from some of her partners...
Dissecting an email on alternative fees: Firm Has A Long Road Ahead
Posted on November 05, 2009Someone sent me an email yesterday passing along a blast email she had received from a listserv: Our firm's clients are regularly pressuring us to enter into alternative fee arrangements. It is quite an undertaking to consider a model for this approach, and I am wondering whether anyone has already begun the process...
Ed Reeser, Bruce Lee and the Corsican Mouse
Posted on November 04, 2009Ed Reeser is a fantastic lawyer and a great guy. We were teammates during Professor Bill Henderson's FutureFirm 1.0 contest last April. Largely because of Ed's insights and wisdom, our team prevailed. Ed, Jeff Carr, Patrick McKenna and I recently co-authored 4 articles together, largely because Ed played the role of the rancher, sitting on his trust steed, cracking the whip to keep the rest of us moving toward the finish line...
Legal Education, Lawyer Training And The Need To Start Over
Posted on October 29, 2009In a private email, Jordan Furlong observed that most lawyers begin law school with little to no business experience or business education. Law School adds no relevant business knowledge. Yet when most lawyers begin to practice in whatever area they choose, they find themselves encountering businesses, whether as clients or the adversaries of clients, and business issues...
Client Service Is Hard.
Posted on October 26, 2009Client service is hard. Thanks to Dan Hull at What About Clients? for the eloquent reminder.
When Partner Distributions Are Cut, Should Clients Worry?
Posted on October 23, 2009AmLaw Daily contains an interesting post today noting that several UK firms were cutting their profit sharing. From the post: Several big-name U.K. firms have cut or delayed quarterly profit distributions to partners to cushion the blow of the continued recession...
Airlines, Disney World and the Customer Experience
Posted on October 23, 2009I've been spending a lot of time flying around, and one of the places was to Disney World for my nephew's wedding (which was spectacular, by the way). I was struck by the incredible difference between the air travel experience and the Disney experience from a customer service perspective...
If lawyers lack business acumen, here is one part of a solution
Posted on October 15, 2009In this space, I've discussed the "4-bucket" theory of law (process, content, advocacy and counseling), and I was visiting with a law school colleague of mine about the missing elements of legal education. I indicated that the single biggest missing element is knowledge of business, since that missing knowledge bears not only on understanding the business of your firm, be it your own or someone else's, but the business of the profession, and finally, and most acutely, the issues your client is confronting...
"The Survey says ....!" Two surveys confirm what everyone knows
Posted on October 15, 2009A new Hildebrandt International survey reveals that in-house law departments are cutting their budgets. That revelation is sure to fire up water cooler conversations this morning, The survey is actually reporting 2008 data, ignoring the grim reaper most law departments were forced to confront this year...
What is an alternative fee?
Posted on October 13, 2009Jim Hassett of LegalBizDev was kind enough to send me a preview edition of his AmLaw 100 survey of alternative fees. Very interesting reading, and Jim is to be commended for his work in this area. This most recent report includes the results of surveys and meetings with C-suite executives from 37 of the the AmLaw 100...
Newton's First Law and Client Service
Posted on October 12, 2009"An object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted on by another force." Sir Isaac Newton's First Law of Motion, also know as the Law Of Inertia I have to confess that when you discover gravity, you're the kind of historical figure who gets my attention...
When you need to, apologize. With feeling!
Posted on October 08, 2009At first, I thought the multitude of thoughts was simply the failure of one's mind to bring order to the thinking process as a result of too many cocktails. But I didn't have that many last night, so maybe I just needed to think harder to bring order to chaos...
Watercoolers and clients
Posted on October 07, 2009They (and have you ever, like me, wondered who they are?) say that nature abhors a vacuum. I was reminded about the wisdom of this gem during a recent deposition. My witness was testifying about the sale of a company and management's why management was releasing information to the employees...
Economics 101: Staff Attorney Lay-offs (actually terminations)
Posted on October 06, 2009Above The Law is reporting that Paul Weiss has terminated as many as 45 staff attorneys. ATL previously reported that Skadden and Covington had terminated large numbers of staff attorneys. I suspect many other staff attorneys have been let go, albeit without the press coverage...
We mourn the passing of Craig Johnson of Virtual Law Partners
Posted on October 06, 2009My colleagues at Valorem and I were deeply saddened to hear of the sudden death of Craig Johnson, one of the founders of Virtual Law Partners. Craig died Saturday after suffering a stroke. His loss will be felt by those who valued his vision and innovative approach to the practice of law...
WOW! Jordan Furlong joins Edge International!
Posted on September 30, 2009There is no bigger fan of Edge International than yours truly, and I've written before about my admiration for Edge's outstanding work. I've also written of my admiration for Jordan Furlong, author of the brilliant Law21.ca blog. Today I learned that Jordan has joined Edge's outstanding team...
Ron Baker's Lean Rebuttal. Pat's comments
Posted on September 27, 2009Ron Baker posted a long critique of the discussion on Lean. I wanted to comment on some of his arguments, so I have copied the post its entirety. My comments appear in caps within the body of Ron's post below. Forgive this unorthodox approach, but it is the only way to create the proper context without a lot of unnecessary movement from one post to the next...
Forms of Address: Personal or Impersonal?
Posted on September 26, 2009I received an email yesterday that began "Hi Patrick J." It caused a flashback to my childhood. When my mother was angry with me, she called me Patrick J. When she was really ticked off, she called me Patrick John. And when it was certain she was going to whip my sorry behind, it was all three names, Patrick John Lamb...
Lean Discussion Very Insightful
Posted on September 24, 2009Certain posts from In Search Of Perfect Client Service are posted on the Legal On Ramp discussion board. The comments by fellow "rampers" on my two recent posts on Lean, Lean Client Service and Update on Lean: Ron Baker Takes Issue have been so interesting that I am taking the liberty of posting them here; From Anthony Kearns, National Risk Manager for the Legal Practitioners Liability Committee (LPLC), a non-profit statutory insurer that provides first layer professional indemnity insurance to Australian law firms: Patrick, Kudos on bringing up Ron...
Update on Lean: Ron Baker takes issue
Posted on September 22, 2009Ron Baker is one of the leading thinkers on the issue of value billing. I take what he says very seriously. In response to my previous post on Lean Client Service, Ron posted a comment. Because comments tend to get buried or lost, I wanted to share his comment and offer a further thought...
Walking and chewing gum. At the same time.
Posted on September 22, 2009I was listening to NPR today. There was a story about how Congress could not work on climate change legislation because it was focused on the health care debate. It reminded me of a time when I asked a colleague if we could schedule a meeting to discuss a new case, only to be told that the lawyer was not available for the next month because he was writing a brief...
And This Is How PR Works
Posted on September 18, 2009Earlier 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...
BigLaw dipping its little toe in alternative fees
Posted on September 18, 2009A lot of people have been wondering whether we had reached a "tipping point" on alternative fees and there is some evidence that we have. You see, when BigLaw starts talking the talk, it means they are playing catch-up. In the past few days, if you believe the headlines, Reed Smith, Mayer Brown ("Mayer Brown and Reed Smith set to champion fixed fees")and O'Melveny ("new business model") have all made the jump...
Lean Client Service
Posted on September 18, 2009Wikipedia defines "lean" this way: Lean manufacturing or lean production, which is often known simply as "Lean", is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination...
Valorem's Advisory Board Experience Rocks
Posted on September 17, 2009Valorem created an Advisory Board in May. The first meeting of the Advisory Board was Tuesday. It was well-attended (7 of 10) and was incredibly valuable. There really should be a better adjective--it was that good. We are so very thankful to our Board for their time and input...
What Do Clients Pay For Certainty? Is It Worth It?
Posted on September 02, 2009When speak before groups that include in-house lawyers or business people, I always ask at what level of certainty business decisions are made. The answers tend to range from 40% to 60%. There have been lower numbers, but I can't recall any that were higher...
Short Legal Communications
Posted on September 02, 2009A couple of days ago, I wrote a post about lawyers refusing to take a position on something. I've gotten a lot of nice comments on ...and on the other hand ... and wanted to follow up with a short but important point. When you figure out what your real point is, the one hand you want the client to know about, express yourself succinctly...
Stuart Chanen joins Valorem!
Posted on September 01, 2009I am thrilled to be able to share with the world that Stuart Chanen has joined Valorem! Stuart is an incredibly accomplished litigator and adds immeasurably to our strength and creativity. Here is the press release we issued a short while ago: Stuart J...
Are alternative fees like teenage sex? Find out.
Posted on September 01, 2009I love this article. Not because it mentions my friend and client, Jeff Carr (it quotes him liberally). Not because it mentions Valorem (it does). Not even because it ends by quoting my tweet (it does). I love it because of this sentence: "Alternative fee arrangements are like teenage sex...
Former BigLaw Insider Poses Challenge For BigLaw Leaders: Hold Yourselves Accountable
Posted on August 31, 2009Accountability and law firm leadership (actually, management more accurately describes what goes on at most firms) are words rarely used in the same sentence, paragraph or conversation. I decried the lack of accountability last March in my post, Who Is Accountable For The Lack of Vision?...
If all lunches were like this ...
Posted on August 31, 2009It was my great fortune today to have lunch with Gerry Riskin and Rob Millard of Edge International, and my partner, Nicole Auerbach. Wow. Wow. Wow. I'm a huge fan of Edge. Gerry or Rob, alone, will inspire a great conversation, but together they ensure that the conversation will be eye-opening, mind-expanding and thought-provoking...
The Leadership Gap
Posted on August 31, 2009My friend Ed Reeser has written extensively, in blogs, Legal On Ramp posts and articles, on leadership issues in law school. If you know Ed, you know that he is the kind of person who leads from the front and he is the kind of leader you love to follow wherever he goes...
Jay Shepherd Reveals Secrets To Flat Fee Pricing
Posted on August 28, 2009Jay Shepherd hasn't billed an hour since September 2006. In fact, no one at the Shepherd Law Group has. You read that right--the entire firm hasn't billed an hour for 3 years. For those of you who don't know Jay or haven't read his blog, The Client Revolution, you've missed out...
Jim Calloway: BigLaw billing practices will NOT return to normal
Posted on August 27, 2009Well known (and highly regarded) blogger Jim Calloway notes in a post on the billable hour debate that he's "in the camp of those who believe law firm billing is now a matter of corporate focus and it is unlikely that large law firm billing practices will return to "normal" after the economy rights itself...
GCs: Mine your data!
Posted on August 27, 2009Interesting post on Adam Smith Esq. about the billable hour debate really being about trust. Largely true. I envision the billable hour model to be akin to the relationship between prisoners and prison guards, with clients in the role of guards...
Rob Millard's Insights Into The Future Of Law
Posted on August 27, 2009Rob Millard of Edge International has authored a fantastic article the "explores some of the changes in today's world and how they might unfold, especially in the case of law firms." Rob begins his insights with this observation: The future is not what it used to be...
....and on the other hand ...
Posted on August 27, 2009Mike Roster, the head of the ACC Value Challenge and a former GC and outside lawyer, just relayed a story in a post on Legal On Ramp. Here's the story: I once was at a board meeting with a director who had been a CEO of several major public companies...
I am honored to be a Legal Rebel
Posted on August 26, 2009The ABA's Legal Rebels project was launched yesterday. Here's the description of the project: The legal profession is not just struggling through a recession, but also undergoing a structural break with the past. There is a growing consensus that the profession that emerges from the recession will be different in fundamental ways from the one that entered it...
DataCert To Host Seminars on AFAs: Yours Truly Speaking
Posted on August 25, 2009Yesterday's Wall Street Journal article discussing corporations saving 15% on legal spend by using alternative fees makes DataCert's announcement that it will be hosting seminars on Alternative Fees in Houston, Chicago and Silicon Valley all the more timely...
