We are very proud of our latest Edge International Review. For a complete downloadable version (or just the articles you want) click on the cover or go to EdgeInternationalReview.com
If you have any questions , comments or suggestions, please shoot me a note.
(You can also check out our Edge International web site at Edge-International.com)
If your firm has offices in the Great Lakes Region (or is thinking of expanding into it) there is an unprecedented and unmatched comprehensive analysis available: “2010 Legal Market Analysis Great Lakes Region”
The report contains:
Cities included:
I think this is a fantastic deal. If your firm tried to pull this together on your own, you’d spent months and tens of thousands worth of time doing your due diligence which would include analyzing the firms, clients and economics of the region. I expected the price would be around $7,500 but it offered at $2,995
I was also impressed by the Guarantee of Satisfaction - if your firm is disappointed (you won't be) you can pull the trigger on the guarantee.
For many leaders, the most important and imponderable question relates to the timing of the recovery — one of the elements of this report is
My enthusiasm for The “2010 Legal Market Analysis Great Lakes Region” is based on these simple premises:
The downloadable prospectus including full Table of Contents will give you an idea as to how well organized this work is.
At the very least, this analysis is an important reality check. Many firms have skewed views of their own markets based on prejudices or outdated data that tends to stick in the minds of firm leaders.
Here is an excerpt from the free downloadable prospectus showing the nature of the contents of the report:
A detailed competitive analysis for each city providing:
An accurate and up-to-date economic analysis of each metro area including:
Assessment of demographic, businesses and market data for each state and metro area including:
Download the prospectus and see for yourself.
Note: I know the people behind this initiative very well but want to make it clear that I have absolutely no financial interest in their venture — I am posting this based on receiving a review copy. I believe this is an extraordinary offering and far more valuable than its price would reflect.
Nearly three decades ago, in the early days of Edge International, there was only one writer in the area of managing a professional firm that commanded our unqualified respect and attention. That was David Maister.
“Managing the Professional Services Firm” is the Bible, according to many leaders of some of the largest professional service firms in the world. “True Professionals” spoke to the firms for whom dignity and quality service were the engines of success. And he wrote so much more in collaborations and articles.
In Edge, we were lucky enough to find ourselves presenting at a few conferences in common with David, in various places around the world and one day ended up having a very private informal retreat. This led to the creation of PracticeCoach®, an extraordinarily comprehensive video-based resource to help law firm leaders around the world. It stars David. What a joy it was to create with him.
His philosophy was so in harmony with ours. For example, we loved his guarantee of satisfaction (and were proud that we offered one as well even before we knew he did).
There were some very cool things I learned from David:
I am not surprised by the awards and accolades* he has received… just delighted.
The good news is that this is not a eulogy (even if it sounds like one). David and Kathy’s infectious smiles will remain available to us for many many happy years to come.
If there is a sad note in this homage, it is that David's retirement represents a loss to my beloved legal profession and all the other professions he served so well. However, his books and programs live on. As I write this, I am helping a prominent South American firm to use the study in his book, “Practice What You Preach,” to help them analyze and choose the most fruitful areas of focus for their continued improvement.
Maybe David’s and Kathy's retirements will be like some famous souls who preceded them who were coaxed back into the game for an important gig or two.
By the way, Kathy retired from one of the most incredible video enhanced blogs in history: startcooking.com where you can still experience valuable lessons - check it out ! This is not an amateur undertaking - you will find broadcast-quality production values.
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David and Kathy, Bethany and I treasure you and I know if we gathered those of like mind we’d need a mighty big arena.
Retire in good health!! Well earned - BRAVO!
Tom Peters gave me the thrill of my life when he endorsed my book The Successful Lawyer. I have revered this genius over his many masterpieces starting with In Search of Excellence and then so many more amazing literary, video and blogging contribution
So, law firm leaders, as you think about excellence in 2010, enjoy this message delivered by one of my heroes, Tom Peters (in under 2 minutes).
I hope you'll take hours to reflect on its meaning in your context.
Gerry
PS If you have partners who won't look at the video , here's a transcript
Take a few moments at the beginning of your next (executive, practice group, industry group, client team) meeting and watch this piece from Australia's George and Margaret Beaton (Beaton research and Consulting). They have been friends for a long time and not only built an amazing high end consultancy but have done it with panache and imagination. You will see some data that will act as a catalyst for the thinking of your leadership team.
Enjoy: The Big (Legal) Picture video
Punchline: The legal Profession absolutely refuses to stay the same so don't let your partners treat it like it will.
Pat Lamb's added this commentary at his awesome Blog, In Search of Perfect Client Service: You'll like irrelevance even less
Patrick Lamb is synonymous with Valorem Law Group which is a driving force in changing how legal services are valued and acquired. After learning that Jordan Furlong was joining us, here's (an excerpt from) what he posted:
It's like adding Wayne Gretzky in his prime to the team that already was the best team in the league, or adding an all-star to a team of all-stars. Great move, my friends.
Read the complete post here: WOW! Jordan Furlong joins Edge International!
If you lead a law firm and do not yet subscribe to Patrick's blog, In Search of Perfect Client Service, then go now and take care of that oversight.
If you want to learn more about Patrick, choose one if his bios:
Now as for Jordan Furlong, Jordan thanks again for joining us, You are more like Gretzky than even Patrick may know.
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I was practicing law in Edmonton during the Oiler dynasty and saw Gretzky informally as well as on the ice. He was a young man of values and integrity… a great contributor to the community… and always selfless… ego-less… always doing his best… and his best, we all know in hindsight, was truly awesome.
Having known Jordan Furlong personally and professionaly for many years, I can attest to the attributes that Patrick Lamb affords him and add that he is the kind of dream teammate we so much appreciate at Edge International. In fact Jordan inhales and exhales integrity - it's the core of his DNA. (Heck - he even comes from Ontario, Canada and brings endorsements - thanks to Patrick).
Jordan, (blame this on Patrick Lamb), I now pronounce your Edge International nickname to be "Gretz" from this day forward. Welcome aboard, Gretz !
I believe in capitalism and free enterprise. I have a business degree before law. My practicing years were spent helping clients increase their profits… managing partner years helping my partners increase theirs. You'll get no socialistic psychobabble from me.
I encourage you to assimilate the compelling evidence that increasing compensation in the hope of enhancing performance actually backfires. Law firm leaders need to understand when money motivates and when it does not. In fact, "too much" money demotivates. Get an introduction to the science that supports this hypothesis in the Ted Talk below.
Once the basic compensation is right, there are better ways to motivate. If not money, then what? According to Dan Pink, the presenter in this Ted Talk, the three motivating elements for those who work with complexity, like lawyers, are:
PUNCHLINE: Investing 18 minutes and 40 seconds may start you on the path to leading your firm to legendary performance, your lawyers staff and clients to legendary satisfaction and, last but not least, your firm to legendary profits.
PUNCHLINE: If Social Media matters, then it matters to law firms because everything that matters to society in general must matter to law firms sooner or later. Watch this and make your own decision.
From the Sacramento Business Journal today:
Law firm confidence index drops to record low
Excerpt:
Confidence in the economy among managing partners at large law firms nationwide hit new lows in the first quarter, according to the latest research from the Citi Private Bank Law Firm Group in New York City.
I recommend three priorities to Managing Partners:
PUNCHLINE: There is so much more to do, but I have seen these three initiatives making an immediate palpable difference. NOW is when you need these benefits most.
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I was honoured today to participate in Charon's 114th Lawcast which you can hear at the Charon QC blawg or download it from there in iTunes format:
Lawcast 114: Gerry Riskin, founder of Edge International - Law practice in these recessionary times
Access all of Charon's lawcasts by clicking on Charon's Lawcast website logo below
Charon QC is intelligent, articulate and highly entertaining. Don't miss any of his offerings!
Ms. Juhi Garg
Edge International is delighted to announce the addition of Ms. Juhi Garg. Juhi holds a Masters in Business Law from India's foremost law school, the National Law School of India in Bangalore and is also a graduate in media from Delhi University. With Juhi on our team, Edge International will offer our full traditional range of consulting services to Indian law firms. In addition, we will be focusing on assisting Indian law firms with their strategies to develop business in the western hemisphere and to assist western firms wishing to take advantage of the burgeoning Indian legal services market.
India is a legal services market that is attracting global attention, for good reason. It produces more law school graduates annually than any other country. Its impact with outsourced legal services in western markets has been significant and this is set to grow exponentially as western clients seek to cut legal costs in the face of the current economic recession. Also, upcoming legislation is expected to significantly relax restrictions on foreign firms and lawyers practicing in India. Several international firms have already entered into arrangements with Indian law firms in anticipation of this change.
See Juhi's biography by clicking here.
PUNCHLINE: If you are a firm based in Australia, New Zealand Canada the US or UK and are interested in exploring an arrangement with an Indian law firm and you would like counsel on the selection and vetting processes, please allow me, Juhi Garg or Robert Millard to explore helping you.
Evan R. Chesler is a Presiding Partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. He has offered his thoughts via Forbes in a piece called: Kill The Billable Hour. There is no suggestion that he is articulating a new policy for the entire firm but he is clear on his own views and given that he is the presiding partner, his words may very well represent some strategic thinking within the firm.
Here are some excerpts from Evan R. Chesler's views:
"I bill by the hour... This needs to be fixed. Yes, you read that correctly."
"Clients have long hated the billable hour, and I understand why."
"So what am I proposing? For reasonable periods of time during the life of a lawsuit, say three months at a time, I should... identify the client's objectives, measure, calculate, build in a contingency and come back with a price. Once the price has been agreed upon, the billable hour should be irrelevant.
PUNCHLINE: Evan R. Chesler is not the first lawyer to understand this. Visit the firm founded by awesome litigator Patrick Lamb and you'll see he and his partners have been living without the billable hour for some time at Valorem. Are Evan Chesler and Patrick Lamb (and those few who think like them) right? My money is on YES - the proof will be how sophisticated clients vote with their choice of counsel.
