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Legal Commentary

In Search of Perfect Client Service

Why Lawyers Seem To Stumble. Blawg from attorney Patrick Lamb

Post Frequency: 1.8/day

Last Entry: March 17, 2011 at 16:14:07

A Call For Benchmarks II: comments and response

Posted on January 12, 2010
I received a couple of interesting comments in response to my earlier post, A Call For Benchmarks, and it seemed prudent to share them in the most public way. Comment 1 was from Steven Levy, renowned expert on Legal Project Management, with whom I will be presenting in March: Many of these are substitute metrics, which are bad juju...

Nicole Auerbach named one of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in Illinois

Posted on January 10, 2010
Just before the new year, I predicted that my partner, Nicole Auerbach, would have a break-out decade. Well, things are off to a good start! Nicole was just named one the Top 50 Women Lawyers in Illinois by Illinois Super Lawyers. My partners, Mark Sayre, Hugh Totten and Stuart Chanen, know that this honor is well deserved and offer our heartiest congratulations to Nicole...

Watchwords for 2010? Project Management

Posted on January 05, 2010
As 2010 begins, I am making one more prediction ( earlier predictions here ). I wanted to make one more. The watchwords for 2010 are project management. Project Management skills are sorely lacking in the legal profession, but they may do more to help lawyers more efficiently and effectively represent their clients than any other tool...

Optimism Trumps Gloom

Posted on January 01, 2010
2009 is over. "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." Friedrich Nietzsche The men and women of the legal profession are stronger today than they have been in quite some time. "I will survive." Gloria Gaynor So will we all...

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10 predictions to welcome the new decade

Posted on December 31, 2009
For most people and most businesses, the end of 2009 and the end of the "aught" decade could not come soon enough. Well, rise and shine, 2010 is here. Time for a positive, upbeat attitude. (If you celebrated the end of the decade last night and "aren't quite yourself" this morning, you can start having your positive, upbeat attitude tomorrow...

Year End Client Satisfaction Evaluations

Posted on December 28, 2009
It is year end. Have the senior managers of your firm visited your firm's most important clients this month? Has there at least been a phone call to each of the primary personnel you deal with at key clients? If not, what on earth are you waiting for? You should be looking for opportunities to ask your clients how you're doing and year end is one of the very best opportunities to ask...

Bad ideas, good ideas--and litigation

Posted on December 23, 2009
Fantastic post by Seth Godin. Here it is: A few people are afraid of good ideas, ideas that make a difference or contribute in some way. Good ideas bring change, that's frightening. But many people are petrified of bad ideas. Ideas that make us look stupid or waste time or money or create some sort of backlash...

I am honored to receive a 2009 "Blawggie"

Posted on December 22, 2009
Dennis Kennedy, the dean of law blogging, annually (since 2004) awards "Blawggies." According to Dennis: The Blawggies, which honor the best-related blogs as determined from my personal and highly-opinionated perspective, were first unleashed on an unsuspecting blogosphere in December 2004 and are now an annual pre-Christmas tradition here at DennisKennedy...

The Danger of Budgets

Posted on December 22, 2009
From Dilbert: Avoid the heartache. Make it a fixed fee with a performance incentive.

Your perspective on price makes a difference

Posted on December 17, 2009
Courtesy of the Lean Six Sigma Academy, I am reading the Guide To Lean, by Ron Pereira. He notes three ways to express how a company turns a profit: 1. Price - Cost = Profit 2. Profit = Price - Cost 3. Price = Cost + Profit All the same? Perspective counts here...

Price. Value. Commitment?

Posted on December 16, 2009
Above The Law recently revealed some internal documents from Simpson Thatcher. If Simpson Thatcher reflects what is going on in large law firms, it is clear that the recession is hurting BigLaw big time: In 2007, our realization was 110%; in 2008, our realization was 97%; for 2009, we originally budgeted 93%, and we are now running at a realization of around 89%...

The Season For Wreaths, By Scott Greenfield

Posted on December 16, 2009
My dear departed father served in the United States Coast Guard during WWII, so this request is one I happily accomodate. Scott Greenfield, who writes the brilliant Simple Justice, asked (via Twitter) bloggers to blog about programs that use wreaths to honor those who died in the service to their country...

A Formula For Client Satisfaction

Posted on December 12, 2009
John DiJulius writes that the customer experience can be viewed through this formula: Reality - Experience = Customer Experience. I would change this a bit, to Reality - Expectation = Customer Experience. Clearly, this formula can lead to a negative number...

Know Thy Price

Posted on December 09, 2009
Dilbert, courtesy of Dilbert.com, December 7, 2009 Here's the questions of the day. Other than when hiring lawyers, what other goods or services do people buy without knowing the price? How did lawyers escape this prevailing rule? Why are some clients unwilling to insist that lawyers play by the rules that every other person in the company must abide by?