Urgency Borne of Panic Is Not Healthy
Posted on August 25, 2009John Kotter, author of A Sense Of Urgency and a professor at Harvard Business School. He is considered by many to be an authority on leadership and change. Those words are not spoken often in the context of the business of law, so it is not surprising that Kotter's recent interview on the topic of leadership and change is in Inc...
The WSJ article on hourly rates and real change
Posted on August 25, 2009But let's not get to the point where we're mocking folks who are trying to move in the "right" direction. At one point you say you can't move from fish to fowl overnight, so don't mock the baby steps. Maybe right now they don't "get" that they need to squeeze out those 200 hours on every engagement, but aren't these steps in the right direction? All the writing I've read on shift to fixed fee billing suggests it's hard, and there will be missteps along the way...
In The War Between Easy and Effective, Effective Should Win
Posted on August 24, 2009I am really annoyed. I just read a post at Above The Law, Under Attack, Should Billable Hour Be Concerned For Its Safety? The post concludes with this observation: It is easy to say that the billable hour doesn't reward efficiency. And clients can demand fixed rate solutions if they want to...
Wall Street Journal Article Is Further Evidence Of Move Away From Billable Hour
Posted on August 24, 2009The front page of today Wall Street Journal contains an article, 'Billable Hour' Under Attack,that poses more questions than it answers. Amongst the useful insights: corporate spending on flat fees is up 50% over the same period last year corporations using flat fees are experiencing 15% average savings over those not using flat fees But the article contains some stunning quotes that merit some commentary...
Legal Community Veterans Continue Attack on Billable Hour
Posted on August 24, 2009In two separate articles, long-time law firm consultant Joel Henning and former GE GC Ben Heineman, Jr. and William Lee, co-managing partner of WilmerHale, have highlighted the plight of the profession borne of the billable hour and the model that creates a ponzie-scheme-like need for ever increasing revenue in law firms...
Mediation on the rise?
Posted on August 24, 2009Last week, I wrote about corporate America instructing its counsel to make litigation go away rather than spending money defending lawsuits. Perhaps one way it is doing this is by increasing the use of mediation. Mediation is a good investment of time and money, especially if you get a good mediator...
War and Litigation Budgets
Posted on August 17, 2009My friend Dan Hull at What About Clients? has an interesting post on litigation budgets. Here is Dan's key point: War is the last of all things to go according to schedule. -- Thucydides (460 BC - 395 BC) in The History of the Peloponnesian War...
"What happens if ....?"
Posted on August 17, 2009I met Gini Dietrich on Twitter. Gini is the CEO of Arment Dietrich, a public relations firm in Chicago. Gini also is the primary author of the blog The Fight Against Destructive Spin. In a recent post, Gini, an avid cyclist, recounted how she had been riding along with fellow cyclists talking about the Bears...
"Make this go away": Corporate America's New Take On Litigation
Posted on August 17, 2009The online version of National Law Journal contains an interesting analysis of the impact the recession is having on how corporate America looks at litigation. In For Litigators, A Different Kind Of Recession,author Karen Sloan analyzes various data and surveys and reaches some interesting conclusions...
BigLaw Still Facing Problems?
Posted on August 17, 2009Anecdotes first: A short while ago, I had lunch with a friend, a BigLaw partner. This partner's firm had gone through two rounds of associate and staff layoffs, a round of partner reduction and some de-equitizations. According to this partner, more of each are on the near horizon, as in 2009 sometime...
Some Reflections On Client Service
Posted on August 10, 2009Over the weekend, I was cleaning out some old files on my computer and I ran across a slide show I had put together for a presentation on client service. I thought I would post them here. There were two over-arching points to the presentation that are worth reminding yourself of everyday: 1...
Hourly Billing And The PEP Conundrum
Posted on August 07, 2009Let's say you're the managing partner of an AmLaw 200 firm. You've terminated associates and staff (using, of course, the kinder and gentler term "lay offs"), you've eliminated free coffee, taken tissues away from associates and staff (presumably you had the good grace to do this after all the layoffs), raised the amount people have to pay for vending machine soda, closed unprofitable offices, cut the salaries of summer associates, forced non-rainmaker partners out, had a second round of staff and associate terminations, and basically done everything one can do to cut costs and preserve you firm's profits per equity partner...
Rain Today Publishes Lamb-Auerbach Article On Client Loyalty As By-Product Of Great Leadership
Posted on August 06, 2009Nicole Auerbach and I were honored to be asked to author a chapter in a RainToday.com special report, The One Piece of Advice You Need to Earn Your Clients' Loyalty. Our submission, Client Loyalty As A By-Product Of Firm Leadership, has received several positive comments on Twitter since the RainToday...
Jim Hassett releases 3rd Edition of Guide To Alternative Fees
Posted on August 03, 2009Jim Hassett of Legal Business Development has just released the 3rd edition of his acclaimed work, LegalBizDev Guide To Alternative Fees. Jim has spent more time thinking about alternative fees than almost anyone I know, and his accumulated knowledge, analysis and insights are available in his Guide...
Virtual Firms And The Future Of Law Practice
Posted on August 03, 2009Very interesting article in the Legal Technology section of law.com today, Does The Future Belong To Virtual Law Firms? The articles discusses how Virtual Law Partners secured a client that is incorporated in Delaware and based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and is represented by a VLP partner living in Cali, Columbia...
BigLaw and Fixed Fees: The Two Don't Mix
Posted on August 02, 2009You cannot flip a switch and start pricing lawsuits on a fixed fee basis. Like anything else, it takes experience to become any good at it. Is it any wonder, then, that firms that have historically charged by the hour quote inflated flat fees? I've written about the tendency of BigLaw to multiply rates (which, of course, include a healthy profit) times the number of hours they expect to spend on a matter, and then add in a fudge-factor of 10 to 15% or more...
LexisNexis Practice Management: Firmly Rooted In The Past
Posted on July 23, 2009I received an email this morning that I found really shocking. It was from Law Firm, Inc., attaching "an offer" from one of its advertising partners, LexisNexis. The offer was contained in what was formatted as an article or blog post, with this title: "Stacking the bench with more associates wins partners more income...
Jack Welch Work Life Pronouncement Is NOT Newsworthy
Posted on July 18, 2009The ABA Weekly reported today that Jack Welch, former General Electric CEO, told an audience at Society for Human Resource Management's annual conference that 'there is no such thing as work-life balance' and women who take time off for family will have a tough time climbing the corporate ladder...
Work LIfe Balance and the Kobayashi Maru
Posted on July 17, 2009I think the world of Dan Hull. Smart, opinionated, tough-as-nails, erudite. Great writer. Funny as hell. Plus we share an unwavering commitment to providing unsurpassed client service. We don't see eye to eye on everything, though. Dan still believes in the billable hour...
Does Skin In The Game Improve Case Assessments? Clients Say Yes.
Posted on July 16, 2009Dave Bohrer of Confluence Law Partners recently published an article, Trolling For Efficiency, which discusses the impact of using alternative fees in patent defense litigation. [I should be able to post a link to the article in a few days. Email me for a copy in the interim...
BigLaw Partner Compensation Systems Hurt Clients
Posted on July 15, 2009A July 14 post on Chicago Law announced that Joe Collins had resigned from Mayer Brown following his recent conviction in the Refco fraud debacle. That was hardly newsworthy: Collins had been on leave since 2007. Here's the quote that caught my attention: "The story also says few other lawyers at Mayer Brown knew much about Collins' practice because of the firm's eat-what-you-kill compensation system...
IsThe Insurance Industry Waking Up?
Posted on July 15, 2009Someone emailed me the link to an article, in Claims (Covering the Business of Loss). The article, Fleecing The Golden Goose: Why Insurers Need A Defense To Overbilling Lawyers, addresses the phenomenon of overbilling in the world of insurance defense...
I Highly Recommend "An Open Letter to the General Counsel"
Posted on July 14, 2009My friend Pam Woldow of Altman Weil just posted "An Open Letter to the General Counsel." It is must-read material if you are an inside lawyer. See if you identify with any of these comments made to Pam in an interview with a GC of a major transportation company: 1...
How High Is Too High?
Posted on July 14, 2009ACC blog post notes that Jones Day is charging Chrysler hourly rates ranging from $400 per hour for the youngest lawyer to $950 per hour for the most experienced. Wow. Let's run the numbers. Assume that because work is slow, the $400 lawyers work only 2000 hours per year...
More BigLaw Pain
Posted on July 14, 2009The pain just keeps getting more intense. Morgan Lewis just announced that it is: 1. canceling all on-campus interviewing this coming fall; 2. canceling the summer program for 2010; and 3. pushing back the start date for current summer associates to 2011...
What Can Be Outsourced Eventually Will Be
Posted on July 13, 2009Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Then President of a think tank in Washington, D.C. Then, motorcycle mechanic. Not a normal career path, to be sure. This is the path taken by Matthew Crawford, author of Shop Class As Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into The Value of Work...
The Just Don't Get It, Do They?
Posted on July 13, 2009Andrew Kassner, managing partner of the 680-lawyer Drinker Biddle & Reath L.L.P. of Center City, said the new focus on flat fees, incentive payments and other alternative forms of compensation means law firms need to be very careful about how they deploy their lawyers...
Valorem Improvement Contest
Posted on July 11, 2009No one has cornered the market on great ideas. Certainly not us, But we feed on great ideas, so we wanted to try something out. Here's the message: We want to get everyone's creative juices flowing. And everyone means everyone, except for Nicole, Mark, Hugh and Pat (i...
Economy Improving? Words Say Yes, Actions Say No.
Posted on July 10, 2009You have marvel at the ability lawyers have with sleight of hand. Here on the left, we will tell you the economy is improving. Ignore the additional layoffs, deferred start dates, cancellation of on-campus interviewing, closing of offices and other actions taken with my right hand...
A Lesson From Our Forefathers
Posted on July 04, 2009Happy Birthday America. Two hundred thirty three years ago, leaders decided that change not only was possible, but necessary. Were they certain what change would bring? Of course not. But they did it anyway.
If Not Now, ....(well, why waste a great quote)?
Posted on June 30, 2009Altman Weil has released the results of its 2009 Chief Legal Officer Survey. To my mind, the most telling result is this: The survey asked Chief Legal Officers (CLOs) to rate how much pressure corporations are putting on law firms to change the value proposition in legal service delivery, as opposed to simply cutting costs...
Celebrate What You Have.
Posted on June 28, 2009Yesterday, I took my soon to a church function that, frankly, neither of us was too thrilled about attending. But lessons are learned in the most unexpected places. We were in a group of about 50, and were treated to a performance by Tony Melendez...
NineSigma--Can The Model Be Adapted For Law?
Posted on June 25, 2009Mavericks At Work: Why The Most Original Minds in Business Win is a terrific book, written by Fast Company co-founder William Taylor. The book has many attributes that make it a "must-read," but the one I want to focus on here is a company discussed in the book named NineSigma...
Note to BigLaw: Please Explain
Posted on June 25, 2009Two things captured my attention today. They fit so nicely together because I can't understand either of them. First, I read an Above The Law post about DLA Piper abandoning lockstep compensation for its associates. But it was this quote from co-CEO Lee Miller that struck me so hard: "I don't think the model is broken, but people want to rethink what they're doing and why they're doing it...
"Dedicated to providing thoughtful answers."
Posted on June 24, 2009Marketing, to be effective, needs to (1) have a point and (2) not insult the listener or viewer. These things seem to be Marketing 101. So here I am this morning, driving along listening to NPR. The announcer reads the piece that programming is brought to you by "[insert name of large national accounting firm] where we are dedicated to providing our clients with thoughtful answers...
Lawyers Victimizing Clients: Two Models
Posted on June 24, 2009I was visiting with a friend of mine recently. He regaled me with a story of a lawsuit he had brought against some entity that had screwed up a service it was providing. He lamented how he had been unable to get the case settled. He told me that the lawyer defending the case had convinced his client the case was win-able and the adversary was now fighting to the death, when settling would have cost only marginally more than the legal fees the adversary was now paying...