Patrick Lamb
Photograph of Evan Chesler by Fred Marcus Photography as it appeared in the referenced Forbes article. Image of Patrick Lamb (with hammer and clock) from the Valorem firm's website.
Read the entire Evan Chesler story here: Kill The Billable Hour and visit Valorem here and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP here.
Hat tip to Larry Bodine's ListServ for alerting me to the story.
Perhaps these troubled times will motivate more attempts to defraud law firms - Managing Partners, what have you done to strengthen security lately?
Client Reportedly Scams $1M from Philippine Law Firm
The image above is the core of the post of internet phenom, Rajesh Setty, in his post today at Life Beyond Code: Optimists and Pessimists - The big difference is..
Couple that with the wisdom of lawyer and legal profession provocateur, Patrick Lamb, in his post today: Silver Lining in Black Economic Cloud? in which Pat says among other things:
If you don't see the opportunity to restructure relationships in ways that produce savings for your clients while at the same time strengthening your relationship with that client, you need to open your eyes.
Punchline: My asking Managing Partners to treat the deterioration of the economy seriously is in perfect harmony with seeing the situation as a competitive opportunity. My view of Dynamic Resilience as an alternative to a traditional strategic plan is just that - exploiting the opportunity to be stronger than competitors in challenging times. (Remember the hiking joke when one hiker says to the other “I don’t have to run faster than the bear; I only have to run faster than you”).
I invite you again to push the button.
Managing Partners, you may have a disaster plan for fire, perhaps for terrorism - do you have one for the economic train coming off the tracks?
Listen (and watch) what Greenspan said yesterday Sept 14th (50 seconds)
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.
It's time, as Nike would say, to "Just Do It".
Push the button. (click it) then let's talk about this privately.
Britain is facing "arguably the worst" economic downturn in 60 years which will be "more profound and long-lasting" than people had expected, Alistair Darling, the chancellor, tells the Guardian today in a story called: Economy at 60-year low, says Darling. And it will get worse
Wall Street returns from vacation season to enter what is historically the most perilous period of the year amid conflicting signals about the US economic outlook according to Breitbart in a story called: Wall Street enters month of peril with outlook clouded
In the face of these stories, I am disappointed to report that this is the most common management style I am observing among law firm leaders globally:
If this resembles you, give me a call or email me and we can discuss this off the meter. Managing Partners and members of their immediate senior teams only please. (You might be even more inclined to call if this does not resemble you.)
Reference my post one year ago: Doom and Gloom for the legal profession - it's coming
and Weather the Storm Article Available from Canadian Bar Association's The National
RainToday.com created a special report from 12 experts in pricing professional services, including, I am honoured to say, yours truly. You can download my article:
"Think of Services in Terms of Value – Not Rates" by Gerry Riskin (author: The Successful Lawyer)
or download the entire 39 page report including all 12 articles by visiting RainToday.com here.
Here is what RainToday.com has to say about its publication:
We've read a lot of advice about fee structure, and there are a lot of people who claim to know it all. But when you boil it all down — what's really important? What do you need to know? What is the one piece of advice you need to get the fees you deserve?
The expert authors and advice includes:
1. Convince the Buyer that Value-Based Fees are Best by Alan Weiss, Author, “Million Dollar Consulting”
2. Price with Confidence! Follow These 10 Steps to Stop Leaving Money on the Table
- Mark Burton, Co-Founder and Vice President of Holden Advisors and Co-Author, “Pricing With Confidence: 10 Ways to Stop Leaving Money on the Table”
3. A Magic Bullet? No, a Process
- Bruce W. Marcus, Marketing and Strategic Planning Consultant and Editor, The Marcus Letter on Professional Services Marketing
4. The Best Kept Secret of the Selling World
- Jeff Thull, President and CEO, Prime Resource Group and Author, “Mastering the Complex Sale, The Prime Solution”
5, If You Don’t Discuss Value, Expect to Discuss Hours
- Ronald J. Baker, Founder, VeraSage Institute and Author, “The Firm of the Future: A Guide for Accountants, Lawyers, and Other Professional Services”
6. Take Courage: Demand Full Price (And seven steps to get you there)
- John Doehring, Senior Vice President, ZweigWhite
7. Creating Value During the Sales Process
- Tom Snyder, Former CEO, Huthwaite
8. Build the Relationship One Day at a Time
- Ron Worth, CEO, Society for Marketing Professional Services and Author, “A/E/C Marketing Fundamentals”
9. Think of Services in Terms of Value – Not Rates
- Gerry Riskin, Co-Founder, Edge International
10. Discounting Doesn’t Work
- Jeanne Urich, Managing Director, Service Performance Insight
11. Over-Serve Your Best Clients
- Neil Fauerbach, Partner and Director of Business Development and Marketing, Smith & Gesteland, LLP and President, Association for Accounting Marketing
12. Maximize the Value of Work to Your Clients and Your Firm
- Andrew Sobel, Founder, Andrew Sobel Advisors and Author, “Clients for Life” and “Making Rain”
Law Professor William D. Henderson (click on photo for bio)
Managing Partners and law firm H.R. Executives should contemplate the meaning of Indiana University School of Law's Prof. Bill Henderson's post: "How the 'Cravath System' Created the Bi-Modal Distribution."
Professor Henderson builds on the work of NALP (The National Association for Law Placement®, founded in 1971) who published this graph in 2007 referencing 2006 salaries their article called "A Picture Worth 1,000 Words":
Note how meaningless the Median is in helping any form set associate salaries.
Professor Henderson asks, among other things: "Are We Selling Results or Résumés?" which is the title of one of his papers in this area. Here is a related excerpt:
"The Results or Résumés paper draws upon two pieces of market data to demonstrate that a large proportion of large corporate law firms have to re-evaluate their business models: (1) stunning uniformity of associate entry level salaries amidst large, growing disparities in profits per partner; and (2) evidence that firms are becoming stratified by premium versus non-premium practice areas."
Professor Henderson also draws our attention to the unbelievable burden taken on by firms that are not the most profitable by showing a comparison between associate salaries and per partner profits as you move up the profitability curve:
Professor Henderson then explores the lateral partner mobility within the Am Law 2000 and in his words "teases out a relative hierarchy of practice areas" According to Professor Henderson, the table below, which covers the 2000 to 2005 time period, orders legal specialty by differential profits per equity partner (PPP) between the firm a partner left and the firm he or she joined.
I strongly recommend that you read Professor Henderson's entire post but I think the best is yet to come as evidenced by the final paragraph in his post:
"Fortunately, the Results or Résumés paper lays out a solution for any law firm willing to try something new. The psychological barriers, however, are much larger than the logistical or financial. I will blog on this topic in a subsequent post."
Thank you also to my friend Bruce MacEwen of Adam Smith, Esq. for his excellent post on this topic: THE BI-MODAL STARTING SALARY DISTRIBUTION and the ABA post: ‘Cravath Model’ that Created Have and Have-Not Law Grads Could Implode
PUNCHLINE: The legal profession resists change for good reasons and bad. As always, it won't be the legal profession initiating the change - our clients will do that for us. The fundamental question is whether your firm will be among those to first respond to these issues and from that gain well-deserved competitive advantage. Stay tuned.
After a 15 year COO/Executive-Director drought, Morrison & Foerster is making a move that is more akin to the behaviour of British and Australian firms than American ones – they have looked outside the firm and indeed outside the legal profession to fill their new Chief Operating Officer Position. This is a bold move which according to Chairman Keith Wetmore will give Mo Fo a competitive advantage. According to the same article, Pat Cavaney, formerly Senior Vice President of Hewlett-Packard, will free up the three firm Managing Partners to manage the practices more and the operations less (and also spend more time practicing law).As Senior Vice President, Pat Cavaney is responsible for Global Delivery Operations & Information Technology for Technology Services, Technology Solutions Group. In this role, Cavaney manages the Global Delivery Program Office; the Group Information Office (IT + R&D); the Engagement PMO; Customer Operations; Applications Services Delivery; Total Customer Experience, Quality, and Business Process Management; and Compliance & Maturity Assessment.I believe the legal profession has much to gain by importing talent from outside and I wish Mo Fo and Pat Cavaney every success.
Prior to his current role, Cavaney managed the implementation of the company’s merger integration plans for the services businesses of HP and Compaq. The scope of this effort encompassed all HP Services functions and lines of business including Customer Support, Consulting & Integration, and Managed Services.
Cavaney also served as the Worldwide General Manager of HP Education Services. He was responsible for managing HP’s broad portfolio of learning services that help businesses enhance knowledge and skills and improve business performance.
With a career spanning more than 20 years, Cavaney’s prior experience includes serving as the Worldwide General Manager of the HP Services Year 2000 Program. He was responsible for directing the sales, marketing, delivery, and administration efforts of HP Services to ensure the Y2K readiness of HP product offerings and customer support infrastructure.
Born in Pasadena, California, Cavaney holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Southern California. He is based in Palo Alto, California.
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, a 600-lawyer firm based in New York, offers employees a service akin to a personal issues coach and psychotherapist through a deal with Corporate Counseling Associates of Manhattan. The consulting firm has a battery of staff psychologists and social workers to provide advice on issues including stress, anxiety, depression and divorce.PUNCHLINE: Some of my law-firm clients have very serious challenges dealing with individuals for whom "psychological intervention" should be mandatory. In these severe cases, ostensibly productive members of the firm are causing harm to client relationships and firm personnel with long term costs that are hugely underestimated by their firms. Perhaps offering such perks is a way to make it just a little easier to address these firm-threatening challenges.
While many companies have offered employee assistance programs over the years, few have Ph.D. psychologists on staff.