WARNING: Beware of Stealth Rate Increases

Posted on December 09, 2009
This if for clients only. If you are from a law firm, don't bother reading this. Many firms have announced that they are moving away from lockstep compensation and advancement for their associates. DLA Piper announced yesterday that it was joining other firms in this approach...

Some law firms need to retake math class

Posted on December 07, 2009
Richard Susskind reports that law departments are facing cuts on the order of 20-40%. Assume that his data is off by 100%, meaning the cuts are between 10-20%. More cuts are looming. Law firm rates went up an average of 2.5% in 2009, according to a National Law Journal survey...

The relationship between Doctors' hand-washing committees and alternative fees

Posted on December 06, 2009
I just returned from a breakfast at which Stephen Dubner, one of the authors of Freakonomics and the sequel, Superfreakonomics, made some remarks. He told the story about the work he and his co-author did studying the hand hygiene habits of doctors at a hospital...

You'll like irrelevance even less

Posted on December 05, 2009
"If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less." --General Eric Shinseki, then Army Chief of Staff Courtesy of a tweet by my friend Gerry Riskin (who also blogs about this video here), comes this eye-opening (and if it doesn't open your eyes, you're dead) slide show prepared Beaton Research and Consulting...

Prediction: Patton Boggs Will See Increase In Hours Billed in 2010

Posted on December 03, 2009
Law 360 is reporting that Patton Boggs will award bonuses of $5,000 to $45,000 to associates who exceed their billable hour goals, but will reduce salaries for associates who have not met their targets. Efficiency? Who cares. Results? Not on the radar...

Bill Belichick could never be a Managing Partner

Posted on December 03, 2009
An absolutely brilliant piece by Paul Lippe in today's AmLaw Daily makes the case that lawyers' belief that they will reduce risk by making choices that are conventional or appear safe is misplaced, especially in today's rapidly changing world...

The smell of war is in the air

Posted on December 03, 2009
In the past few weeks, I've posted on the decision many firms have made to raise hourly rates for 2010 (here, here and here). The inside counsel world has heard the same thing. And they are not happy. Check out this Law.com post featuring how two GCs are handling the issue...

More On The Tone Deaf, Insane Crowd

Posted on December 02, 2009
Altman Weil is out with a flash survey of law firms on 2010 billing rates. The survey finds: The survey found that US law firms project an average overall increase in rates of 3.2% for 2010. Most law firms will make rate change decisions based on specific variables including timekeeper class, practice, client or individual timekeeper...

Results Are In: Insanity Rules

Posted on December 01, 2009
Ten days ago, I linked to a post, by Susan Hackett of ACC, Are Firms Tone Deaf? Why Push For Rate Increases In 2010? I referred to a post I made a year ago using the same "tone deaf" language that firms should not seek rate increases in 2009...

The Pace Of Change

Posted on November 30, 2009
Richard Susskind uses a graph in his book, The End Of Lawyers?, and in his speeches that shows the pace of change as a "knee curve." The graph shows that we have experience comparatively little change until now, but we stand on the cusp of a period of great change...

To Be Blind To Changes In the Legal Profession

Posted on November 30, 2009
From AmLaw Daily: We used our annual survey of the heads of The Am Law 200 to ask questions about the changes they're seeing; 142 responded. . . . More than half the law firm heads report seeing a "fundamental shift" in the legal marketplace; only a quarter said they didn't...

A day of thanks.

Posted on November 26, 2009
I woke up this morning thinking how very lucky I am. Valorem is almost two years old, and my worst day in those two years is still significantly better than my best day in the previous 25 years, at least from the standpoint of practicing law. So I want to take a moment to thank the people who have brought such joy into my life...

Rules of Attachments: How not to use email

Posted on November 25, 2009
As National Litigation Counsel for a number of clients, I receive emails from local counsel around the country. A few, but enough that I have noticed, send me emails that contain nothing other than an attachment of their status letter. So I have to click through the attachment, wait and then read a report on something that is typically inconsequential...

Alternative Fees: So how'd you come up with that number? Part II

Posted on November 25, 2009
Following up on my last post on how clients can determine whether the alternative fee quoted is a good one or not, I invite you to read this article from Corporate Counsel, United Technologies Takes a Stand, Puts Billable Hour 'On Life Support.' Here's the punchline from the story: These days it's easy to find law firms willing to work for United Technologies under some kind of alternative fee arrangement...

Alternative Fees: So how'd you come up with that number?

Posted on November 24, 2009
When giving a speech a few months ago, I was asked by an in-house lawyer how a client was supposed to distinguish a good alternative fee from a bad one. Great question. My answer? Ask the firm to explain in detail how it came up with its number...

United Breaks Guitars. A Classic Lesson In Client Service

Posted on November 23, 2009
Sometimes, you see something that is just a wonderful poignant reminder that you cannot win a battle with a customer, whether the customer flies your airline or purchases services from you. Here's the story: A musician named Dave Carroll recently had difficulty with United Airlines...

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