Social Networking And The Law
Posted on June 23, 2009One of the points that Mike Dillon, GC of Sun Microsystems, made in his recent post, Change, is that the new generation of lawyers has a different perspective on the practice, which is helping drive change. The career perspective of the newest generation of attorneys is an additional factor in driving these changes...
The Mastodon . . . whistles past the graveyard?
Posted on June 21, 2009Two years ago, Mike Dillon, GC of Sun Microsystems, observed in his post, The Way Of The Mastodon: My point is that the epoch of the current law firm model - which derives its profitability from growing scale and raising hourly rates - will soon be over...
Skin In The Game: It Causes Behavior To Change
Posted on June 18, 2009The President's proposed solution to the economic problems created by the easy loans made during the housing bubble requires banks and other lenders to keep 5% of the loans they package and sell. The belief is that if lenders have "skin in the game," they will refrain from making bad loans since doing so will cost them money...
A Thought For Law Students
Posted on June 17, 2009I don't normally write with a law student audience in mind. The recent spate of terminations (I hate the word 'layoff'), my encounters with great law students here at Valorem and at FutureFirm 1.0 and a recent post on Legal On Ramp by Ed Reeser asking whether being a BigLaw associate was worth it anymore all got me thinking about how hard it must be to be a law student these days...
Thanks To Adrian Dayton For Podcast Interview
Posted on June 17, 2009My great thanks to Adrian Dayton, the person behind Marketing Strategy And The Law--Social Media Edition. I was honored to be Adrian's guest on Weekly Voir Dire, a weekly podcast. The interview in available here. I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion with Adrian...
Designing The Nuclear Supercarrier Of The Future and The Practice Of Law
Posted on June 17, 2009"Designing a nuclear powered aircraft carrier is a mindbendingly complex process." I love that sentence--if only because of its understatement (and the use of "mindbendingly"). It is from a fascinating article at FastCompany...
Short Time Offer: Creating A Marketing Habit in 21 Days
Posted on June 16, 2009I generally try to avoid pushing books here, even though I read a lot of books. But I was asked to read Paula Black's The Little Black Book: A Lawyer's Guide To Creating A Marketing Habit in 21 Days. I read the other books in Paula's "Little Black Book" series, and they have been very helpful to me, so I agreed to read the book...
Can BigLaw Afford To Look Askance At Contract Lawyers
Posted on June 16, 2009Here's a sentence that should scare the bejesus out of every inside lawyer: "Other firms, however, are taking work they would typically farm out to contract lawyers and instead are giving it to associates who might not have much on their plates...
BigLaw and Alternative Fees: With Friends Like This, I Can File Chapter 11!
Posted on June 15, 2009In February, I posted about The Problem With Most Fixed Fee Proposals. Here was my point: Let's start with the "what it would cost on an hourly basis" part of the calculus. Hours times hourly rate. See any problem? To start with, hourly rates include a very hefty profit margin...
"Contract Year Phenomenon" And Lawyer-Client Relationships
Posted on June 12, 2009There is something known as "contract year phenomenon." Wikipedia describes it: Contract year phenomenon is a term used in North American sports to describe the occurrence when athletes perform at a very high level in the season prior to their free agency eligibility...
Worst Law Firm Decision Imaginable?
Posted on June 10, 2009The title is Fred Bartlit's take on the recent decision by Pillsbury Winthrop to cut associate salaries between 10-20% based on utilization rates. Fred's take is 'this guarantees that more associates will "make their quotas" and that clients will pay much more for no reason...
Excellent Book: Personality not included--why companies lose their authenticity and how great brands get it back
Posted on June 10, 2009I am a big fan of Rohit Bhargava's recent book, *Personality not included--Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity and how great brands get it back. Rohit provides great examples of the points he is making. The essential point is that companies with personality have a chance of succeeding, faceless companies that try to be all things to all people are destined to be ignored and forgotten...
But Who Insures My Profitability?
Posted on June 09, 2009The AmLaw Daily contains a fascinating post, GCs, Law Firms And Flat Fee Arrangements: A Matter Of Trust. One outside lawyer is quoted as saying that "the single biggest obstacle to flat fee arrangements is fear." The reporter goes on to say that clients worry about the quality of work they will get and outside counsel worry that they will lose money if something unexpected happens...
Back Door To ??????
Posted on June 08, 2009Last week the American Lawyer reported the results of its first "Women in Law" survey. Despite the occasional standout firm, women still account for approximately 1 in 5 big firm partners. The Am Law 200 does much better than the Am Law 100, with 60% of the former reporting an average of 19% women partners while only 41% of the Am Law 100 reported the same...
Cost Certainty Should Not Be Confused With Efficiency
Posted on June 02, 2009I read with interest a law.com story, New Approaches, New Firms on Corporate Clients' Shopping Lists. The story reports on recent findings from a BTI Consulting survey. Here's the key finding: Clients need new approaches to fees, staffing and billing -- including a shift from hourly to flat rates, he said, but when they've reached out to the largest Am Law firms for solutions, they are told "We're not sure we know how to do that...
Sandra Day O'Connor, Nicole Auerbach and Roberta Liebenberg
Posted on June 01, 2009It's not too often that one of your partners is mentioned in the same breath with a legendary Supreme Court justice. But that's just what happened to my partner, Nicole Auerbach! Here's the story. A former colleague of mine received a blast email from the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession announcing Ms...
Valorem Announces Advisory Board
Posted on May 28, 2009The need to improve is never satiated. Just as true is the fact that "fresh eyes" frequently see things that those closest to something cannot see themselves. These two facts were the impetus for Valorem Law Group forming an Advisory Board...
What You Wish You Knew When You Were 20 Is Something You Should Know When You Are 40. Or 50.
Posted on May 28, 2009I just finished reading What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, by Tina Seelig. Dr. Seelig is a neuroscientist and the executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, the entrepreneurship center at Stanford's School of Engineering. I wish I knew this now, at 52...
Thank You.
Posted on May 24, 2009Over 1,300,000 American soldiers have died in battle. Countless others have served in uniform. Honor them. Thank them.
Does Increasing Turbulence Suggest That Now Is The Time For A Different Means Of Travel?
Posted on May 22, 2009In the last two days, the legal market has been greeted with more layoffs, a prediction that many more layoffs of associates and partners is inevitable, further deferrals of starting dates for new associates, buy-outs of new associates (also called firing them before they start), rollbacks in associates salaries, further cuts in partner income, let's see, have I forgotten anything? Oh yea, there's that little matter of Skadden deferring the starting date of associates from the class of 2010...
The Process Era--A Follow Up On Jeff Carr's 4 Buckets
Posted on May 21, 2009Several weeks ago, I posted about Jeff Carr's 4 buckets of law practice--process,content, advocacy and counseling. In the same vein, Jordan Furlong advises lawyers to Get ready for the process era. It is an outstanding piece of work and presents a similar view much more capably...
Is Trust A Casualty of the Recession?
Posted on May 21, 2009It may be, according to this post in the Harvard Business Review Editor's Blog. This article discusses the relationship between buyers and Chinese manufacturers, but also notes this: Is the buyer likely to trust any vendor again? Not surprisingly, when HBR surveyed readers in January 2009, we found that more than one-fifth of 1,024 respondents admitted that their trust in suppliers had been shaken over the past 12 months...
Defender Of Billable Hour Emerges
Posted on May 21, 2009This headline caught my attention: "Billable Hour Hullabaloo is 'Overblown, Drinker Partner Says." Courtesy of the ABA Journal, The headline is true to the article. 'The billable hour is an overblown issue,' said Drinker Biddle & Reath managing partner Ed Getz, in an interview with the ABA Journal...
Natural Selection Of Brain Cells (Off Topic)
Posted on May 20, 2009Sorry. But I received this email from a friend and laughed so hard I had to share it: I don't think I've ever heard the concept explained any better than this . 'Well you see, Norm, it's like this . . . A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo...
Waste Not, Want Not: Law Firms And The Current Economic Crisis
Posted on May 19, 2009Rahm Emmanuel is famous for saying "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste." But another crisis truism comes to mind as well: "by the time you recognize a real crisis, it may be too late to do anything about it." The question for the day is whether law firms yet today recognize the real magnitude of the crisis they are facing...
Is Your Law Firm A Premium Or A Luxury Firm?
Posted on May 18, 2009Seth Godin, a leading marketing adviser, has a fantastic discussion of the difference between luxury and premium goods in his blog today. The entry is suitably titled Luxury vs. premium. Here's what he says: Luxury goods are needlessly expensive...
Is It Possible That The Hourly Rate Model Is Just Misunderstood?
Posted on May 18, 2009Awwww. The billable hour model is not so bad, just misunderstood. Such is the hypothesis of a new law.com article, In Defense Of The Billable Hour: Bad, Or Just Misunderstood?. One expects a vigorous defense of the poor 'ole hourly rate, but that is not to be...
Clients: How Do You Feel About Paying For $60,000 Paid Vacations?
Posted on May 18, 2009Interesting article in Time.com, Why Rookie Lawyers Get $60,000 Paid Vacations. The article never answers the question, it just talks about how individual 3Ls are reacting to the "opportunity." No one has really spoken about this from the customer's perspective...
Gulp! Dismal Prognosis For BigLaw From Top Consultant
Posted on May 17, 2009"... it's more based on the data I'm seeing on the firms' financial performance. The data is dismal, and it leads you to certain conclusions. Often consultants draw those conclusions sooner than the firms do, but they're going to draw the conclusions too...
The One Piece Of Advice You Need To Earn Your Clients' Loyalty
Posted on May 16, 2009It is no secret that the recession is testing relationships between lawyers and clients, and that the situation will continue to worsen and test those relationships for some time. RainToday.com asked what does it take to build the type of relationships with your clients that keep them loyal and coming back to your firm year after year? My partner Nicole Auerbach and I were honored to be among those asked to contribute our thoughts to this insightful ebook, now available...
Overkill in Bankruptcy Court Yields Motion To Disqualify
Posted on May 15, 2009The US Bankruptcy Trustee is moving to disqualify Kirkland & Ellis from representing General Growth in the company's bankruptcy, which is pending in New York. The reason? General Growth also is represented by Weil Gotchal and the trustee believes 'the danger of overbilling and duplication of billings is great...
From the Front Lines: Change Is Never Easy
Posted on May 12, 2009Altman Weil has released the results of its Law Firms in Transition flash survey. The results are fascinating. Here are some highlights : The top four areas of permanent change identified by all survey respondents were: more price competition (chosen first by firms in all size categories), a longer partner track, more contract lawyers and more non-hourly billing...
Wither thou, AmLaw 25-200?
Posted on May 12, 2009Usually, I start a post by typing the title and I go from there. I know what I want to say. This time, I'm not sure where to go or what to title the post. Two tidbits of information came to my attention today, both published. Above the Law reported last week that Jenner & Block has recently de-equitized more partners...
Thoughts About Twitter
Posted on May 11, 2009I have not been able to figure out Twitter. Here's the description from Wikipedia: Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers)...
Our We Diverting Focus On Our Clients?
Posted on May 10, 2009I've mentioned my friend Dan Hull any number of times in my posts. He is thoughtful, an extraordinary writer and someone who shares my passion for providing great service to our clients. He sees things through the same client service prism I do...
Inside Counsel Superconference: A Great Learning Experience
Posted on May 07, 2009As I posted a while ago, I had been asked to participate in a panel on The Future Of Fees at the Superconference put on each year by Inside Counsel, a publication on the regular reading list of informed inside counsel. This year's conference concluded on May 6th...