A spokeswoman for Fried, Frank, Paula Zirinsky, said, “We want employees to be successful in their personal as well as their work lives.”
Read the entire article... perhaps your firm can offer many of the perks mentioned - most are not that expensive and I'll bet the return on investment would be healthy indeed (pun intended).
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Recipe for disaster: secrecy, unfair competition, deteriorating culture and even a partnership agreement that did not foresee that it was too generous to departing partners if more than a handful left at a time…
How Do I Provide Meaningful Recognition?Marshall references the following:
PUNCHLINE: Many of the Managing Partners and Practice Group Leaders I serve do not have time for business publications (there are notable exceptions, of course). Perhaps this introduction to Harvard Business Online will whet the appetite for and lead to requesting a free subscription. The eight items above may not be perfect for your situation but I hope it stimulates your deciding the kind of recognition protocol you want to follow.
- List the names of the key groups of people that impact your life -- both at work and at home (customers, co-workers, friends, family members, etc.).
- Write down the names of the people in each group.
- Post your list in a place you can't miss seeing regularly.
- Twice a week -- once on Wednesday, once on Friday -- review the list and ask yourself, “Did anyone on this list do something that I should recognize?”
- If someone did, stop by to say "thank you," make a quick phone call, leave a voice mail, send an email, or jot down a note.
- Don’t do anything that takes up too much time. This process needs to be time-efficient or you won’t stick with it.
- If no one on the list did anything that you believe should be recognized, don’t say anything. You don’t want to be a hypocrite or a phony. No recognition is better than recognition that you don’t really mean.
- Stick with the process. You won’t see much impact in a week – but you will see a huge difference in a year.
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The September 2007 McKinsey Quarterly has an interesting article called: The Evolving Role of the CMO by David Court who discusses four areas of change for the CMO:
As most Managing Partners are aware, during 25 years as CEO of GE, Jack Welch added more value than any other CEO in history. Accordingly, some folks think it worthwhile to analyze what Jack Welch did that fueled those exemplary results."Archetypal shaping experiences contribute to the cake turning out well. The ten broad categories of shaping experiences are listed below and are shown with a brief definition and explanatory quotes from the leaders I interviewed for this book:
1. Swim in Water over Your Head. Take a calculated personal risk without specific knowledge of how to succeed.
"You gotta do things outside your comfort zone. On purpose."?
"I figured I'd get beat up pretty good in this fistfight, but I had to do it. I got a big lump on my head, but I didn't die."
2. Make the Tough Choice. Choose group benefit over personal interest, or choose between two "rights."
"Sometimes you have to take a good friend off the team and make him feel okay about it. Or do it anyway."
3. Solve the Key Puzzle. Even if it is not your job, figure out the root of the problem or opportunity.?
"Sometimes the crowd runs in circles. You have to concentrate and see what everything hangs on -- even if it is not your accountability."
4. Parent at Work. Help others to grow and to perform exceptionally.?
"You learn a lot from your parents and by parenting your own children; sometimes thinking as Mom or Dad at work helps."?
"Ask what you would do if your people were family -- you get some good approaches."?
"Treat your employees as you would want your children treated."
5. Sell Something/Get Others to Buy In. Win hearts and minds to create followers.?
"Sell an idea. You'll be doing it a lot."?
"Get people to vote with their feet, part with their money -- it's what life is all about."
6. Connect with Others. Understand what motivates others -- walk the talk and speak their language. Enlist them as much by your deeds as by your words.?
"This plane will get fixed a lot faster if the mechanics want it to. It won't fix itself."
"A lot of bosses treat their people like they're nobodies. My guys do their best because it's about us, not about me."
7. Build a Team. Gather and lead a group in a common endeavor, and succeed. Or fail at first and try again. Get average players to play like stars. Add new members and weed out underperformers. Set direction and change it while keeping the team together.?
"When you have to deliver, you need experience in selecting people and getting them on the same page."?
"Pickup football taught me how to handicap horses -- who will perform and who will not."
8. Get Good on Your Feet. Learn to communicate, dialogue, and project your authenticity in real time.?
"I was the leader of the singing group. That is when I got used to speaking in front of others. It came in handy later."
"I ran for student council. That's when I learned to handle the hecklers."?
"I wanted to create an atmosphere of fun around a serious proposition. I organized and led a parade in the building. It not only did what I wanted, it also got me noticed in a good way by the boss."
9. Develop Your Crap Detector. Practice your intuitive ability to read subtexts of conversations and to detect individuals whose words and behaviors are not what they pretend them to be.?
"In the military police, we had to ask questions and make quick judgments about people -- a guy who seemed real nice might have beaten someone up a few minutes earlier."
10. Look in the Mirror. Assess your own values, beliefs, and behaviors critically.?See the full blog post here or order the book here.
"I didn't want to hear it, but the criticism made me look inside myself. I changed my career, headed for operations. "?
"He made me see my passion -- it's why I stayed in this field against all odds."?
"He told me I'd never make partner if I could not disagree without being disagreeable."
"Stephen H. Baum has been an adviser and coach to CEOs for more than twenty years, first as a partner with Booz Allen & Hamilton, the global consultancy -- where beyond the client work he was also on the appraisal and development committee and mentored young associates -- then as an independent practitioner."
Videoconferencing was supposed to put an end to corporate travel. But positioning people in front of a camera, fiddling endlessly with controls and then either giving up or proceeding to stare at a tiny picture of a blurry face often seems less satisfactory than the humble telephone.The Solution:
Designers want people in telepresence meetings to appear life-sized, and the tables and rooms at the two ends to blend together seamlessly. (Rooms, furniture and even wallpaper are often identical, to aid the illusion.) People must also feel that they are making eye contact, which involves multiple cameras and enormous computing power. The delays in sight and sound must be negligible (ie, below 250 milliseconds, the threshold at which the human brain starts to notice), so that people can interrupt each other naturally. Sound must be perceived to come from the direction of the person speaking. And getting things started must be simple—ideally involving a single button or none at all.Saving Money and Time (law firm example driven by client):
In addition to saving money, Cisco argues that telepresence saves time. The firm recently completed a takeover in eight days (as opposed to the usual weeks or months) by putting the lawyers in telepresence rooms instead of on aeroplanes.More examples:
Lee Scott, the boss of Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, is said to see great scope for improving his supply chain. DreamWorks, a Hollywood studio that helped HP develop its telepresence system, says the technology will help it make movies cheaper and faster, by allowing creative types to collaborate without travelling.My Punchline:
“Ford & Harrison, a 190-attorney labor and employment firm, has tossed out billable-hour requirements for first-year associates. The program aims to close the practical-skills gap of law school education and increase value to clients. The firm also hopes it will enable associates to handle meatier matters more quickly.“ according to Leigh Jones of The National Law Journal.
*According to the largest-ever research program in the UK legal profession, it appears that as the Beatles sang “money can’t buy you love”
How your people use their voice mail may seem at first both trivial and unimportant. BZZZZZZZZZZ WRONG!!!
I am not willing to bet against Cravath Swaine & Moore, are you? In fact their strategic decision in creating an insolvency practice may be cause for additional respect rather than cheap shots.
"Buyouts alone accounted for 277 transactions worth $121billion in Asia last year" according to The Financial Express China is most popular destination for new law firms
According to The Wall Street Journal, "Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP, on Friday said that 45 partners have been asked to leave or accept other positions there as part of a restructuring".
I hope top blogger Guy Kawasaki will not mind my using his entire question #7 from his post today featuring Michael Raynor, author of The Strategy Paradox.
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So, how many stars does your firm have?
Seth Godin's blog post on Receptionists is 100% correct. When I was a managing partner, my firm required a receptionist for our largest office. I personally reviewed 215 applications myself and created my "A list", about 42 applicants, whom I invited for interviews late one afternoon. I asked 6 of my partners to help me and we interviewed 6 applicants each. Any WOW applicant was interviewed separately by at least two partners. Were we insane to take so much partner time on this? You decide.
"Law Seven" and conclusion from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management
7)Turn a spotlight on your initiative and leave it on
Many firms have fabulous meetings, sometimes in retreat venues where everyone participates in the creation of the master plan that will make the firm the "be all and end all". All participants leave the process feeling a sense of pride and excitement that is palpable. It is only after the passage of a few months and the absence of any visible accomplishments that the disillusionment sets in. The cynics and skeptics have a field day  they might as well all buy red tee shirts with yellow words emblazoned across their chests "I told you so". Well, Managing Partner, you must not allow this outcome. It is lethal and you cannot recover from it. Instead you need the lights that were on at the retreat to remain on. This is accomplished by not allowing the insects to crawl back under the rocks  (out of sight, out of mind). Instead you need to design processes that keep your people (not insects at all) in plain view. You can decide for yourself what might work best for you, but here are some of the techniques I have observed or recommended:
a) Monday Morning Memos (as referenced earlier) giving weekly status reports to showing everyone's progress on the distinct steps (actions) that have been agreed upon. This creates healthy peer pressure and allows no-one to hide.
b) MBWA (Managing by Walking Around) coined by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman in their business classic In Search of Excellence  this means frequently dropping in, unannounced, to ask the right questions and to offer help  "How is that list coming I see you are struggling to get this done in light of your particularly heavy case load at the moment let's explore some options to whom could you delegate some aspects of this I need you to make progress because others know you have an exceptionally heavy work load and if they see you getting your tasks done you will have effectively removed their excuses  I need you to do that I will do anything to help short of doing your task for you "
c) Convene follow up meetings that exchange "learnings" that individuals have gleaned from their respective tasks, for example, how they worked with difficult people internally or how they overcame client resistance. This should not be a meeting where everyone reports progress  progress meetings become meaningless exercises in seeing who can offer the most creative excuses for failing to deliver. This is a peer level training meeting where the objective is to become ever more effective at accomplishing quality non-billable tasks.
