Legal Commentary

Teaching Clients

By Patrick J. Lamb

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."  Jeff admits that his first thought was that he had been dissed, but then he realized what a great compliment Ralph had paid him.  Ralph's revenue from FMC Technologies was far less than most other clients, but he recognized that Jeff was a "teaching client."  Among the many things Ralph (and others, like me) have learned from Jeff:

1.  Budgets are everything for General Counsel, so they have to be everything for outside counsel too.

 2.  Use business tools to speak to business persons.  For example, use decision trees.

 3.  Speed of resolution counts for a lot.  The company is not in the business of litigating and litigation is a distraction.

There is so much more that the Company's outside counsel has learned, earning FMC Technologies the designation of "teaching client."  It's not about the revenue, its about the value in the lessons Jeff and his team have taught.

Full post as published by In Search of Perfect Client Service on May 28, 2010 (boomark / email).