Inside Counsel: If Your Budget Has Been Cut, Call Pam
Posted on May 07, 2009I had a chance the other day to spend time talking with Pam Woldow of Altman Weil. Wow, was I impressed. Pam helps Inside Counsel achieve better performance from their law departments. In today's world, that means she spends lots of time helping inside counsel deal with budget cuts, some as high as 50 per cent...
"Money Holds Us Together."
Posted on May 02, 2009I was reading the May issue of American Lawyer this morning. From Citations on page 24: "I don't think partner retreats are what hold a firm together. Frankly, what holds a firm together is money. That's what holds us together...
"Billable Hour Admitted To Hospital"
Posted on April 29, 2009When we created the Valorem website, we boldly declared that "The Billable Hour Is Dead." It was a bold statement, clearly relying on the "dead man walking" concept. Today, a former partner and still friend of mine brought this blog post to our attention (Thanks Debra!): Billable Hour Admitted To Hospital...
Real Client Service? It is an issue of organizational DNA.
Posted on April 27, 2009Another great post by Dan Hull at What About Clients?, this one on Ease Of Use Services. Dan begins with a pet peeve I share, the way the gap between the lip service to client service and the actual service provided has rendered the notion of client service nearly meaningless...
Jeff's Carr's Four Buckets-- Advocacy, Counseling, Process and Content--And Change In The Legal Profession
Posted on April 27, 2009Jeff Carr, the General Counsel of FMC Technologies and ACC Board Member, has spoken often about his idea that legal services fit into four buckets, two of which he is happy to pay for and two of which he thinks will someday be free. Jeff says he happily will pay for advocacy and counseling, which require skill, expertise, knowledge of the company and which are, at their core, customized services...
Jeff Carr's Four Buckets-- Advocacy, Counseling, Process and Content--And Change In The Legal Profession
Posted on April 27, 2009Jeff Carr, the General Counsel of FMC Technologies and ACC Board Member, has spoken often about his idea that legal services fit into four buckets, two of which he is happy to pay for and two of which he thinks will someday be free. Jeff says he happily will pay for advocacy and counseling, which require skill, expertise, knowledge of the company and which are, at their core, customized services...
Do Lawyers Systemically Fail To Get Things Done On Time?
Posted on April 22, 2009I was intrigued by a a post penned by my friend, Dan Hull, on What About Clients?. In We, The Undisciplined, The Miserable, Dan raises this issue: "Do we lawyers know how to get things done, done right and done on time? Do we even value that? I wonder...
You Buy Hours, You Get Hours. And Hours. And More Hours.
Posted on April 22, 2009The AmLaw Daily reports today that an insurance company has sought to compel arbitration against a prominent Los Angeles based firm over the reasonableness of its fees handling a toxic tort matter. Among the allegations are an associate who has not yet passed the bar charging $450 per hour...
The Future Of Law?
Posted on April 20, 2009I had the great privilege of participating in FutureFirms 1.0, organized by Professor William Henderson of the Indiana University School of Law. The event, sponsored by Hildebrandt, feature four teams comprised of law firm partners, associates, current law students and actual clients...
On Being All Things
Posted on April 09, 2009Yesterday, I saw something I had never seen before. A Lincoln pick-up truck. I've never seen a BMW pick-up, or a Lexus pick-up truck. Nor, if memory serves, an Audi, Bentley, Rolls, Porsche or Infinity pick-up. I was surprised...
Are Discounted Hourly Rates The Answer?
Posted on April 07, 2009The March 30 issue of National Law Journal contains an article, reprinted on Law.com, discussing how some inhouse lawyers are responding to the economic crisis by asking their firms to slash hourly rates. The discounts discussed in General Counsel Pressuring Firms Amid Recession are not quantified, but include references to "we'll match any qualified offer" and similar gimmicks...
Innovation During The Downturn? A Followup
Posted on April 07, 2009I recently wrote about whether BigLaw would take the opportunity provided by the economic downturn to change their fundamental business model. Yesterday, I ran across an article in law.com suggesting change may be occurring. Tough Times For Law Firms, Lawyers May Be Catalyst For Positive Change posits the theory law firms are changing because they are changing the way they hire and the starting salaries for new associates...
Financial Advisors Encouraged To Bill By The Hour
Posted on April 07, 2009Accountancy Age encourages financial advisers to "charge by the hour if you want to survive." Essentially, the argument is this: hourly fees are more predictable than commission-based income. Meaning, you can more more if you charge for your time than if you charge for your results...
Inside Counsel Superconference: The Future Of Fees
Posted on April 05, 2009I am honored to have been invited to participate on a panel discussing The Future Of Fees at Inside Counsel's 2009 Superconference, the premier event of its kind for inside counsel. The program is wide-ranging and I am honored to be on a panel with Fred Bartlit, the renowned founder of Bartlit-Beck, Karen Klein, the General Counsel of Kayak...
Will Firms Get A Third Chance To Change?
Posted on April 05, 2009The recent story of General Motors provides an interesting point of comparison for law firms. Before approaching the government last December for bailout money (and a tone-deaf request at that), General Motors had decades to change itself into a company that could compete in the future...
One Bad Apple. One Little Thing.
Posted on April 04, 2009I love the Westin Hotel in Seattle. I have several great memories of that hotel. But on Thursday, I was in a hurry and I needed to grab a quick bite. For some inexplicable reason, this hotel does not have a restaurant for breakfast. Instead, there is a little cafe where you can get breakfast, but there is no wait staff to speak of...
Law Firms Declaring War On Clients' Wallets?
Posted on March 19, 2009Question for clients. How would you feel if your law firms hiked their hourly rates by 3% today. That's right, you get the same work output and pay 3% more. Okay, show of hands. Ummm, any body want that 3% increase? Is there a single hand to be raised? Of course not...
Earthshattering News: Layoffs Increase Likelihood Of Padding Timesheets
Posted on March 17, 2009You're a young associate. Several of your friends have been "laid off" (most non-law firm types call it being fired). They are struggling with their loans, losing their apartments, having to move home. Then you look down at the assignment given to you by the one partner not hoarding the work to himself...
The Importance of Exchanging Ideas
Posted on March 12, 2009There are many law firms that apply the Hippocratic oath to their public expressions--first do no harm. An in the course of "doing no harm," they become milquetoast and merge into background, just like elevator music. No one hears it...
Innovation During The Downturn? BigLaw Apparently Says No
Posted on March 11, 2009There is a fascinating discussion going on in a Legal On Ramp forum under the same title as this post. I am taking the liberty of quoting in its entirety a post by Fred Bartlit of Bartlit Beck, because it is so incredibly indicative of BigLaw's attitude about the current state of things: Re:Innovation during the Downturn 2 Minutes ago Here is the attitude of large traditional firms...
Virtual Law Firms v. Face-to-Face Collaboration
Posted on March 10, 2009Yesterday's online version of the Washington Post contains an interest article, Recession Sends Lawyers Home, that discusses the growing number of virtual law firms. The article discusses Virtual Law Partners and others. One of my partners wondered whether our true competition would come from virtual firms rather than BigLaw...
Congrats to Nicole Auerbach, Superwoman JD
Posted on March 09, 2009I've written before about my partners. They are amongst the finest people I know, and they are damn fine lawyers. One of the things I've never been able to convey in this blog is how much I learn from them and enjoy our encounters. In so many respects, their views on the issues I cover in this blog are much more interesting and enlightened than my own...
Seller Must Adapt To Buyer
Posted on February 18, 2009Just a few days ago, I posted You Must Understand Their Expectations Before You Can Meet Them, the latest is a long line of posts in which I articulate my basic premise that Clients have the power of the Buyer and that law is, inherently, a Buyer's market...
The Problem With Most Fixed Fee Proposals
Posted on February 18, 2009Jim Hassett's latest in his series of of posts on alternative fees is now available. This is a very important post on how to set a fixed fee. Jim notes that there are two ways of getting to a fixed number, cost plus pricing and value pricing...
Dan Hull Podcast Full of Great Insights
Posted on February 14, 2009My friend Dan Hull of Hull McGuire and author of What About Clients? is interviewed by "Charon QC" in a podcast covering a wide range of topics. Dan offers insights on topics ranging from the economy to client service to lawyer layoffs to cross-border collaboration and more...
You Must Understand Their Expectations Before You Can Meet Them
Posted on February 13, 2009The title comes from a line by Matt Homann is his post, Ten Rules of Rainmaking. The line reminded me of a retreat I attended once that was led by Gerry Riskin. Gerry began by asking the assembled group what would have to happen that day for everyone to leave thinking it had been a great day...
Excellent Article: "Surviving In The Current Cascade Of Economic Disaster"
Posted on February 11, 2009I can't get enough of what Bruce Marcus writes. Anyone who lives by the philosophy that "a mind at rest tends to remain at rest, a mind in motion tends to remain in motion" is somebody whose views merit careful consideration. Bruce writes The Marcus Letter...
What Ever Happened To Standing Behind Your Work?
Posted on February 09, 2009Time was, people produced things and stood behind them. Slogans like "our name is your product" and similar sentiments were expressed as a means of assuring quality. Those days are over. But now it looks like the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction...
An Ode To My Partners: We Is More Than Me
Posted on February 07, 2009From time to time, you've heard me mention my Valorem partners. I have tried (unsuccessfully, I realize) to keep this blog from being too Valorem-centric. But as my partners and our spouses gather tonight to celebrate our first anniversary, I want to use this space to share with them some things I've learned during our year together...
Example of Great Client Service
Posted on February 06, 2009Last evening, Valorem had an open house to celebrate our first anniversary. I had opposed the idea of the party and was persuaded by my partners that it was the right thing to do. Boy, were they right. We had a grand time and visited with many of the people who helped in our evolution...
Behind the Curtain
Posted on February 05, 2009In my inaugural glog post (glog is my definition of guest blog post, I alluded to the issue of diversity and suggested that, in addition to driving change related to alternative fees, in-house counsel had the power (or at least some power) to drive change in this regard as well...
On The Importance Of Writing Well
Posted on February 04, 2009More litigation results from bad drafting that one can possibly imagine. Excellent writing is a critical component of excellent client service. My friends at What About Clients have two terrific posts on good writing. The first reminds us that writing well is hard work...
Optics Count
Posted on February 04, 2009My first memory of the importance of optics in law was the time I was standing with an in-house lawyer for a large waste company outside a waste transfer station in Brooklyn, New York. We were going to be meeting with a senior partner from a large New York firm...
The Harmony of Alternative Fees
Posted on February 02, 2009I heard a story last week to the effect that many larger firms are offering fixed fee arrangements in response to RFPs issued by prospective clients. Just a few days before, I had been talking to some lawyers at a large firm who were investigating the possibility of their firm quoting more alternative fees to their clients...
Bad News? Don't Ignore the Gorilla.
Posted on February 02, 2009You can't. But it's amazing how people keep trying to ignore that old gorilla. As I've mentioned, I was listening to a panel of General Counsel share some stories last week. This story was told by one of them. The took a case to trial...
GCs Speak: Will You Hear Them?
Posted on January 31, 2009In today's world, there is little doubt that, with very limited exception, the business of law is now a buyer's market. The number of layoffs at large firms, and the demise of several prominent firms seem to confirm this. Certainly the anecdotes of revenue declines in 2009 do as well...
Take the Plunge II--It's about time
Posted on January 30, 2009Well, to be precise, it’s not about time. That’s why it’s time to take the plunge. There are some lawyers out there—you know who you are—sitting in your large comfortable offices wondering what will happen to your firms as this economic cataclysm continues...
Wheat and Chaff: Juries and Litigation
Posted on January 27, 2009Let me tell you a short story. A senior in-house lawyer is meeting with the CEO to talk about a problem the in-house lawyer had been asked to solve. The in-house lawyer describes how his efforts at negotiation had failed, so he had taken steps to find a random person off the street so that person could resolve the problem for the in-house lawyer...