Conclusion: Fostering change in a law firm seems impossible because most Managing Partners treat the activities associated with such change as if they were component pieces of a legal transaction. Partners are so reliable when it comes to their substantive legal work that it seems unthinkable that they could not complete mundane simple tasks associated with management initiatives. Well, the real world is that the non-billable activities are not even on the same psychological map as the billable ones. Billable work means everything to a lawyer from income to professional satisfaction to garnering the respect of peers (internally and externally) to being respected in social circles. Non-billable work, no matter how important, and regardless of the value to our futures, will always take second place to billable work unless you, Managing Partner, manage for a different outcome. The score in many firms is billable work "100" and quality non-billable work "0". By following these seven immutable laws of managing change, you will change the latter score from zero and even if you only to "99 to 1", you and your firm will be the beneficiaries of the infinite improvement from "0" to "1". Further, in the legal profession, those who make continuous slight progress win the race, because most competitors are still tied to that pier.
Law #1
Law #2
Law #3
Law #4
Law #5
Law #6
(Â thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)
"Law Six" from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management
6)Tell the world
Do you know why betrothed people say their vows in front of friends and family  to cement their commitment. It is the same reason a banker friend told me the bank does television commercials: "not just for our customers but for our own staff so that they can see the service promise we make to our customers and as a result they are more likely to live up to that promise".
Tell the world what you are shooting for, whatever that may be - in fact, you can say it before it is so: "striving to be the firm of choice for the wholesale industry". I am not advocating misleading or untrue advertising but I am saying it's OK to declare what you are striving for. Your current and prospective clients will hold you accountable but that's OK because it helps define the standard for your people and gives clarity to their target and therefore their everyday performance.
Law #1
Law #2
Law #3
Law #4
Law #5
(Â thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)
"Law Five" from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management
5)Ask for commitment - not agreement
One of my most successful friends (and clients from my law practice days) has a One Sentence Journal and he posted the following wisdom one day:
"Commitment and Doubt": Commitment does not require the absence of doubt; often commitment means acting despite your doubt.
(From Larry Anderson's One Sentence Journal June 17 entry.) (Larry's success is not only financial  it transcends to a long-term happy marriage and philanthropy.)
Think about it. You do not need your entire firm to agree with you and should not even ask for that. What you must demand, and accept nothing less than, is that your people commit to help you achieve your objectives even if they have doubts. At worst, someone who is not pivotal to the initiative may remain neutral and that means not sabotaging the effort in any way. But for that exception, those who offer passive or active interference must be confronted. If you don't have the support to pull that off, step aside. You are allowed to lobby for that support but it must be forthcoming or else your resignation should be tendered. This is not hypothetical - this is how the well-managed firms are run. Choose your initiatives carefully because you must succeed in attempting them. They don't all have to work but you have to be allowed to try them and give them the firm's best efforts. If not, call the election.
(Law 6)
(Â thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)
"Law Four" from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management
4)Create cult-like internal promotional communications
This is where your capable support professionals can shine. They can help you create imaginative ways to keep the initiative in front of your people. The internal trainer in a major firm showed me high gloss promotional announcements that were sent internally to remind audiences about various internal workshops. I asked about the "commercial nature" of the alerts and he responded that "I have to break through the noise" to get their attention. He's right, of course. It's like paying attention to your spouse. If you take your spouse for granted, you may not end up alone but you will not reap the rewards that would have been yours had you been more attentive.
Some firms use Monday Morning Memos to catalogue progress on the action checklist, person by person. Others celebrate to congratulate for achievements (compete with cake and silly hats  perhaps tee shirts adorned by appropriate slogans).
(Law 5)
(Â thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)
"Law Three" from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management
3)Paint "the first step" in vivid colours
"Take the first step, and your mind will mobilize all its forces to your aid. But the first essential is that you begin. Once the battle is started, all that is within and without you will come to your assistance." Robert Collier (1885-1950)
As leader, you are going to have to foster the taking of the first step by every individual whose participation is essential to your change initiative. This means that the first step must be crystal clear and painted by you in vivid colours so that no individual hesitates because of lack of clarity. The simplest way to do this is to facilitate a discussion that results in "to do" lists that include actual initial steps and time lines, and if necessary, methodologies. For example, the first step might be compiling a list of prospective clients in a particular industry that would have need of a particular service. The action may involve delegating internally (or even outside the firm) the task of creating the initial list and might include identifying precisely the parameters within the list, like numbers of employees, locations etc.
The punch line is to have a first step that is clear enough that you can ask if a specific thing has been done. For example, "is the initial list ready" is only a sensible question if it is clear that the first step was to create such a list and precisely what that list would be comprised of.
(Law 4)
(Â thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)
"Law Two" from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management
2)Create a vivid picture (vision) of where this initiative leads
It is tempting to be vague because then you are not committing to anything. Not committing avoids scrutiny and criticism. But without certainty, your troops cannot get excited about your change initiative.
Be specific: "If we dominate the provision of X legal services to the Y industry, we will not only increase our revenues in both the A and B practice groups by at least 25% in the next two years, but we can also expect increases in the C and D practice groups of at least 10% attributable to cross selling initiatives from the A and B practice groups". Obviously the particulars are customized to the situation but the point here is to be specific. While quantifiable measures are essential to your firm's success, qualitative ones may be equally motivating to your people. For example, many of your people will work hard for the prize of having more work of a preferred nature or to do more work for preferred clients.
You will rarely be exactly right when it comes to strategy and tactics  and that is OK. You will almost always do better or worse you're your forecast. Get comfortable with being wrong because that is what management is all about. If you meet your objectives all the time, you are way too conservative. You will learn from your performance and continually correct and fine-tune. This is not the practice of law  it is the management of the business. In a real estate transaction, we expect to get good title for the purchaser on closing. This is not a guess or a hope or speculation. It is precise and we had better get it right  it's what we're being paid for. But a percentage increase in revenues from a particular kind of work is a crap shoot. No matter how smart you are, there are some variables beyond your control and many that are beyond your capacity to predict accurately. Worse, even if serendipitously your strategy is perfect, your tactics may be quite imperfect, at least initially. Business winners constantly monitor outcomes and frequently change or at least fine-tune tactics in an effort to continuously improve results.
The punch line here is to create a vivid quantitative and qualitative description of a desirable outcome that everyone in your organization can relate to, knowing and accepting that it is not perfect.
(Law 3 - Link to Law #1 if you missed it)
(Â thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)
"Law One" from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management (with thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)
Managing Partners: Why is it that your intelligent (no, make that "super intelligent") lawyers seem to react to your change initiatives like you were asking them to drink a tankard of poison, even when they know full well that the brilliant changes you are proposing would be beneficial to them individually and collectively? When we get Managing Partners from various firms together, many of them want to commiserate with each other about the impossible task they have in managing the unmanageable - I suppose my Edge International co-founder Patrick McKenna, and I did not cure that perception when we named one of our books Herding Cats. Some Managing Partners with whom I have had the pleasure of working are exceptions to that rule and what follows is what I think I have learned from them over these many years.
Here are the seven immutable laws of creating change in your firm. I guarantee that if you respect these rules, you will get the cooperation you need to effect the changes that will catapult your firm forward.
1)As Managing Partner, propose imperfect change initiatives
YES, I said IMPERFECT and when you saw that word a feeling of anxiety overcame you and you were tempted to react as a lawyer and not as a change-agent for your firm. Let me be clear. As a lawyer, your job is to do "the right things, perfectly". That calls for unflawed effectiveness and efficiency. You probably hope your surgeon, if you ever need one, practices to the same standard. But face reality  as the manager of your firm, you do not have the luxury of doing only "the right things" because nobody, including you, knows what the "the right things" are except in hindsight  and hindsight is too late.
As a result, most good firms are paralyzed by the tedious, never-ending and totally ineffectual process of divining the perfect strategy accompanied by the perfect tactics. These firms are ships tied so firmly to the pier that no matter how well steered, they go absolutely nowhere. In fact, their biggest claim to fame is that they hit no icebergs  few ships do from the pier. Such firms may do "industry-average" well, but they are not going to consistently break out of the pack. Temporary successes come from individual initiatives that the firm is likely unaware of and therefore does not impede with excessive policies and standardization.
In strategy, you must make the best decisions you can with what you know and what you can speculate about. I am not against a little market research - in fact I advocate it but I am against the notion that you can know enough to comfortably make strategic decisions with the confidence that you are most certainly right.
Most good collegial firms make the mistake of trying to convince the whole firm (at least the partners) that a decision is "right" before proceeding. There is no collection of competent lawyers exceeding one in number that can or will agree to any single course of action mainly because their training is not to find the wisdom and potential in an idea but rather to reveal the concealed risks within it. No idea will ever be good enough so looking for unanimous approval is antithetical to creating change.
You as Managing Partner and your close team (executive committee, board if necessary) must make a decision. You must choose what you think your best option is from among the available alternatives.
The punch line here is "abandon perfection in favour of action". Force the decision-making process within a reasonable time frame and then get moving. Release your ship from the peer. This will give you immediate competitive advantage. It will also contribute to the esprit de corps of your firm and that will literally add fuel to your change initiative. If you are going in the wrong direction, you can alter your course.
Please note that this is your initiative as Managing Partner  not your approval of the initiative of a support professional (like the marketing director in your firm). You can work together with such support professional side by side, you can even give them most of the credit if the initiative is successful but it must be your initiative, at least in part, or you have no hope of succeeding.
(Law 2)
"...a bridge to full partnership..."
My friend and Edge International colleague, Ed Wesemann, shares survey results via an article in today's Law.Com Large Law Firm Section, called Most Tier Partners Still 'On Path' to Equity Status, Survey Finds
He surveyed 58 managing partners of firms of more than 100 lawyers and found, at the median, five reasons for making lawyers tier partners. Find those five reasons and much more in the article.
