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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

Comfort Zones ... and the Need to Improve

Posted on May 29, 2010
When I was a kid playing football, the coach told me to play line. I was big for my age, so it made sense. During the season, our starting running back was hurt and coach told me to play running back. I objected, because I had never done so before...

Teaching Clients

Posted on May 28, 2010
Jeff Carr, the General Counsel of FMC Technologies, loves to quote a comment made to him a while back by Ralph Palumbo of Summit Law Group in Seattle. Over dinner one night, after more than a glass of wine, Ralph said to Jeff, "you are my most important, least significant client...

Blackholes and e-discovery

Posted on May 27, 2010
One of my partners was telling a story to some people we were visiting with at the Inside Counsel SuperConference. As he said, it was a "classic Pat Lamb meeting" with an e-discovery vendor. The meeting starts without me and the vendor's sales people are talking about how great their product is and how much better they are than the bajillion other e-discovery providers...

Inside Counsel Superconference starts today--Follow on Twitter

Posted on May 25, 2010
I will be joining Jeff Carr of FMC Technologies, Mary Clark of LexisNexis, and Terry Gavulic of Competitive Advantage on a panel discussing Value Fees and how to make them work. Follow the entire conference on twitter by searching #ICSC10 (which translates into # Inside Counsel Super Conference 2010)...

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Bank Of America Still Doesn't Get It

Posted on May 24, 2010
Last week inExample Of Really Bad Client Service, I told the story of my colleague's really bad experience with Bank of America. Per my custom, I tweeted about my post. A number of people retweeted my tweet, and eventually one of them included @BofA_Help on the retweet...

Example of Really Bad Client Service

Posted on May 21, 2010
My colleague got married on January 2nd and changed her name from Lisa Castle to Lisa Carter (huge monogram savings). Now as unique as Lisa is, you can imagine that there are a few Lisa Carters in the world. Some of them have chosen to bank at Bank of America...

BigLaw: Advocates of the wolf in sheep's clothing approach to Value Fees

Posted on May 19, 2010
I was talking about Value Fees to two senior partners from two of the largest and best law firms in the country. Their take was that clients were not interested. This conclusion was based on the fact that they had offered clients 'alternative fee proposals' and the clients had not accepted them...

"So why is most business (and legal) writing so numbingly banal?"

Posted on May 19, 2010
That is the question posed by Jason Fried in What's Your Point?, an article in the May 2010 edition of Inc. Fried highlights some great banalities: One of my favorite phrases in the business world is full service solutions provider ('full service law firm' anyone?)...

Most Important Leadership Quality? Creativity

Posted on May 18, 2010
This Fast Company article discusses an IBM study of CEOs that concludes that creativity is the most important leadership quality. The results come from one-on-one interviews of more than 1,500 CEOs from around the world. A most interesting read, especially since this trait is not seen in abundance in law firm "leaders...

Legal Issues, Business Solutions

Posted on May 18, 2010
In January, my colleague Hank Turner started a blog, Legal Issues, Business Solutions. Lots of people start blogs and then lose interest, so I held my tongue (really, my fingers) and didn't post about it. I waited to see if Hank would bring the discipline and sharp mind to his blog that he brings to his legal work...

Words of Wisdom: Project Management II

Posted on May 11, 2010
In the same project management mode, I was fortunate to receive a copy of Jim Hassett's Legal Project Management Quick Reference Guide to review. Most of you know Jim, or at least know that he is the founder of LegalBizDev. Jim saw, earlier than most anyone, that project management skills were going to be critical to making Value Fees (formerly know as alternative fees) successful and that there was, ahem, a viable market for Legal Project Management training...

Words of Wisdom: Project Management

Posted on May 11, 2010
From ACC Board Chair Patricia Hatler in her March message in ACC Docket: Expense management is still a critical focus for general counsel. Successful leaders need to think differently, using a process-minded, value assessment and risk assessment approach...

I'm Back

Posted on May 11, 2010
I have been unable to post much lately due to a book commitment, but I finished the last chapter yesterday and I'm back and rarin' to go. The book, if anyone is interested, will be a thriller on Value Fees (the new name for fees formerly known as alternative)...

Systems That Promote Silly Fights Are Bad Systems

Posted on April 30, 2010
Today's Law360 (sub. req'd) reports on a study that has found that nearly one third of female partners have been bullied--yes, bullied--by male colleagues over origination credits. Hard to imagine that everyone in those firms is pulling their oars in the same direction...

My Profound Thanks

Posted on April 07, 2010
I have written many times about Jeff Carr, the iconic General Counsel of FMC Technologies. Jeff is a client, a friend and a teacher. He is a thought-leader in the profession. In a recent interview (sub. req.), Jeff was asked if there was one attorney who had impressed him, and why...