Trusted Advisor's Insights On Transparency And Selling
Posted on January 27, 2009Mark Slatin has a most interesting post on Trusted Advisor. In Transparency and Selling, he writes: Yet, we’re trained to go in come back with information that will close the sale. Hunt it, kill it and bring it back to eat. • What if, instead of dancing around an answer we don’t know, we just admit we don’t know? • What if, instead of promising something we probably can’t deliver, we admit that and then tell them what we can do? • What if, instead of offering “teaser” pricing and then covertly getting it on the back end, we share our cost structure? These examples are counter-intuitive--downright treasonous in some circles...
"You Are Too Efficient. You're Fired."
Posted on January 27, 2009Fred Bartlit tells a story in a Legal On Ramp post that bears publicizing: Last night a young lawyer from a top school told me about one of his best friend's experience in a large Chicago firm (Now - this IS hearsay because it is second hand, but I know the source well and believe the story) His friend has always had top reviews...
Take The Plunge!
Posted on January 26, 2009For quite a while now, Pat Lamb, my partner in Valorem Law Group, has encouraged me to write a “guest blog” entry (we affectionately call it a “glog”) on his blog. Never one to shy away from either a platform or a new adventure, I told him I would definitely do so...
She's coming soon!!!!
Posted on January 23, 2009My partner, Nicole Auerbach, has finally agreed to be a regular guest blogger on In Search of Perfect Client Service. If you like some of the material I post, I guarantee you will love Nicole's offerings. She is much smarter than I am, funnier and definitely a better writer...
Informative Survey: How Clients Buy
Posted on January 23, 2009RainToday.com has published a new report, How Clients Buy: 2009 Benchmark Report on Professional Services Marketing & Selling from the Client Perspective. The report, which runs 57 pages and provides data from more than 200 buyers of accounting, financial, legal consulting and other services, costs $345...
Value, Like Beauty, Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
Posted on January 23, 2009Ed Poll of LawBizBlog and LawBiz Management has been advising lawyers for 25 years. Ed is one of the people I look to regularly for ideas and inspiration. His recent post, Corporate Counsel Want Value, frames an important question. The post discusses comments by Susan Hackett of the Association of Corporate Counsel about ACC's Value Challenge...
How Do Big Law Firms Teach This?
Posted on January 21, 2009What About Clients? periodically reviews its 12 Rules of Client Service. Rule 10 is one of the most nuanced. From today's WAC?: Rule 10: Be Accurate, Thorough and Timely--But Not Perfect. Ah, devil perfectionism: it's the curse of eldest children, professionals, many knowledge workers, most lawyers, all spouses, your Mom, and the geek classes, or Techwazee...
Survey Of GCs--More Alternative Fees Coming?
Posted on January 19, 2009Nearly 75% of all law departments are facing budget cuts in 2009. Over 30% are facing cuts of between 11% and 20%, while 35% are facing cuts between 6% and 10%. These are among the bleak results from an Altman Weil flash survey of General Counsel...
Jim Hassett Takes A Detour--But It's Worth It
Posted on January 16, 2009Earlier, I wrote about Part I of Jim Hassett's 5-part series on alternative fees. Jim has already written the entire series (if you want it in full format, it's available here). But showing great agility, Jim has adapted Part II on his blog posts to incorporate some dialogue created by Part I...
LL Bean and Trusted Advisors
Posted on January 16, 2009Charles Green has a wonderful post on his Trusted Advisors blog about LL Bean: Urban Myth Or Rural Superstition. Pulled from The Consumerist, it tells a story of the Maine Outfitter's legendary customer service. Guy's wife orders 3 monogrammed shirts for him for Christmas...
What About Clients? Shines Through
Posted on January 16, 2009From time to time, Dan Hull and his colleagues at WAC? repeat some of Hull McGuire's Rules of Service. I love this post summarizing Rule No. 9: Lawyers aren't special. We're in a service business. Get used to it. Rule 9: Be There for Clients 24/7...
Hours Based Bonus + Bad Economy = Warning To Clients (Watch Your Wallet)
Posted on January 16, 2009In a Friday post, Above The Law reveals that Arent Fox utilizes an hours-based bonus system. If an associate does not exceed 1950 billable hours, no bonus. And then in hundred hour increments, associates can receive ever increasing "productivity bonuses...
Lessons From My Wife's Broken Wrist
Posted on January 15, 2009Last Saturday, my wife slipped and broke her wrist. Yesterday, her wrist was surgically repaired. She's doing fine. I learned a couple of things while at the hospital that are germane to this blog. Here they are, in no particular order: 1) Your waiting room says a lot about you...
A Brief Look Back. A Sober Look Forward
Posted on January 09, 2009As Valorem was celebrating its first anniversary on January 1st, I spent a bit of time thinking back on the things that shaped our birth. One of those things was a prescient post by Gerry Riskin way back in August 2007. Gerry is, in my view, the world's foremost consultant/advisor to law firms...
Dear Cool Law Firm.
Posted on January 09, 2009Like a proud parent, I feel an irresistable urge to share some "Valorem highlights" from our first year. I'll save you the case highlights--can you imagine a fun post on lawsuits? We just got a letter from a management consultant in New York...
Fred Bartlit Spices Up Legal On Ramp Discussions On Hourly Rates and Big Firms
Posted on January 08, 2009Before founding Bartlit Beck in 1992, Fred Bartlit was "the man" at Kirkland & Ellis. As big and impressive as K&E is now, it was that and more when Fred was there. His departure to set up Bartlit Beck was big news. Few have seen big firms, big clients and small firms and big clients as up close and personally as has Fred Bartlit...
Jim Hassett Begins Series on Alternative Fees: What's Wrong With Billing By The Hour?
Posted on January 07, 2009Jim Hassett has posted the first of five posts on Alternative Fees in his terrific Legal Business Development blog. The first post in the series is What's wrong with billing by the hour? It's a good summary. I'll provide links to the next four posts as they appear.
Cravath To Declare War On Billable Hour?
Posted on January 07, 2009When legendary CBS Evening News Anchor Walter Cronkite announced his opposition to the Vietnam War in February 1968, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have said, "That's it. If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America." It was a turning point in the war...
2009 Marketing Partner Forum just weeks away!
Posted on January 06, 2009The 16th Annual Marketing Partner Forum is being held on January 28-30, 2009 at the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort and Spa in Dana Point, CA. The theme of this year's conference is "Lighting the Way: Strategies For Influencing Change. In the current environment where change is as necessary as breathing, its hard to imagine a more timely topic...
News Flash!! Pat Lamb Is Speechless
Posted on December 30, 2008I'm not sure it's ever happened before. I received an email this morning attaching Dan Hull's post, "The man, the firm and the blog to watch in 2009." Dan is the prime author of What About Clients?, consistently voted one of the best law blogs...
The Daily Trifecta: Change Meets Law
Posted on December 30, 2008Bear with me on this one. I came upon three different articles that, in my mind at least, fit perfectly with each other. Sort of like getting the Rubik's cube right. First is this list of the 13 Worst Things About Hourly Billing, brought to you by The Greatest American Lawyer...
It's About What You Give
Posted on December 24, 2008Here is the Christmas prayer said for those who have paid the ultimate price in our defense: Rest easy, sleep well my brothers. Know the line has held, your job is done. Rest easy, sleep well. Others have taken up where you fell, the line has held...
Leading Legal Innovation, The Change Agenda and Legal On Ramp
Posted on December 22, 2008I began my legal career before I went to law school. In 1978, after graduating from college, I joined Kirkland & Ellis. I was a "project assistant" and was paid by the hour. One of my first assignments was to the "Plywood Antitrust Litigation" team headed up by Fred Bartlit...
My now daily trip to the car dealer
Posted on December 22, 2008I took my dear old Lexus in for an oil change this morning. Five minutes of check-in and out the door with a freshly washed car in less than an hour. The McGrath Lexus dealership has remodeled itself, and the customer waiting area is one part luxury hotel, one part Starbucks...
9 Predictions For 2009 (no law involved)
Posted on December 18, 2008I like this guy and I never met him. Tom Asacker describes himself as "author, renowned speaker, provocateur." Tom Peters describes him as a "marketing guru." He just wrote an article that contains 9 predictions for 2009...
Surviving The Economic Free-Fall: Experts Offer Insights
Posted on December 18, 2008The on-line version of LawPro Magazine, a publication for the Canadian Bar, contains a wonderful roundtable discussion about what firms should and should not do to ride out the economic storm. The panel includes my good friend Gerry Riskin, always a sure sign that the panel is noteworthy...
Newspapers .... and the Law. Any Parallels?
Posted on December 18, 2008I saw a link to a blog post on the most overrated and underrated people of 2008, and I had to check it out. It's pretty predictible, but one "winner" got me thinking. Let's start with the paragraph that triggered my brain cells: Most underrated phenomenon: Newspapers...
Average Hourly Rate or Ratio Analysis To Thwart Work Hoarding
Posted on December 17, 2008My eyes were drawn to the bolded Law21 on my list of blogs. A new post from Jordan Furlong. Mind vitamins, to be sure. I got my money's worth in the first couple of paragraphs: First is this National Law Journal article about how law firms are responding to the recession (short answer: myopically)...
Are Associates Worth $600 Per Hour?
Posted on December 17, 2008$600 (bleeping) per hour? (Sorry, I'm from Illinois. It's our water.) Blago humor aside, let me draw your attention to this Wall Street Journal Law Blog post. From the Journal: Yesterday, Judge Chin, in a polite and judicious order, asked Dewey to provide a bit more information on its fees: It is difficult to evaluate the reasonableness of the hourly rates for most of the lawyers listed...
Extending An Invitation: Arguing Against The Inevitability Of Change
Posted on December 10, 2008I ran across an article by Paul Lippe in The AmLaw Daily titled "Welcome To The Future: Brains That Can Change." Paul, CEO of Legal On Ramp, provided a taste of changes that had occurred in the past few days: • Goldman Sachs reported a $2 billion loss • Google cut spending • The American Bar Association announced a Web 2...
Change Made Easy. Well, at least easier.
Posted on December 05, 2008Caption from a cartoon in this week's New Yorker: "There's a lot I want to experience, but not a lot I want to actually do." (thanks to Seth Godin) From Tom Peters' list of 27 things that will transform every organization: "Walk the talk...
"The Market Doesn't Care"
Posted on December 01, 2008Outstanding post by my friend Jordan Furlong, who posts at Law21.ca (Dispatches from a legal profession on the brink). The post that really captured my attention was "the market doesn't care." Jordan draws from posts by "two of the smartest people writing on the web these days," Seth Godin and Scott Karp...
Associate Bonuses and Value Billing
Posted on December 01, 2008It's that time of year for the associate set. The payoff for surviving a year of crazy partners and even crazier hours. We're past Thanksgiving, when every associate who still has a job gave thanks for still having a job. Now we are into payoff season...
Survey Results Confirm Vitality Of The 10% Solution
Posted on December 01, 2008I recently posted on the 10% game that clients and their law firms play. The client representative wants to feel like he or she has achieved a real discount with the law firm. So the representative insists on a "10% discount." Lawyers, being the smart people they are, can do the 10% math, so they raise their base rates so that after giving the 10% discount, the firm gets its regular rate...
Survey Results--Hourly Rates Going Up
Posted on December 01, 2008The American Lawyer's annual survey of Managing Partners to AmLaw 200 firms (112 respondents) is out. In light of my recent posts on the economy and hourly rate increase, two survey questions jumped out at me. What will you do with billing rates for 2009? Percentage Increase them by more than 5 percent 35% Increase them by 5 percent or less 63% Hold them flat or decrease them 3% With respect to profits per partner, in 2009 you expect: Percentage They will grow by more than 5 percent 23% They will grow by 5 percent or less...