For the tier partner, the pay and prestige are good, the pressure to bring in new business is less and there's still the prospect of full partnership down the road. "If you're being parked, you ain't dead yet," says Wesemann. "Wonderful things can happen to you."Subscribe to Ed Wesemann's Blog, Creating Dominance
Here's a part of what New York and Toronto Law Firm "Torys" says about itself:
Torys LLP is an international business law firm with more than 330 New York and Toronto lawyers. Our strength lies in working with clients on mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and major litigation matters. In addition, the firm's expertise in a wide range of other practice areas enables us to focus on the needs of our business clients. Our New York and Toronto lawyers work together to offer a unique wealth of talent, experience and seamless cross-border service to clients on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border and around the world.
Visit Torys' Video Center and have a look at the three 3+ minute video casts.
PUNCHLINE: The subject matter is pretty esoteric - one question is whether anyone (besides me) watches these presentations. Of even greater interest is the fact that they are doing videocasting at all. Personally I can't resist the observation that whether anybody is watching or not, they at least look pretty savvy to their existing and prospective clients. Maybe your firm should consider following suit - you will still be early in the game.
CREDIT: See the Globe and Mail story "Torys tunes in to latest pop-tech craze" by BEPPI CROSARIOL from whom I learned about this.
When you fire a client, you might want to be a little more diplomatic than the title of this post (or the posture of the fellow above) implies  but, diplomatic or not, when it's the right thing to do, DO IT!
The primary purpose of marketing is to give you choices. Effective marketing allows you to improve your client mix and get rid of the ones who consume your life forces like voracious vampires  you know the ones, they don't pay (or pay VERY slowly), they argue, they test your ethics and they demoralize you and your best staff  and they don't wear watches, at least not when they call you at home at 11 o'clock at night.
Read Seth Godin's post "The Customer is Always Right" and simply substitute "client" for "customer" You owe it to yourself!
Xerox Chairman & CEO Anne M. Mulcahy
Patrick Lamb, in his Blog: "In Search of Perfect Client Service" delivers lessons learned from an interview with the Xerox CEO on NPR radio.
The essence of his entertaining and thought-provoking post refers us to phenomena rarely seen in law firms: "Listening and Discipline". Take a look (or follow Patrick's link and have a listen).
Freelance writer Sarah Doherty follows yesterday's article "Flexible work schedules save money, research shows" about which I posted: (You Can't Afford to Keep Losing Your Women Lawyers)with another offering: Room at the top - Big law firms are making an effort to promote women into more visible and prominent positions
Here's how the article begins:
"When Joan Clark applied to work at a venerable Montreal law firm, she was asked whether she was engaged to be married. Her hiring met resistance from lawyers who said clients would never accept a woman in the job. When she was eventually invited to her firm's formal partner's lunch at a tony private club, Clark, now 76, had to use a special entrance while her colleagues waltzed through the front door. "I eventually went through the front door, but I knew how black people felt when they had to sit at the back of the bus," Clark said. "We don't have that kind of discrimination now."
My Opinion: This article is a useful supplement to the previous one it is in some ways optimistic by citing some genuine progress for women lawyers but at the same time the article ends with a quote from Stephanie Jolin regarding litigation practices in particular that seems a wee bit pessimistic:
"Because of what the job demands, there will be a certain amount of limitation on how flexible you can be, especially in litigation," she said. "The job description is tough."
Read the full text and then tell me what is your take on the issue of big firms retaining women lawyers?
Catalyst studies show an associate's departure costs a [Canadian] firm about $315,000 in recruiting, training, salaries, overhead, severance, outplacement and other costs - not including hiring a replacement.The stress of juggling work and family usually falls more heavily on female lawyers...
So what can law firms do to be more flexible in the face of the notoriously heavy demands of a client-driven and increasingly business-like profession?
Kirby Chown hopes she can find solutions. The 59-year-old is managing partner for Ontario of McCarthy Tetrault, one of Canada's largest law firms.
Two years ago, Chown started a women's network in her firm's Toronto office to create a stronger community of women and brainstorm around issues such as mentoring and business networking, which help lawyers move up the ladder. Last year, she helped create a firm-wide women's committee.
"Very few women are taking advantage of flex-time arrangements," Chown admitted. "There are concerns about being stigmatized." No men have requested the option, according to Chown.
My Opinion: I grow weary of the stereotypical myth-riddled responses of the power people in many major law firms giving excuse after excuse as to why keeping women engaged is next to impossible. I do not believe it and neither should you. This challenge will be met by some firms who will gain enormous competitive advantage. They will lower their costs and see much higher productivity.
Tom Peters (most famous business writer of all time) three days ago refers to the Economist in his blog post called Women's World! The Economist article to which he refers has the following headline: "Forget China, India and the Internet: Economic Growth Is Driven by Women." Tie these two together and put this on the agenda of your next executive meeting. (Maybe you should consider inviting Kirby Chown for a visit.)
Note: According to the "Mission and History" entry on its web site, Catalyst is the leading research and advisory organization working with businesses and the professions to build inclusive environments and expand opportunities for women at work.
See this information and more in today's article in the Gazette (Montreal) called: Flexible work schedules save money, research shows
Can you define and differentiate among these terms:
Intellectual Capital?
Human Capital
?
Relationship Capital?Reputational Capital?
Economic Capital?
Structural Capital
The immediate reaction may be "those things are too subjective to be valued" or "even if they could be valued, that value would be diminimous." But anyone who has been involved in evaluations and appraisals knows that a value can be assigned to anything and usually with surprising accuracy. Consider the value of each area of capital independently...For the answers, please read today's post by my friend and EDGE INTERNATIONAL Colleague, Ed Wesemann, on his CREATING DOMINANCE blog: The Value of Partnership: Making the Hole Smaller
WARNING: Watch out for a golf analogy or two - Ed lives with his wonderful wife Jan on a golf course in Savannah, Georgia  apparently the holes on that course are alive and can behave like camera apertures.
My post earlier today, The Wall Street Journal Blasts Law Firm Salaries Arms Race plus the comments of Larry E. Ribstein in his Ideoblog post Why are law firm associates paid so much? seem to have inspired a nice piece of analysis by Bruce MacEwen in his resulting post, Associate Salaries: The Great Debate.
Bruce refers to Cameron Stracher's analysis in his article in today's Wall Street Journal as "economically flawed" and goes on to say that "he misses the fundamental economic rationale" that Larry identifies. Bruce feels compelled to "correct" Stracher's comment about the profitability of an associate at the new starting salary.
Wait no longer - enjoy Bruce's post  let the discussion continue  this is getting interesting!!
Referencing the announcement that Sullivan & Cromwell will raise starting salaries for newly minted attorneys by $20,000, to $145,000 (plus bonus), Wall Street Journal writer Cameron Stracher writes a provocative article called Cut My Salary, Please! (on line subscription required).
Cameron Stracher, author of "Double Billing: A Young Lawyer's Tale of Greed, Sex, Lies, and the Pursuit of a Swivel Chair" (William Morrow, 1998), says "Corporate law firms are, essentially, giant pyramid schemes "
"Corporate law firms are, essentially, giant pyramid schemesÂ
"
He goes on to say:
But what makes economic sense to the firms makes less sense for young lawyers. For one thing, each salary increase has been accompanied with a corresponding increase in billable minimums. When I started practicing, lawyers were expected to bill around 1,800 hours a year. These days, it's about 2,200. Those 400 extra billable hours translate to about 600 more hours at work, or approximately two to three more hours in the office each day. Even at 1,800 hours I worked until nine at night, and most weekends. At 2,200 hours, a lawyer might as well move a cot into his office.
Before concluding he suggests that:
Tomorrow, law firms should cut starting salaries by 50%
You'll have to read the full article to analyze his reasoning.
My Opinion: During the dot com boom I recall participating in a round table in San Francisco where we discussed the then ridiculous increases in associate salaries. I understand the free market mechanisms that drive firms to compete for talent. I said then and I will say it again that salaries alone do not buy you motivation, commitment, drive and the desired peak performance. They buy you compliance with extremely high billable hour targets. I believe the long term winners have to be competitive in their salaries but also must learn how to enhance the satisfaction of both lawyers and the clients they serve.
There are many voices on the subject of the management of law firms but very few have Patrick Lamb's depth of experience and accomplishment. Patrick continues to practice in a complex and specialized area of the law attracting and maintaining clients at the high end of the curve. I think his own track record entitles him to greater credibility than those offered by pure theoreticians.
In his post, Are There Definite Rights And Wrongs For Client Satisfaction Surveys?, Patrick explores the evolution of the discussion on this topic including some of my own contributions. I liked the way Patrick summed up his thoughts:
A lawyer or law firm gains from every face to face meeting with the client, and those meetings should be as frequent as possible. Most of those meetings should be directed to providing service or exploring needs that the client has. The client satisfaction meeting, however, is critical and must be treated as distinct, both in form and in substance. It is a chance for the spotlight to be shifted from the client to the firm, and for the client to provide insights that the firm should desperately want to hear about how it can render service in a way that makes the client happier, more satisfied and more committed to the firm. This keeps the client satisfaction meetings separate in the critical spot they deserve.
PUNCHLINE: Follow Patrick's sage advice - the most important part is getting out there and "doing it"!
Bruce Allen adds some essential thoughts about mentoring in his recent post, Mentoring Works.... In its Own Way
His first bullet point is:
The mentoring relationship IS a relationship. It requires a chemistry between two individuals not found in a spread sheet or personality profile. Not every senior attorney in your firm will be selected as one, and not every person that needs one can find it within your firm.
See the remaining four bullet points at his blog.
By the way, do you believe that Bruce is a grandfather? He provides evidence - see "Future Blogger" by scrolling down at his site.