A Client's request, hair balls and slop factor, and project management

Posted on April 07, 2010
You're an ad agency, home of a bunch of creative types who play games and think weird thoughts. Ideas are a dime a dozen, but great ideas happen when they happen, and you can't rush greatness. But then your biggest client comes to you and says change...

Peep Voting

Posted on April 07, 2010
The ABA Journal is running its Second "Peeps in Law" Diorama contest. The five finalists have just been announced, and I am proud to say that one of the two Valorem entries (alas, the one I was not involved with) has been chosen as a finalist...

Evidence that lessons have not been learned

Posted on April 02, 2010
Yesterday, the New York Times ran an article, At Law Firms, Reconsidering the Model for Associates' Pay. Hmmmm. Sounds like maybe law firms learned that their model was broken and needed fixing. Only partly so, though. And, as it turns out, the wrong part...

Paul Lippe, Lewis and Clark, and Google Maps

Posted on March 22, 2010
Bias disclosure upfront. I consider myself a disciple of Paul Lippe, the CEO of Legal OnRamp. He's a very smart guy (and much taller in person) and a visionary (and a member of Valorem's advisory board). I always learn a lot when he speaks...

Getting to the end sooner

Posted on March 16, 2010
Imagine this scenario: Bill, the General Counsel, walks into the CEO's office. "Jane, I have great news. You know our problem with ABC Widget? I have figured out a great way to get rid of those problems. I am going to walk out on the street and find a stranger walking by and have her decide whether we're right or ABC is right...

Yet another firm sacrifices its young at the alter of hours

Posted on March 15, 2010
Above The Law is reporting that my old firm, Katten Muchin, has made an announcement on associate salaries. Apparently the firm has decided that for an associate to advance a pay level, the associate must have met the firm's target hours requirement...

Note to GCs: It's Your Money. Act Like It!

Posted on March 15, 2010
I just saw an article from my rebel buddy Rachel Zahorsky in the ABA Journal reporting on an event featuring Chief Legal Officers at Foley & Lardner. The article states: The pressure to reduce costs has also pushed general counsel to become more assertive when voicing billing and staffing concerns to their outside lawyers...

The "good old days" are not coming back

Posted on March 09, 2010
In the opening paragraph of its 2010 Client Advisory, the joint Hildebrandt-Citi advisory ominously notes: While the year ended with some hopeful signs, we enter 2010 with little prospect of a robust recovery and with mounting evidence that the profession is entering an era in which the fundamental economics of legal practice are likely to be significantly different...

Get off your phone. Thank you.

Posted on March 07, 2010
Along the lines of my last post on lessons from a scoundrel, I urge you to visit Brains on Fire and read On the people right in front of you. Eric Dodd was visiting a coffee shop named the Ugly Mug in Ypsilanti, Michigan--I'll let him pick up the story here: When I went up to the counter to get my fix, I noticed something that caught my attention and made me smile...

Client service lessons from a legendary scoundrel: email is not a good substitute for conversation

Posted on March 06, 2010
"Don't write anything you can phone. Don't phone anything you can talk. Don't talk anything you can whisper. Don't whisper anything you can smile. Don't smile anything you can nod. Don't nod anything you can wink." Former Louisiana Governor and legendary scoundrel Earl Long...

Necessity shows the impossible is possible

Posted on March 03, 2010
"You have to decrease the size of your law department by 40%. I know it's at a time when the demand for in-house legal services will be going way up, but such is life." "You have to reduce your spend on litigation by 50% with no drop-off in quality...

How do you treat your best customers?

Posted on March 02, 2010
Once again, the real world provides wonderful lessons. My wife calls to tell me to cancel a credit card--the bank had raised our interest rate to 30% "because we didn't carry a balance." Our primary card is at 9%, so 30% isn't going to cut it...

A Customer Service Failure

Posted on February 26, 2010
I just concluded a stay at a Four Seasons Hotel. When checking out, I was stunned to see two $100 plus charges for phone calls. When I inquired about the charges, I was told that the first minute of each call is $8 and each subsequent minute was $3...

10 reasons entrepreneurs hate lawyers? Really 10 reasons why most clients hate lawyers

Posted on February 24, 2010
Courtesy of Dan Hull's post on this same topic, I was drawn to a post by Scott Edward Walker on Venture Hacks, Top 10 Reasons Why Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers. I actually read this post half a dozen times looking for my favorite reason in the list of 10 so I could quote something here...

Thanks to LexBlog for post about moi!

Posted on February 23, 2010
Thanks so much to Lisa Kennelly at Lexblog for a very kind post about this blog in Kevin O'Keefe's fantastic Real Lawyers Have Blogs. Kevin is a pioneer, perhaps the pioneer in this area, and he was the person who convinced me that I could be a blogger...

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