Get Creative--Merrilyn Astin Tarlton's discussions of creativity in the practice of law
Posted on November 25, 2008Law Practice Today Roundtable Discussion On Economy And Law Firm Response
Posted on November 24, 2008I am humbled to be have been included as a contributor to a roundtable discussion on the economy and law practice in a time of turmoil. The roundtable was moderated and edited by Dennis Kennedy and was published online by Law Practice Today. The contributors included Tom Collins, Bruce MacEwen, Patrick McKenna, Jordan Furlong, Ed Poll, Allison Shields, Merrilyn Astin Tarlton and Dennis Kennedy...
NPR Bashes Billable Hour
Posted on November 22, 2008On its November 21, 2008 broadcast, NPR's Day To Day program ran a story on the looming demise of the billable hour. You can hear the story here. own Nicole Auerbach is quoted at length, along with Susan Hackett, the General Counsel of Association of Corporation Counsel and Steven Williams of Corporate Executive Board...
Slides: Troubled Economy and Alternative Fees
Posted on November 21, 2008DuPage County Bar Association Speech Slides Many thanks to the kind people at the DuPage County Bar Association and the many attorneys who attended my presentation on "The Economy, Legal Fees and Your Future--or--Alternative Fees Will Help You Survive The Economic Downturn...
Brought To You By A Large Firm With Offices Everywhere
Posted on November 19, 2008For the past several nights as I have been driving home, I've heard the local NPR announcer say that this programming was brought to you by "Blah, Blah & Blah, a national law firm with offices in 12 cities." Every time I hear this, I wonder whether anyone ever hears the announcement and says "wow, that is a really unique firm and I am going to hire them...
Yes, People Really Can Be Tone Deaf
Posted on November 19, 2008The message of my recent posts on law firms raising hourly rates this year (here, here and here) is that the firms that raise their rates are tone deaf. The explanations for raising rates when client law department budgets are being slashed is self-absorbed...
Walking the Client Service Walk: Client Costs
Posted on November 19, 2008Everyone talks the client service talk. To hear the law firms' side of things, our profession's clients are the best served group of customers in the history of service providers. Well, we know better, don't we? Few clients (the judge that matters on this issue) believe their lawyers provide elite client service...
Legal On Ramp To Aid Laid-off Associates
Posted on November 14, 2008My friend Paul Lippe at Legal On Ramp asked me to share this important information that may be of great interest to associates (and partners) who have become the victims of the economic downturn: At Legal OnRamp, we're concerned about the recent layoffs of associates in large firms, but also optimistic that this will give those lawyers an opportunity to adapt to the world that's emerging...
The Economy and Rate Increases: Someone Is Not Listening
Posted on November 13, 2008Two online articles caught my eye this morning: they seem so interrelated. In Forbes.com, the article titled "The Worst Is Not Behind Us" includes this prediction: "The prospect of a short and shallow six- to eight-month V-shaped recession is out of the window; a U-shaped 18- to 24-month recession is now a certainty, and the probability of a worse, multi-year L-shaped recession (as in Japan in the 1990s) is still small but rising...
When David Fought Goliath, David Won
Posted on November 13, 2008"I have been skeptical that the global megafirms, in fact, provide the claimed superior service, quality or price. Indeed, the relationship between the big law departments and big firms is often bedeviled by prickly issues relating to power, money, culture, and, ultimately, the foundational question of who controls the corporation's legal matters...
The 10% Game
Posted on November 13, 2008"I don't care what you raise your rates to, just make sure you quote me a 10% discount." In a number of meetings I have attended recently with leaders of large firms, similar stories are being told. The firm proposes an alternative fee and the client declines to pursue the alternative fee, instead asking for "10% off" the firm's hourly rates...
Warning to BigLaw Partners: Don't Read The November Issue of The American Lawyer
Posted on November 12, 2008Legendary Sioux warrior Chief Crazy Horse is renowned for his exhortation "today is a good day to die." That sentiment must have been rampant among large law firm partners when they received their November edition of The American Lawyer...
The Dream--A Step Closer
Posted on November 05, 2008I have always tried to keep politics out of this blog. But sometimes history overtakes events and exceptions must be made. When I was a child, I wrote a paper on Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech and through many different avenues, it keeps coming back into my life...
Sometimes Laughter Is The Best Medicine
Posted on October 31, 2008My partner, Nicole Auerbach, the soul of Valorem, ensures that we live by the rule that while we take our clients and their problems very seriously, we can't take ourselves seriously at all. This is the sign that welcomes us to our Conference Room...
Law Firms' Economic Model Causes Unnecessary Discovery
Posted on October 31, 2008Discovery. The great black hole. The Interim Report on the Joint Project of The American College Of Trial Lawyers Task Force On Discovery and The Institute For The Advancement Of The American Legal System contains this nugget: 64% of the respondents (member lawyers, so people who try lots of cases) say law firms' economic models encourage more discovery than is necessary...
Law Department Budgets Head South
Posted on October 31, 2008The November 2008 issue of Inside Counsel reports that 62% or the responding law department leaders expect their law department budgets to be reduced as a result of the economic crisis. The pie is shrinking. Your piece can shrink with it, or you can figure out how to get a bigger piece...
Chance Favors The Prepared
Posted on October 31, 2008Last March, I wrote that unlike with every recession since World War II, we would not be able to rely on the consumer to drive the economy of this recession. Since that post, we've seen home prices continue to tumble and the precipitous decline of net mortgage equity withdrawals (essentially, the amount of home equity borrowing by Americans), down from a range of $140 billion to $225 billion per quarter to a mere $9 billion in the second quarter...
Ten Marketing Rules For Lawyers (and these are great rules)
Posted on October 30, 2008Matt Homann's Ten New Rules of Legal Marketing in the [non]billable hour is brilliant. Here are my two favorites: 2. Google tells me there are 337,000 "Full Service Law Firms” out there. Which one was yours again? 7. Having the scales of justice on your business card says you're a lawyer -- an old, stodgy, unimaginative, do-what-everyone-else-has-done-for-fifty-years lawyer...
More Insights On Impact Of Bad Economy On Law Firms
Posted on October 28, 2008Check out Larry Bodine's discussion of the ACC/Serengeti study that predicts a downturn in spending on outside law firms in 2009. Also take a look at Hildebrandt's Fall 2008 Special Client Advisory. Those looking for good news or positive signs will be disheartened...
The Economy: What Does It Mean For Law Firms?
Posted on October 27, 2008Wake up and smell the coffee. If you run a law firm, heck, if you work at a law firm, wake up and smell the coffee. What, exactly, do you think you're going to do if the economy continues to head south (which I just wrote about)...
How Much Worse Can The Economy Get?
Posted on October 27, 2008I ran across an article in the business section of this morning's Chicago Sun-Times that made my blood run cold. Columnist Terry Savage was recounting how Bert Dohmen, publisher of The Wellington Letter, predicted the current credit crisis in March 2008, saying that "[t]he enormity of this problem is beyond anything we have ever seen in financial history...
The Economy: What Does It Mean For InHouse Lawyers?
Posted on October 27, 2008I just wrote about how much worse the economy may get, and what it means for law firms. I would be remiss if I didn't offer some thoughts on what the declining economy means for clients. Let me begin my observations by recalling Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results...
More On Law Firms Raising Their Rates In Bad Economy
Posted on October 23, 2008As I flew from Chicago to Boston this morning, I had an opportunity to read the October issue of The American Lawyer, which fortuitously arrived yesterday. I smiled as I read a piece labled “The Going Rate: With the economy down, will fees go up?” Readers of this blog will know I wrote about that issue a few weeks ago...
ACC Launches Blog Addressing Fees and More
Posted on October 20, 2008Heads-up. I justed added a link to the Association of Corporate Counsel's new blog, InHouse ACCess (love the play on capitalization). The authors are ACC President Fred Krebs, ACC GC and leader of the Value Challenge, Susan Hackett, Steve Bokat, Larry Salibra, ACC Associate GC Ellen Zavian and ACC Assistant GC Nichole Opkins...
InHouse ACCess: ACC leads the drive for value
Posted on October 20, 2008http://www.inhouseaccess.com
Fixed Fee v. Billable Hour: Washington Post article
Posted on October 20, 2008Today's Washington Post contains an article suggesting lean times will hurt the billable hour. The article provides some entertainment in that several lawyers are quoted defending the billable hour. It's like being the lawyer for a mass-murderer caught in the act...
Innovative Billing Arrangements Across The Pond
Posted on October 20, 2008Friday's Financial Times on-line version contains an interesting article on "innovative" billing arrangements, meaning, of course, arrangements not tied to hours. The thesis of the article is that "many law firms have also become disenchanted with hourly billing, which they feel fails to adequately reward them for the value they can create for clients...
Watch For Changes In Ratio Of Partner To Associate Hours
Posted on October 14, 2008Market forces work in law firms, at least to an extent. When hours become scarce, they become more valuable--more valuable, that is, to the person who records them. Hours are not more valuable to the client who has to pay for them. Consider this from a post on law...
This American Life Explains The Economic Mess
Posted on October 10, 2008As I write this, the Dow has just gone under 8,000, and today's Wall Street Journal notes that in the last seven days, investors have lost $8.4 trillion of wealth. And that is only wealth lost in the market. Home prices continue to decline in many areas as well...
Will Inside Counsel See The Annual "Rate Increase" Letter This Year?
Posted on October 09, 2008I'm guessing that a lot of law firm leaders are starting to think about hourly rates for 2009. I know they've probably heard some rumblings about the economy. Maybe they've noticed that their portfolios are worth about 40% less today than just a week ago...
The Value Challenge
Posted on September 30, 2008The Marketplace section of today's Wall Street Journal features the headline, "Food Marketers Cook Up 'Value' Campaigns." Seems like, in today's world, value is is de rigueur. We at Valorem certainly hope that it informs purchasing decisions in the legal world...
Commodity Legal Work--The Antichrist?
Posted on September 29, 2008As 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"...
It's Time For The Tough
Posted on September 29, 2008"When the going gets tough, the tough get going." This quote is frequently attributed to legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, but it appears to have been uttered first by Joseph P. Kennedy. The source is less relevant than the concept...
Silver Lining in Black Economic Cloud?
Posted on September 15, 2008In my last post, I picked up on Gerry Riskin's most recent post on our troubled economy. Gerry first raised the red flag on the economy last August, and I have picked up on the issue from time to time, including posts about the Perfect Storm, the bad economy being a long term issue and a discussion of whether lawyers had any reason to smile yet in light of economic news...
Black Monday: Economy Heads South. Will Law Firms Follow?
Posted on September 15, 2008Alan Greenspan appeared on This Week yesterday and indicated that the black cloud hanging over the US economy would not be leaving us anytime soon. See his comments here. These pessimistic comments led Gerry Riskin to restate his challenge to Law Firm leaders: Punchline: You are getting fair warning - are you acting on it? This is not a time for traditional strategic planning - it is time for scenario planning that will create "dynamic resilience" that may become the life support system your firm will need should the economy worsen...
ATTENTION In-House Counsel: Survey Requires Your Input
Posted on September 05, 2008My friend Paul Lippe at Legal On Ramp brought an important survey for in-house counsel to my attention, and I thought it prudent to post the information. (Here's the link.) The survey is the effort of my friends at American Lawyer and fellow blogger (and friend) Rees Morrison...
Why Do The Secretaries Have Nothing To Do?
Posted on August 29, 2008True story. I was interviewing a potential admin assistant. She was asked why she was thinking of leaving her position as a very prestigious firm. Her answer didn't surprise me since I had heard rumors of this--the firm was not that busy and she was the kind of person who liked being busy...
The Truth: You Get What You Pay For
Posted on August 28, 2008This message is directed solely to in-house lawyers and any business people who might happen along. If you're an outside lawyer, press the back arrow on your browser. I've said many, many times that real change on legal fees, on the economic relationship between lawyers and clients will come only when clients insist on it and lead with their feet (taking their wallets with them) when they don't like the way a firm is treating them...