According to a story in the Toledo Blade today, Fuller & Henry, founded in 1892, "has all but disappeared Its sign is gone from the door". The article goes on to say: "At one time, the business occupied two floors of the city's most prominent downtown office building but lately had just part of a floor. By the late 1990s, it had closed its Port Clinton office; several years ago, it shut its Findlay office, and a year ago, it left its Columbus office."
But here's the clincher:
Observers at other law firms say the defections and downsizings resulted from partnership disagreements over compensation and management.
FastForward: Most lawyers will share a sense of sadness at the events that have befallen Fuller & Henry but few will realize just how perilously close their own firm may be to a similar fate. As times become more competitive, the forces that could cause a stampede of exiting lawyers are not so remote. In my opinion, complacency is often the worst enemy. You might want to discuss this at your next executive committee meeting.
Just 30.7% of clients recommend their primary law firm
Low satisfaction drives client spending to new law firms
BOSTON, March 2 /PRNewswire/ -- The BTI Consulting Group's fifth annual survey of corporate counsel reveals an unprecedented drop in client satisfaction with law firms. Just 30.7% of large and Fortune 1000 companies recommend their primary law firms. These deep dips in client satisfaction, reports BTI, promise to drive dollars into the hands a new set of law firms, unsettling the status quo.
"Large clients are making broad-sweeping changes in how they hire and work with their law firms," comments Michael B. Rynowecer, BTI's President, "These changes will translate into opportunity for a select group of well-positioned law firms."
BTI's study analyzes how law firms can position themselves to benefit from these critical changes in a brand new report, How Clients Hire, Fire and Spend: Landing the World's Best Clients. BTI found an astonishing 53.7% of clients ousted their primary law firms in the past 18 months. More than 50% of clients also reported they plan to try at least one new law firm for substantive matters in 2006.
BTI conducted more than 200 independent, individual interviews with corporate counsel at Fortune 1000 companies and large organizations each year for the past five years. Find information on BTI's How Clients Hire, Fire and Spend: Landing the World's Best Clients and other compelling research in the legal services industry on BTI's website at http://www.bticonsulting.com or contact BTI at (617) 439-0333. BTI is the leader in providing high-impact market and client research to law firms and General Counsel.
For details, contact:
Michael B. Rynowecer
Phone (617) 439-0333
mrynowecer@bticonsulting.com
FASTFORWARD: Rynowecer's work has been extremely helpful to strategists within major firms. The trend he sites is alarming. I like his optimism that it means opportunities for many firms but it is a scathing condemnation of many established firms who are failing to Bullet Proof their Crown Jewel Clients. Could this in part be due to an ever increasing sophistication of demanding clients? Perhaps... but you know where the onus is. In my view, this should be a topic for discussion at your very next executive committee meeting followed by an action plan  it is only the firms who actually do something who will benefit from this crisis of confidence.
(This graphic has little to do with my post but is as tasteless as anything I could find.)
Imagine the Human Resources Manager of Cameron McKenna (London-based global firm) revealing this publicly about a member of its staff (albeit internally and only to trainees). To be clear, the email included the employee's real name.
Recently, we have experienced a drop in her performance and whilst support and coaching has been given, [she] decided to resign yesterday.
FASTFORWARD: Is it just me or should a HR professional know better. If that is true, perhaps retaining an outplacement consultant would be the firm's best next move. What action would you take against that HR Manager?
This may not be quite as bad as my earlier post It's their funeral...  which garnered several reader comments  but it is still disgusting.
See original story, complete with original emails, at Roll On Friday
The introduction of Female Mentoring at Freshfields (London-based global firm) is to be congratulated and condemned at the same time - perhaps King Solomom would have a different take on this but here is mine.
I applaud:
- the motives (diversity - attracting and keeping more women in a firm that lacks the degree of gender balance that it desires)
- instituting a mentoring program
I am concerned with:
- the sexist notion that only women can mentor women
- the exclusion of men from the program - many men desperately need mentoring also and can offer it as well. In fact, in firms where I am asked to offer special sessions dealing with special challenges faced by women in dealing with clients, I insist on participation by at least some of the firm's men. This is not token. They offer invaluable insights.
FASTFORWARD: If you do not have a mentoring program, you should consider starting one. The benefits are too abundant to list here, not the least of which is better performance and lower turnover both leading to greater profitability.
See the original post at Roll on Friday.
Richard Susskind opines on the future of law books.
In his article: It's a book, but not as we know it, reader Richard explores whether (or when) we will give up law books in favor of devices like the Sonyïœź Reader.
PUNCHLINE: Susskind is probably right - it is not whether; it's when will law books go electronic. Perhaps a more important question is what other uses will become common place for such a reader - perhaps clients will review draft agreements on such devices soon, or even reports on transactions. Imagine a law firm that gave the "reader" to clients and then sent documents (like agreements or opinions) electronically, ready to read with the quality of paper? Would such a practice create a competitive advantage?
Seth Godin provokes our thoughts with a very quick intellectual journey through service to expectations. In his post, What customer surveys measure, he teaches us not that serving and satisfying is impossible but that it is possible to do the former extremely well without doing the latter.
TRANSLATION FOR LAWYERS: Excellent legal work is not enough. Excellent work plus managing expectations plus exceeding those expectations is indeed enough. Is your firm doing enough? Are your individual lawyers and client teams doing enough?
(Click on photo for bio.)
Bruce adds this terrific article to The Marcus Letter:
ALL TOGETHER NOW - IT'S OUR CLIENT
The Client Service Team As A Growing Phenomenon
The article features Iris Jones who breathed life into this concept at Akin Gump. Bruce speaks very highly of her and her achievements - click on photo for bio. Bruce does a nice job of describing the elements that had to be in place at Akin Gump to support their client team initiative.
Visit Bruce's newsletter regularly. Just click on The Marcus Letter logo below.
RollOnFriday is making fun of London based law firm CMS Cameron McKenna but do they deserve it - you be the judge.
CMS Cameron McKenna is no slouch. According to their web site, they:
* are the primary counsel to 20 of the FTSE 350
* acted for 107 of the FTSE 350 in 2004-5
* have over 55 offices and associated offices worldwide
* have over 130 partners and more than 700 other fee-earners
* employ 59% female staff
* are a founding member of CMS - the alliance of independent European law firms
So what does RollOnFriday find so amusing?
It seems that the CMS Cameron McKenna recruiting web site has a prominent flash animation banner that focuses on relationships. What kind of relationships? Ummm you decide. Just click the green banner at the top of this page and watch the animated version for a few minutes - then you tell me exactly how you interpret the information they are presenting to thier recruits.
PUNCHLINE: Those who conceived this idea (no pun intended) likely had the best of intentions hoping to demonstrate that if you join CMS Cameron McKenna you will not be operating in isolation. Somehow, I think the execution may have distorted the orginal vision. What do you think?
My colleague Ed Wesemann has a very interesting piece on using retooling as an option to terminating the underproductive partner. He notes that the termination option is often used because: "they simply don't have the confidence that any other option will work".
In this post, Ed covers:
Selecting Partners for Retooling
The Retooling Process (Five Steps)
Making Retooling Successful
I am generally critical about how law firms are managed, although always out of a sense of affection and respect for my profession. Even I was shocked by what I read about the management in Dorsey & Whitney's London office:
But old-fashioned bad management is apparently playing its part too: one partner issued an email after the London bombings explaining that he had billed 7.5 hours on that day and expected his team to do the same. Apparently, he also refused to allow anyone from his team to attend the funeral of a partner who died shortly after leaving the firm.
This is actually excerpted from a news story on the rollonfriday.com site (which is supported by advertising from major London law firms).
On Dorsey & Whitney's web site, the firm proclaims of its own management that:
Our management team is comprised of experienced law firm professionals, dedicated to creating an environment in which our attorneys can put clients first.
Reconcile that with this excerpt from the same story which says:
 at least eight associates have resigned.
There may be hope! In the recruitment section of their web site, under the heading "Firm Structure/Management" appears the following Q&A:
Are non-partner attorneys involved in firm management and governance?The Council is a representative body that serves to strengthen the voice of Dorsey's non-partner attorneys. The Council welcomes feedback with respect to concerns, issues and ideas from all non-partner attorneys. The Chair of The Council regularly reports to firm management.
PUNCHLINE: While the behaviour alluded to here is about as bad as I have seen, I promise you that Dorsey & Whitney is not alone in having socially dysfunctional, destructive lawyers in their midst. Do not imagine for a second that this kind of negative influence comes without expense. What does it cost to recruit eight associates? I'll bet no firm would dare subtract that number from the billing revenue of some maniac in order to determine compensation.
One Managing Partner confided in me that the greatest contribution he has made in his tenure as leader of his highly profitable international firm is the firing of 60 partners, including some that so demoralized others that their impressive billings just "were not worth the pain and suffering they caused, emotionally or in extra expense".
MY WIFE'S WISDOM: Sometimes my wife Bethany really nails the point - her reaction was: Dysfunctional people with power are going to have to realize that their behaviour simply is not anonymous anymore.
The legal profession is extremely fragmanted. There is no IBM, Ford or even Price Waterhouse Coopers in the legal profession - the mega law firms are tiny. I believe that explains why there has been so little R&D and innovation in the profession. That may be changing.
According to Bruce Macewen's Adam Smith Esq. post titled: "Of Counsel"? "Non-Equity Partner?" Column C?, Allen & Overy has taken a step that may make them unique, at least temporarily, by creating a new category of lawyer called "Managing Associates".
"Managing associates will have increased responsibilities and some access to partnership information and will be viewed as likely partnership material."
Many large firms have created a category of associates who are on track for partnership but I have not heard of anyone using the title: "Managing Associates".
Maybe the Allen & Overy's of this world and their mega counterparts are beginning to be a size where they will begin to modify the profession, hopefully for the better. I will be watching (both while on assignment with large firms and through the blogosphere).
