Legal Commentary

Dear Cool Law Firm.

By Patrick J. Lamb

Like 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.  His salutation was "Dear Cool Law Firm."  For us, that ranks up there with the Australian Law Professor (Melbourne University Law School) who used our model on his final exam in his post-graduate course, Managing Clients.  

The "Dear Cool Law Firm" guy also sent us a copy of the now-ubiquitous and famous Evan Chelser article from Forbes, noting "though Chesler isn't exactly Martin Luther, and his comments are not quite the 95 Theses, the fact that Cravath's flacks would allow him to write and publish such an article seems almost revolutionary by itself."  We like his irreverance, but I did point out in my response to the author that  (a) Evan Chesler is the Managing Partner of Cravath and hence doesn't have to deal with "flacks" and (b) it is damn revolutionary when the Managing Partner of Cravath says the billable hour is "nuts."  That word catapulted World War II General Tony McAuliffe to historical fame and notoriety.  Perhaps it will do the same for Mr. Chesler.  But I digress.

Given that I am such an NPR fan, it was very cool to be interviewed by NPR.  It was less cool to be left on the editing room floor, but back to very cool when the story ran with my partner Nicole Auerbach featured.  Within minutes of the program airing, Nicole had received an email from a new fan at Indiana University School of Law.  The story is destined to be remembered as "The Billable Hour as a Driveway Moment" based on a post by the Wired GC.

It was very cool to be featured as a case study on RainToday.com.  We were honored when our website won an award from the Web Marketing Association.  And we've been amused by many comments made about our "cool disclaimer," including Leo Bottary's confession that he "laughed out loud" and the author of the blog forethought who wrote that he "enjoyed reading it and forwarded it to a friend."  But my favorite was this one calling it the "most awesome legal disclaimer ever."

There's so much more, but as I do when I start talking about my kids, I've gone on much too long and much longer than I intended.  Please forgive a proud founder.

We had a great first year.  I had a great first year.  And for that, I am forever indebted to my partners, who allow me the privilege of working with brilliant lawyers while having fun every day.

Full post as published by In Search of Perfect Client Service on January 09, 2009 (boomark / email).