Rating Lawyers
Posted on August 28, 2008When I started practicing law, lawyers would spend their days busily chiseling their briefs into stone tablets. I remember several times when a client needed a lawyer in another city, I would be told to go to Martindale Hubbell and review the firms in the City and find "the biggest" or one with a great client list...
Change Is Inevitable
Posted on August 24, 2008On Friday afternoon, I played hooky. I joined my family at Chicago's fabulous Navy Pier. The thought started while I was at the top of the Ferris Wheel with a clear view of the skyline. But it really hit me on the boat ride, where we heard a bit about Chicago's history...
Finding Value: Hopefully We Won't Need To Build A New Hubble Telescope
Posted on August 22, 2008Mike Dillon, the General Counsel of Sun Microsystems, writes a blog called the legal thing ... by Mike Dillon. Recently, Mike participated in a focus group meeting held by the Association of Corporate Counsel. These focus groups were pulled together to discuss ACC's return to value program that will be launched this fall...
A Followup On Truth
Posted on August 22, 2008Can I admit that I occasionally ready Above the Law, a blog about law firms? It's like The Enquirer, which I only read while standing in supermarket lines. On alternate Tuesdays. Okay, enough self-disclosure. ATL has a great entry about Citibank's recent analysis of the economic decline at large law firms...
Telling the Truth
Posted on August 21, 2008Duane Morris laid off 18% of its marketing and business development staff yesterday. Ed Schecter, the head of marketing, apparently said cost-cutting was "secondary" and the real intent was to build a more experienced, leaner team. Of course, this is reported the day after Citibank's Dan DiPietro is quoted as saying the profits of Amlaw 100 firms (which includes Duane Morris) will be down 15% this year, even with all the cost-cutting and staff reductions being widely reported...
The Lie Of Litigation Budgeting
Posted on August 21, 2008A client walks up to a litigator and says, "I have a lawsuit I need you to defend. I don't expect there to be more than 5 depositions. The contract involved has just three provisions, and there are probably only 500 pages of relevant documents...
Tom Peters on US Health System: What Would He Say About The Law Business?
Posted on July 31, 2008I am a huge fan of Tom Peters. Not a mindless disciple, mind you, but he is provocative in the best way. He makes me think. Tom's recent rant about the healthcare system is worth reading, but in your mind, substitute the word "legal" for "healthcare...
Trust. Earned Or There Until Lost?
Posted on July 30, 2008I have frequently used a pair of boots to illustrate the notion of perspective. Boots are one thing is you're wearing a nice pair of broken in boots, quite another if you're looking at the bottom of a boot as you're being stepped on. Same object, different perspectives...
An Email Pet Peeve: Auto-reply
Posted on July 30, 2008"I will be out of the office until Tuesday, August 19. If your matter is urgent, please contact my assistant, Robin Hood, at 222-555-7777, or reach me on my cell phone at 222-555-9999. Thank you." You have a Blackberry--everybody does...
Great Billable Hour Joke
Posted on July 30, 2008Did you hear the one about the General Counsel who went shopping for hours? " I'll have a dozen of the $380 hours and half a dozen of the $500 hours. The $250 hours are looking particularly good this morning, so I'll have twenty of those." Have you heard it? Neither have I, actually...
Clients schmients. Do Firms Really Care About Their Clients?
Posted on July 29, 2008Suzanne Lowe of Expertise Marketplace reports here on the results of work by Patrick McKenna. Here are three findings regarding law firms and their use of client teams: 63% of all firms (of all sizes) reported having NO budget specifically allocated to support their client teams Only 4% of firms (none over 500 attorneys) identified a budgetary item for satisfaction surveys, while only 6% spent any money on client research For the vast majority of respondents, the main reason to form client teams was to increase their own firm's revenues Suzanne ends her post with tongue firmly planted in cheek: McKenna and his co-author Michael Anderson exhibit laudable restraint in their closing comments: " ...
The World Lost A Good Man Today
Posted on July 25, 2008Randy Pausch died today. I feel terribly saddened. On the other hand, I can't help but feel enriched by the enormous grace with which Randy led his life even as he knew death was on his doorstep. If you haven't yet watched it, you owe it to yourself to watch The Last Lecture.
We need zero-based thinking.
Posted on July 25, 2008I just came out of a meeting that included by inside and outside lawyers. I was stunned by the lack of self-critical thinking on the part of the outside counsel. Not that inside counsel were immune to the notion, but I was hearing a lot "we're not the problem, it's other firms" or "the problem is really with the clients...
Both sides: you reap what you sow
Posted on July 22, 2008For you GCs in the audience: how is it possible for this to happen? How is it possible a firm can spend that much money and you don't know the detail of what the firm is doing? On a matter of this importance, where the fee is going to be large, you would have a detailed discussion with outside counsel about what work would be done, who would be doing it and how much it would cost...
End Of Billable Hour Caused By Sensitive Workplaces?
Posted on July 18, 2008In an article sure to drive Dan Hull crazy (go here for Dan's thought on sensitively accommodating the needs of Gen-Y-ers), The AmLaw Daily has published "Lawyers and Pros Say Flex Schedule's Time Has Come." Here's the line that caught my attention: Lawyers won't have to be slaves to the billable hour for much longer, according to the panel of experts participating in "Flexing the Workplace," a roundtable discussion held in the New York offices of Davis Polk & Wardwell and sponsored by the National Association of Women Lawyers...
Should We Value Collaboration?
Posted on July 15, 2008Are two heads better than one? Four better than two? I am sure there are exceptions, but frequently the answer is yes. But let's sharpen the question, shall we? If your client has a tough problem that she wants your help to solve, will you come up with the best ideas by yourself or working with someone else? If the latter, will your ideas be better if the person is a young associate or your most experienced partners? When dealing with issues of strategy and tactics for pursuing complex business litigation, I think it is evident that the best ideas happen when the smartest and most experienced people brainstorm together...
Shouldn't Money-Back Guarantees Be The Norm?
Posted on July 12, 2008Why don't lawyers provide this for their clients?If you're a great lawyer, or even if you're just fairly good, why not provide this guarantee? Surely you cannot guarantee an outcome, and your client must understand that, but the level of your service, effort and commitment certainly goes a long way toward creating a satisfied client...
Legal On Ramp: The On Ramp To The Future?
Posted on July 12, 2008I joined Legal On Ramp. I know this isn't "call CNN and issue a press release" kind of stuff. But it does afford me the opportunity to offer some thoughts on the future of how we provide services to our clients and how are clients are likely to evolve as consumers...
CNN's Zakaria: Perfect storm hitting U.S. economy
Posted on July 11, 2008You can read an interesting interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria here. I was interested to see his use of the "Perfect Storm" metaphor to describe what is going on with the economy.CNN: How bad is the U.S. economy right now?Zakaria: It almost looks like a perfect storm...
Lake Wobegon Effect Alive And Well
Posted on July 08, 2008"It turns out that managing the relationship between in-house counsel and law firm attorneys is a lot like dating ...." Ughhh. I had just eaten dinner. But with that ... er ....eye-catching introduction , Inside Counsel begins its report on the 19th Annual Survey of General Counsel...
Is Mr. Rogers really Dan Hull is disguise?
Posted on July 06, 2008Separated at birth? Or maybe the son of Rogers? You be the judge. Seriously, Dan is much better looking (and younger too!). But Dan disclaims any relationship, including personality-wise. And in the context of client service, that's a good lead-in to a terrific analysis of client selection...
Is Mr. Rogers really Dan Hull in disguise?
Posted on July 06, 2008Separated at birth? Or maybe the son of Rogers? You be the judge. Seriously, Dan is much better looking (and younger too!). But Dan disclaims any relationship, including personality-wise. And in the context of client service, that's a good lead-in to a terrific analysis of client selection...
Voicemail Greetings and TMI
Posted on July 02, 2008We've all experienced this. You call someone. The message starts. "Hi, I'm away from my desk...." And it goes on and on. And on some more. Ever hear this kind of message: " I'm visiting a really important client in a really exotic city and won't be back in the office for several days...
"Teach A Person To Fish ...."
Posted on July 02, 2008From the "did-I-read-that-headline-correctly" file comes this post from Gerry Riskin: "When Better Service Is A Bad Thing." Gerry Riskin saying better service is a bad thing? Say it isn't so! Well, as always, Gerry has a compelling point to make...
Book Review: Your Witness
Posted on June 27, 2008From time to time, I am asked to review books. I don't know why. But the idea of being asked makes me feel good, so time permitting, I generally agree. Frequently, the books are not very good. This was, most decidedly, not one of those occasions...
Book Review: The Curmudgeon's Guide To Practicing Law
Posted on June 27, 2008On Wednesday afternoon, I had the great pleasure to participate in a CLE program on blogging, sponsored by Counsel on Call in Chicago. To my immediate right was Mark Herrmann of Jones Day. Mark is one of the authors of Drug and Device Law, a blog devoted, not surprisingly, to drug and device law...
Email Free Fridays As Tool To Strengthen Client Relationships
Posted on June 20, 2008Life without email? Probably not happening. But what about a day without email? Just imagine--an entire day where you actually had to ... speak with people. Gulp! As I was driving in this morning, I was, as always, listening to NPR...
Tiffany's And The Billable Hour
Posted on June 18, 2008Great (and lengthy!) post by Bruce MacEwen in Adam Smith, Esq. discussing theories about why General Counsel have been slow to move from the billable hour notwithstanding how much they loathe the status quo. No summary can do justice to the post, so be sure to invest the time to read it...
Document Retention: The Road To Perdition?
Posted on June 18, 2008Consider this a public service announcement. Better yet, a heads-up on something you should be speaking with your clients about. NPR ran a story this morning about document retention and the cost it adds to litigation. Among the highlights of the story: Ten years ago, a case with 300,000 pages of documents was huge...
Price Of Oil Continues Upward
Posted on June 16, 2008I'm on vacation today with the whole family (meaning we are using the Suburban). Stopped to get gas and blew the entire vacation budget. Wow! Anyway, got me wondering just how fast the price of oil has been increasing. At the beginning of 2006, oil was $60 per barrel...
Were You Born To Blog? Chicago Panel of Bloggers Provides Insights
Posted on June 16, 2008I will be joining John Wallbillich (The Wired GC) and Mark Herrmann (Drug and Device Law) on a panel to discuss our thoughts on the value of blogging. The two-hour panel -- "Were You Born To Blog?" -- will take place in Chicago next Wednesday, June 25, from 3 to 5 p...
Budgeting For Litigation: No Excuses
Posted on June 12, 2008The excuses are as numerous as they are legendary: "I didn't know the other side was actually going to take depositions.""Who knew the court would actually want a brief on the summary judgment motion?""We've got no chance of winning the motion but it will help us 'educate' the judge...
"First and foremost, we want you happy."
Posted on May 21, 2008You might imagine that my standards for client service are pretty high. Those who know me best would disagree with "pretty high" and substitute "unreasonably high." So I don't have too many examples of being on the receiving end of great client service...
Stories of Character
Posted on May 01, 2008If you don't know this man, if you haven't heard his "last lecture," I urge you (when you have 76 minutes) to grab a box of tissues and watch it. In this picture, we're introduced to Sara Tucholsky (center) of Western Oregon University and Mallory Holtman (right) and Liz Wallace (left) of Central Washington University...
Merger Creates Pressure On Hourly Rates
Posted on April 29, 2008From today's Chicago Tribune Business Section: Seven partners have left Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell (catchy name, eh?) to create a new firm representing insurance companies in litigation. The reason? Pressure to increase hourly rates in this practice area by as much as 50%...
A Short Discussion Of Today's Headlines: Any Reason For Lawyers To Smile Yet?
Posted on April 27, 2008Ever since Gerry Riskin wrote his "Doom and Gloom" post last August, I have been paying much closer attention to the economy that I have before, especially to the factors Gerry highlighted in his post. Regular readers know I have posted frequently on this topic, not only because I think the topic is generally important but also because writing about it makes me think about it...