Stephanie West Allen
After seeing my post called "Fun in a law firm? You bet!", Stephanie West Allen has authorized me to share with you a glorious little piece of work she did in 1997 called DON'T DECK THE CLOWNæ NVITING HUMOR INTO THE LAW FIRM
Have a look - Download file - there may be some folks on your management team with whom you should share this.
Thank you Stephanie West Allen.
Peter Cornell, Managing Partner, Clifford Chance
I admire 53 year old outgoing Clifford Chance Managing Partner Peter Cornell for his integrity and self awareness in saying that "his skills as a lawyer were too rusty for him to return to practice" according to an article in today's New York Law Journal by Anthony Lin titled: Clifford Chance Managing Partner Stepping Down
I am not worried about Peter Cornell who is likely in sufficient demand to have his choice of lucrative careers after he steps down as MP. The importance of this story is not about Peter Cornell or Clifford Chance. My point pertains to the many managing partners in much smaller firms who risk their futures for their firms every day. Many have no built in compensation safeguard to allow them to gravitate back to practice after retiring from their Managing Partner role. There is a serious period of adjustment to attract work and to ensure that work is of the highest quality.
The worst part for many firms is that their Managing Partners are well aware of this vulnerability and therefore refuse to dramatically diminish their law practices and therefore do not spend serious time and effort on management. I have worked with a number of firms where the managing partner is too busy to manage but won't (or can't) delegate much to others. These firms pay the biggest price of all because the meander through the years virtually unmanaged.
It is time for all law firms of more than a handful of lawyers to realize that there is a return on the investment of management and a competitive disadvantage for ignoring that fact. They must create safety valves for Managing Partners who can then lend themselves to the management of the firm with enthusiasm rather than dabble in it while carrying a heavy caseload.
Managing Partners  start thinking of ways to harness this little philosophical gem in your firm:
Fun is not a distraction from work or a drain on our revenue; it is the very source of both our inspiration and our value. A genuine sense of play ignites our creativity, eases communication, promotes goodwill and engenders loyalty, yet we tend to shun it as detrimental to the seriousness with which we think we need to approach our businesses and careers.
Extracted from a wonderful recent post in influxinsights - I encourage you to read it in its entirety.
Thank you Tom Peters for this tidbit from a post called "Stuff ":
ALL THERE IS. Damn it! I keep forgetting this! Leaving it out of presentations! Namely, a PP slide that simply reads : You = Your Calendar. THIS IS MY #1 BELIEF ABOUT MANAGEMENT. Or: "You can't bullshit your calendar." Or: "Your calendar knows ... do you?" All we have is our time. The way we distribute it is our "strategic plan," our "vision," our "values." Period. So how'd you spend your precious time today? Tell me, and I'll tell you what you actually care aboutÂit's simple and unerring.
FASTFORWARD: I have an expression I use when talking for senior power partners in client firms: "Your behaviour is so loud, I can't hear what you're saying". This is usually in the context of seniors lecturing juniors about perfection but the juniors have their eyes fixed firmly not on what the seniors are "saying" but what they are "doing" Tom Peters has this so right  a reminder to every single one of us to make sure that our 2006 calendars consist of the behaviours that are in harmony with what we aspire to (otherwise we are engaging is self deception). Thanks for the reminder, Tom
You will see the story gets all excited about Benjamin R. Civiletti, now chairman of the Venable law firm, for reaching the lofty threshhold of a $1,000 per hour hourly billing rate. If that $1,000 rate for Mr. Civiletti is serving a well conceived strategy to differentiate by being obnoxiously expensive, I fully respect that. If not, publishing high hourly rates clearly causes more harm than good. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Civiletti appears to be an extraordinary lawyer (reference his bio)
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is ignored until the the very last paragraph of a story from Bloomberg News today that appears in the Vancouver Sun in Vancouver Canada of all places, titled "U.S. lawyer charging $1,000 an hour".
$3.5 Million per partner for Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz demonstrates just how ludicrous it is to look at hourly rates as a measure of profitability.
Hourly rates do not tell the client (or the law firm) what the matter is going to cost.
When I began the practice of law in 1973, my 100 year old firm's managing partner had a terrific formula for determining an hourly rate: "tell me how much the lawyer billed and the number of hours recorded last year and I'll tell you that lawyer's hourly rate." Today we would define that as the effective rate, of course.
So what is a Wachtell partner's effective hourly rate? You guess the average number of hours worked by Wachtell partners and I will tell you the rate. Notice, I didn't even say recorded, I said worked.
If you speculate that Wachtell partners are maniacs who work an average of 3,000 hours a year they still beat the highest published hourly rate in the USA. What if they actually work a civilized 2000 hours? That would make their realized rate (not billing rate) $1,750 per hour. That includes their weakest and laziest (or distracted) performers.
Don't go arguing that Wachtell's profits are the result of leverage - their web site confirms (look in "the firm"):
We operate with a ratio of partners to associates of one to one, and matters undertaken by this firm are afforded the direct personal attention of partners having expertise and sophistication with respect to the issues.
Conclusion #1: Hourly rates are a stupid way to price work for clients in the first place and an even dumber way to compare lawyers. The really smart ones have figured this out and are profiting hugely by their discovery.
Conclusion #2: Don't be impressed by hourly rates alone - they are only part of the story  the obnoxious part (at least from the client's perspective).
Mandi Fleiser
If esprit de corps in your office is so fantastic that you are looking for ways to suppress it, then skip this post. However if you want to see a brilliant, simple and time efficient way of enhancing it, then treat this as a mini case study. (Esprit de corps is "a feeling of pride, fellowship, and common loyalty...")
Mandi Fleiser is a partner in Grant Thornton's Johannesburg office  she transformed an abstract thought into action she breathed life into her idea.
The Misty Hills Country Hotel outside of Johannesburg
During a recent retreat that my Edge International partner, Robert Millard, and I facilitated for her partnership at The Misty Hills Country Hotel outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, as part of a more comprehensive strategy process, we encouraged participants to describe specific actions that might move the firm closer to its objectives.
Grant Thornton is in great demand but with everyone working so hard, predictable challenges arise. This is further exacerbated by greater regulation and more rigorous processes in the accounting profession. The bottom line is a palpable strain on the firm's most precious resource, its people.
Partner Mandi Fleiser suggested that all the firm's personnel needed an upbeat frequent reminder of what they could be "proud of" and "pleased about" and she conceived Mandi's Monday Memo, the first installment of which I am honoured to replicate here (with permission).
I know the print will be too small for you to read it and I have x'd out sensitive information but you get the idea. I have extracted her chosen Zig Ziglar quote:
"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing-that's why we recommend it daily." Zig Ziglar American Sales Trainer, Author, Motivational Speaker
Mandi's headings include Marvelous Moments (firm accomplishments including jobs well done and clients attracted) What I love about GT (excerpts from a five minute exercise at the retreat when we asked partners to write on a slip of paper and submit what they loved best about the firm) and Quote of the Week (this week's highlighted above).
FASTFORWARD: THANK YOU Mandi for the inspiration to partners in all professional firms. Here is what every partner can emulate: Mandy:
a) conceived the idea,
b) converted the idea on her own initiative,
c) did not delegate it but rather preserved the gravitas that comes from a partner doing this herself.
This post was published with Grant Thornton's permission.
Seth Godin, puts his Stanford MBA to good use as he illustrates that this "Local Max" is probably where your law firm is right now. The pain that you would sustain at points B and C leads to the "Big Max" (below).
If we extrapolate from Seth's comments combined with my observations of our profession, almost no law firm is willing to pay the price to get to the "Big Max".
When I asked Seth Godin for his thoughts on how his analysis applies to professional service firms, and law firms in particular, he said:
I'd argue that superstar lawyers are the ones that did something that got them in a lot of trouble with their partners
Don't read that too negatively  let's remember just how risk averse law firms tend to be  therefore innovation comes at the price of making a firm a bit uncomfortable (maybe very uncomfortable).
Two questions:
1) Do you think Seth's analysis is indeed applicable to law firms?
2) When you contemplate your firm's future, what would it really take to get the partners to agree to endure B and C?
[Seth's quote posted with permission] Read Seth's complete post.
Addendum: Thank you to Michelle Golden for comment below
Peter Drucker in his passing is all over the internet as people pay tribute to someone who did what the rest of us aspire to: make a difference.
Tom Peters's perspective on Peter Drucker is especially meaningful to me because of my regard for him and his work (yes, he also is making a difference).
FASTFORWARD: If you manage a law firm and you don't know the name Drucker, it's not too late to read but if you don't have the "catch-up time", pay very close attention to Tom Peters because he is translating the principles he has learned from the resources he referenced (and adding his own force of intellect) into imaginative recipes for action for today's executives.
Darrell Kelley is a powerhouse and I wish him the very best at Holland & Knight. For the full story see: New COO named at one of Florida's largest law firms
My question is not "can Darrell Kelley manage" it is "will Holland & Knight let him".
This is in no way personal to H & K; my question is based on what I have observed globally from ex-airline presidents to former McKinsey partners to ex-presidents of large engineering firms  appointed to manage law firms  one year in a law firm and they are pulling their hair out one strand at a time.
Stay tuned!
For you David Maister fans, and I will include myself in that category, David has given his site a lift complete with welcoming video. You can also sign up for a notification of his articles as he publishes them. There is a wealth of knowledge and materials there. Check it out!
After finishing a full day workshop yesterday with some major law firms, accounting firms and some other professional service firms at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) of the University or Pretoria (Johannesburg, South Africa Campus), I was reminded yet again that professionals face the same fundamental challenges regardless of geographical location. The skills involved in courting prospective clients were not part of the educational package of any of the professionals in the room but there was a universal eagerness to learn and hone those skills. Thank you to all those who attended and to GIBS for allowing me to participate as a Visiting Professor.