The Unique Relationship Between Clients and Lawyers: The Lawyer's View
Posted on April 26, 2008Trust me, for a moment at least, that all of the following points eventually will come together. Every time I have the opportunity, I ask in-house counsel about whether their lawyers conduct formal or informal satisfaction meetings. Almost invariably, the answer is no...
Valorem Offers Its Thanks To Many
Posted on April 21, 2008My partners and I have been touched--and surprised--by the many kind emails we've received from so many about our new website. The substantial majority have been encouraging. Many have offered constructive input, and we already have made many changes to the Valorem Law Group website based on input we've received...
Valorem Website Goes Live. Comments Requested.
Posted on April 11, 2008Valorem's website is now live. I really haven't had to put together a website before--it is a lot harder than I imagined. Anyway, we are trying to be clear about our message and communicate a bit more personality than the ordinary law firm website...
Valorem Grows! Nicole Nehama Auerbach Joins Valorem.
Posted on April 06, 2008I am thrilled to announce that Nicole Nehama Auerbach will be joining Valorem as a member as of April 14. Nicole is currently a partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman in Chicago. Nicole concentrates her practice on all facets of complex commercial litigation, focusing on the strategic development of complex cases in order to posture them for favorable resolution, and when good business deals cannot be had, Nicole tries the case...
Recession And Law Firm Revenue
Posted on April 03, 2008You have to love the headline writers at the New York Times and the fun they have with Fed-speak. Fed-speak is the language the Fed Chairman must use since he can't utter the R-word. So Bernanke says today, "It now appears likely that real gross domestic product, or G...
More Evidence Of Corporate America Rallying Against The Billable Hour
Posted on April 02, 2008On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I attended (and spoke at) the American Conference Institute program on Controlling Legal Expenses. Both the speaker roster and the attendees were predominantly inside counsel, with a heavy emphasis on those involved in litigation...
Bad Economy: A Long-Term Issue?
Posted on March 28, 2008In August, Gerry Riskin wrote his prediction that Doom and Gloom was in our future. I asked Gerry if he would share the factors that informed his prediction. He listed these: Currency fluctuations Price of oil Price of precious metals Increase and decrease in “real” jobs Geographic location of those jobs Political stability of job locations Foreign relations as they affect business Balance of Trade between countries and regions Housing markets (not just prices – but demand) Auto market (demand) Credit levels (or should I say “debt levels”) Interest rates (they are not falling, in fact, get ready…) The advent of the largely unregulated Hedge Fund industry The establishment pensions that invest in Hedge Funds The Domino effect – how one indicator impacts many others In January, Gerry wrote on this topic again, Recession-Proof your Law Firm...
Client Service Insights Back For Season 2
Posted on March 26, 2008I am happy to welcome Leo Bottary back to the blogosphere. Leo wrote, then retired from writing--and is now back writing!--the terrific Client Service Insights. His innaugural post for his "second season" explains what he's been up to--lots of changes...
And So Should Lawyers (Treat Legal Fees The Same Way Executives Treat Business Issues)
Posted on March 18, 2008Michael Maslanka, a lawyer from Texas, authored an article in Texas Lawyer that popped up on law.com today. The article advises GCs to treat legal fees the same way executives treat business issues. Beginning with the premise that increased associate salaries are akin to a rise in the company's raw materials, Maslanka writes: Don't belabor the rise -- the cost of a company's raw materials goes up just like a firm's...
Problems--The Mother's Milk of Innovation
Posted on March 12, 2008In the post just below this one, I wrote about the associate turnover problem confronting BigLaw. As I was writing, I thought about the wonderful opportunity that problem creates for firms like Valorem. If you were thinking of purchasing a lamp, and were given a choice, would you rather pay $300 for the lamp or $150? It's not a trick question...
Lost Generation of Associates. Can We Count On Firms To Find A Solution?
Posted on March 12, 2008By some measurements, 50% of new associates leave their high-paid jobs at AmLaw 200 firms within 4 years. Two-thirds of these departures of the associate's choice, not the firm's. And the reason for such departures, in the main, is that associates are given drudge work with no real responsibility...
Interested In Improving Your Business Development Skills?
Posted on March 11, 2008Jim Hassett, the author of the outstanding Legal Business Development blog, has a new product out (new to me at least) that really is worth your time. Appropriately named the Legal Business Development Success Kit, Jim has put together in audio course that combines anecdotes and data from a number of different sources in an easy-to-listen-to manner, a book containing leading business development practices and much more...
Valorem At Two Months
Posted on February 25, 2008I have had several requests to post an update on Valorem. Is it working? What have I learned? It is working. I've learned a lot. Thanks for asking. Okay, that's a pretty thin answer. But humor is really important in a start-up...
"We hold these truths to be self-evident."
Posted on February 19, 2008With all the recent hub-bub about great writing and speechifying, my friends at What About Clients? showed great timing with yesterday's piece on great writing. After providing a rock-solid example of good editing of an overally legalistic contract, Dan Hull concluded with this imagery: Either [editing alternative] would save trees, ink and space, be more to the point--and would help diminish the image of the self-important "I'm-special" lawyer rocking back and forth in his chair and talking to himself like a mental patient...
The Notion Of "Going Viral." Yes We Can. Or Can We?
Posted on February 07, 2008Sometimes things go viral. Sometime ago, I wrote about a slideshow set to music that became known as "Did You Know." The show has been viewed well over two million times. Earlier this week, I was emailed a link to a song about Barack Obama...
The Notion Of "Going Viral"
Posted on February 07, 2008Sometimes things go viral. Sometime ago, I wrote about a slideshow set to music that became known as "Did You Know." The show has been viewed well over two million times. Earlier this week, I was emailed a link to a song about Barack Obama...
An Brief Introduction to Cole Silver
Posted on January 28, 2008I've just added Cole Silver's Legal Marketing Secrets to my list of Links. You can read about Cole's background and experience here. Once you understand that he has been both lawyer and client, you'll see that the wisdom on his blog is borne of broad experience...
Marketing Partner Forum Slides Now Available
Posted on January 23, 2008I had an opportunity to participate in a panel led by Gerry Riskin at Hildebrandt's 2008 Marketing Partner Forum. As always, it was an outstanding event, perhaps the best in many years. Congratulations to Tom Billington and his Hildebrandt colleagues for putting together such an outstanding and thought-provoking program...
Will The Perfect Storm Fundamentally Alter The Foundation Of The Profession?
Posted on January 19, 2008Is it here? To be sure, predicting any storm, let alone the Perfect Storm, is a perilous undertaking. But the stars sure look to be lining up like never before. So take a pinch of salt, throw it over your left shoulder, sit back and let me explain...
Valorem--Week 1
Posted on January 12, 2008Well, we just finished our first full week. Its already been a wild ride. I don't intend to have ISOPCS become a diary reporting on the events of Valorem Law Group, but VLG is, in many respects a Client Service laboratory where we are seeking to push the client service envelope...
Valorem Launches
Posted on January 03, 2008On January 1, 2008, Valorem Law Group, LLC will officially open its doors. Valorem (latin for value) represents the culmination of a great deal of thinking about how to respond to the needs of in-house counsel with litigation needs. Valorem will be a litigation/problem-solving firm...
"I try to leave out the parts that people skip."
Posted on August 21, 2007Check out this post about excess verbiage in blogs at Instabloke. I plead guilty. I promise to do better. Good lesson about every kind of writing. Marketing materials. Emails. Letters to clients. Briefs. Each word should be essential to the communication.
Interesting Policies On Recording Time
Posted on August 20, 2007I have spent more than a little time writing about high hourly rates and the hourly rate economic model. I have spent very little time writing about timekeeping policies. But I was fascinated to read the policies of several firms that were published at Above the Law, a blog that "provides news and gossip about the profession’s most colorful personalities and powerful institutions, as well as original commentary on breaking legal developments...
New Book On Client Service
Posted on August 17, 2007Was just perusing a new blog I've started to follow, 800ceoread, and saw the post title "You Can't Win A Fight With Your Client." The post is about a book by the same title, authored by Tom Markert, who also penned the book, "You Can't Win A Fight With Your Boss...
Gerry Riskin's Forecast: Stormy Times Ahead
Posted on August 03, 2007Very powerful post by my good friend Gerry Riskin in his great blog, Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices. The post, Doom and Gloom for the legal profession--it's coming, contains Gerry's prediction that "our legal profession is in for very rough times...
Problem Defined. Finding Solution Not So Easy?
Posted on August 01, 2007A friend of mine passed along this quote from Scott Turow (apparently from a recent ABA Journal article); "One reason that dollars times hours continues to prevail is because its hard to devise a fair alternative...
Remember This Before Complaining
Posted on July 31, 2007How frequently do we complain? We all do so a lot. Sometimes we complain about things in the presence of our clients because they also are our friends. And because we are lawyers, are complaints are spiced-up and witty. Next time, maybe not so fast...
TechnoLawyer eBook Makes Legal Publishing History
Posted on July 30, 2007I am proud to be amongst such distinguished company in the TechnoLawyer eBook, BlawgWorld 2007. Here's the story: TechnoLawyer eBook Makes Legal Publishing History with SmartNavigation System and Online Distribution via Seventy-Eight Legal Blogs Helps lawyers find blogs and helps law firms get answers to their most pressing problems New York, NY (July 30, 2007) — TechnoLawyer, the popular online network for lawyers and law office administrators, today launched BlawgWorld 2007 with TechnoLawyer Problem/Solution Guide, a free eBook with a proprietary design that will turn heads in the legal publishing world...
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! The Worst Word In The Inhouse Lexicon
Posted on July 27, 2007I received the July 2007 issue of Litigation News from the ABA today. The lead article reported on a 2006 survey conducted by the Association Of Corporate Counsel (incidentally, no longer known as the American Corporate Counsel Association, as it is referred to in the article), and then discussed a Section of Litigation program from the recent annual meeting which discussed the results of the ACC survey...
"Rainmakers I Have Fallen For"
Posted on July 18, 2007Great article in the July/August issue of Law Practice magazine. A former in-house counsel reveals the "Rainmakers I Have Fallen For ..." Barbara D'Amico is the former General Counsel of J.P. Morgan Chase's Retail Financial Services Businesses...
Law Firm Economics For Dummies
Posted on July 18, 2007This says everything you need to know. Thanks to Matt Homann and the [non]billable hour, where I just saw this posted.
After The Mistake Redux
Posted on July 17, 2007Mistakes. Everyone hates them, but everyone makes them. The thing that separates great client service from lawyers looking for new clients is how you deal with them. Some time ago, I provided a prescription for dealing with mistakes in my post, After The Mistake...
"The Brand Called You"
Posted on July 16, 2007Somewhere I ran across this article by Tom Peters in Fast Company magazine. Interesting read, especially since it was published n 1997. Take a look.
Lessons From The Restaurant That Provides The Best Service In The Country
Posted on July 12, 2007Tonight I was driving home. It was too late for Marketplace (see this post), so I was listening to 848, original programming from Chicago Public Radio. The restaurant Tru is one of Chicago's finest, and was just voted as having the best service of any restaurant in the country...
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Can a former employee use photographs of jobs completed whie working for me in marketing material for a new business?
There are several issues here
1. Sub contractor started up a compe...
How do i go bout geting a free laywer to sue the durham police department for drug raids and nothing is found?they have been in my house 4 or 5 times seems like every 4 months or so and breaking down my door tearing up m
They need a warrant to get into your house...if they never showed you one...you ...
Did I harass someone?
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Haw can I join with my family who live in the USA?
Only you are allowed to can join your sister....
What is the statute of limitations in New york State as to how long a person may claim heirship?
who has paid the taxes for the last 7 to 11 yrs ? you can take a house by openly...
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