Also, congratulations to GIBS for moving to 36th in the world for Executive Education in the UK Financial Times Executive Education survey this year.
Adam Lewis, a Director and the Managing Partner of the Australian and New Zealand practices of McKinsey & Company, was one of my co-presenters at the World Masters of Law Firm Management last week, in Sydney.
Adam told us a number of fascinating things about McKinsey, one of the premium consultancies in the world. Among them were two gems:
1) McKinsey & Company has no internal marketing department. (Why not? Because the consultants themselves market the firm.)
2) 2/4/8. Every Director in the firm is required to be working on "2" assignments, be in the process of proposing for "4" more, and in communication with "8" more prospective clients.
Management within McKinsey follows up to ensure that "2/4/8" is a reality.
Some superb marketing professionals in some extraordinary law and accounting firms confided in me that if their fairy godmother granted one wish it would be that their "professionals" would interact with clients beyond just doing the work.
It sounds like McKinsey's "2/4/8" means that the fairy godmother has already visited McKinsey & Company.
The techniques managers use to get through a tough agenda in a business context are completely useless in a deposition. To survive the deposition, managers are trained to avoid the tactics they would have used in a business situation. Those who lead law firms are often experiencing more of a deposition environment than a business environment. Perhaps this is why some lawyers want their firms to be more "corporate".
This insight arises from the analysis of Wall Street Journal writer, George Anders, in his July 26 article called Depositions Require A Skill Set Leaders Don't Use on the Job (subscription required) in the July 26 WSJ (page A17 if you haven't thrown out your hard copy yet). Anders nicely illuminates the contrast between the very different business and deposition contexts.
FASTFORWARD: Those who live in law firms know what I mean when I say that the law firm environment resembles a deposition more than it does a corporation. A partnership meeting can be as grueling as a deposition. Support professionals (like marketing directors) often feel devoured by the environment. I believe that the lawyers training, especially litigators, fosters the propensity to lawyer their way through meetings making the leader's job next to impossible.
Lawyers must be highly critical and analytical when creating or improving documents or winding their way through the strategy of litigation. These are essential behaviors for lawyering but lousy for managing or being managed. Therefore, unless attorneys become aware of their propensities, they will bring this mode of behavior into all they do, including how they react to management, whether firm-wide or at the practice-group, industry-group or client-team level. Support professionals like Chief Marketing Officers walk away from encounters bewildered and frustrated by these strange (to them) lawyering behaviors that people outside the profession rarely exhibit (especially in corporate settings).
PUNCHLINE: Leadership requires "followership" which means that the more an internal meeting resembles a deposition ("examination for discovery" in many jurisdictions) the less productive the business meeting will be.
GOODNEWS: I have found that lawyers who are briefed about these anti-business behavioral propensities can easily transcend them. Once they are aware of them, groups self-police those who mistake the management meeting for a deposition; the noticeable increase in progress achieved is the immediate and reinforcing reward.
In a recent Edge International Survey on Strategic Planning, we learned the following:
10% of firms have a strategy to remain flexible and opportunistic ("OK!")
13% of firms are in the process of preparing a strategic plan ("We believe you!")
15% of firms have a strategic plan but have not committed it to writing ("Oh my!")
60% of firms have a formal, written strategic plan ("Congrats  if all your people know what it says")
2% Other responses
If you ask most lawyers where their next matter will come from, they will say something like "it depends ". If asked: "depends on what?" the response is typically "depends on who calls or writes or faxes or emails next". Great plan. You just sit there like a grain of sand on the beach and your next work opportunity depends on the the nature of the next wave that rolls in.
Planning is about making choices about what you prefer to do. You earn the right to do those things by providing more valuable legal work that the right prospective clients can appreciate.
PunchLine: If you don't have a written plan, you don't have a plan. If you don't have a plan, then you are a ship without a course and guess what happens to ships without a destination.
Is Diversity on your management agenda? Has it ever been?
This is a serious wake up call to every single member of your law firm's management team.
Diversity is not some do-good-philanthropic-topic for a tea party of the rich and bored. Diversity is serious business: serious to business; serious for business not to mention that it is the right thing to do.
In her Law.com article today, Wal-Mart Demands Diversity in Law Firms, Meredith Hobbs explores the demands that General Counsel in major corporations are placing at the doorstep of law firms.
The General Counsel referenced in the article are in the following companies:
Wal-Mart
Visa International
Del Monte
Pitney Bowes
Cox Communications
The article goes on to say:
So far, close to 100 general counsel have signed on, including those from some of the nation's biggest companies.
If you think you can get by this issue with tokenism, you need to understand what is being demanded of you. For example, the article includes these quotes:
The nation's biggest retailer wants to see diversity at the top.
The goal is to "increase the number of women and minorities directly responsible for [our] relationship at our law firms."
"We are terminating a firm right now strictly because of their inability to grasp our diversity expectations,"
In her Separate but Equal article in Marketing the Law Firm, a Law Jounal Newsletters publication, Elizabeth Anne 'Betiayn' Tursi offers this advice:
The idea that law firm leaders need not be at the helm of these initiatives can only mean that it will be doomed to fail. The chair or managing partner of a firm must be a proponent of the causes and must be involved in every aspect of promoting the initiatives. In the case of creating this particular blueprint, management serves as the "project leader" or lead architect. Leadership can set the tone for the institution of these initiatives and is in the enviable position of selecting others in the firm who can also promote and develop the actual initiatives. And yes, there should be a chair for each initiative  diversity, pro bono, recruiting and marketing  who meet once a month, with the directors of these initiatives to ensure that they are working together to develop the blueprint, and also to make certain that these individuals are in a positions that enable them to have a voice in implementing the programs to achieve the intended result.
Notes:
1) The title of this blog is based upon this quote from the Law.com article:
It is no longer enough, the general counsel at the symposium said, to raise the numbers of women and minority lawyers in a firm's lower ranks if its upper echelons remain an exclusive club for white men.
2) Photo Caption (Thank you Purdue)
A Purdue sociology professor explores racial and ethnic relations in his book "Diversity and Unity." Martin Patchen says inequalities among ethnic groups often lead to prejudice, segregation and discrimination. (Purdue News Service photo illustration by Vince Walter)
Color photo, electronic transmission, and Web and ftp download available. Photo ID: Patchen.diversity
Download Photo Here
The Winter 2005 edition of our quarterly magazine, Edge International Review, is now available for downloading as a PDF.
This is a full color 40 page magazine so may takle a few minutes to download. (Some browsers will display the magazine without downloading it.)
Senior management team members in law firms may request a complimentary subscription to the hard copy version by sending me an email.
According to this article, Wilmer Cutler law firm joins race for valley tech business, the answer is YES.
William Cutler snagged Curtis Mo from Weil Gotshal & Manges to be in charge of the Palo Alto office. According to the article, William Cutler boasts clients like:
Intel Corp.
Cisco Systems Inc. and
Oracle Corp.
William Cutler will have some pretty decent law firm company in the neighborhood:
Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP of Pittsburgh
Foley & Lardner LLP of Milwaukee
Greenberg Traurig LLP of Miami and
Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker LLP of Los Angeles
The article reports that these firms were motivated to come to the valley by an increase in intellectual property and other technology-related work.
Punchline: Silicon Valley is back for the serious players.
For law firm managing partners, executive committee members, marketing partners, practice group leaders, industry group leaders, chief marketing officers, chief technology officers, executive directors and other folks involved in the management of your law firm, there is a gentleman who holds an MBA from Stanford, and who was called "the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age" by Business Week.
Seth Godin is a New York Times best selling author. You really ought to read his books and subscribe to his blog.
In the meantime, he published a gem today a catalyst for thought. He makes a point from which there is no escape. Only the gifted self-deceivers will be able to convince themselves that his post does not apply to them. We are famous within law firms for discounting ideas that do not originate in million-dollar-per-partner-profit firms. Maybe if we spent a little more time listening to the fresh ideas from people like Seth and thinking about how to apply what he says, our per-partner profits would soar.
You know what, I will not quote from his blog  it's short enough already  please read it all "The Mediocre Emergency" Thank you, Seth.
Bruce does not pose this as a test, but I believe you can use his post that way at least in the privacy of your own mind.
Every marketing professional can sing the same lament about trying to get a decision made in a law firm. Even brilliant suggestions are met with resistance that is so elegant that you have to almost admire it.
Thanks to The Economist, I think I may have an insight to offerÂ
no offence, it's because we lawyers behave like monkeys - well, at least, in one particular way we do. We are so afraid of being wrong, we'll act irrationally to avoid it.
The article is Monkey business-sense with the tag line Monkeys show the same "irrational" aversion to risks as humans.
In case you are too busy to read it, I will quote the last paragraph for you:
What that explanation is has yet to be worked out. One possibility is that in nature, with a food supply that is often barely adequate, losses that lead to the pangs of hunger are felt more keenly than gains that lead to the comfort of satiety. Agriculture has changed that calculus, but people still have the attitudes of the hunter-gatherer wired into them. Economists take note.
FAST FORWARD: I have been working with people inside law firms for years to help them achieve greater influence. This is evidence that the key is to take risk out of the decision in whatever way possible. I will write more about this in the future and will happily entertain either questions or your anecdotes and suggestions.
Commitment does not require the absence of doubt; often commitment means acting despite your doubt.
From Larry Anderson's One Sentence Journal June 17 entry.
FAST FORWARD: I believe this insight can be extremely powerful in managing law firms, or any professional service firms for that matter. Bright people are constantly analyzing because that is what they do to perform their work. As a result, they always see "the other side". No firm initiative can be free from second guessing. Therefore when we ask for a commitment, we either get a feint-hearted one or some level of resistance (from individuals who believe the initiative is flawed.)
I believe Larry's sentence is the mantra for amazing firms because there, the troops understand that leadership requires their commitment notwithstanding doubt. For many firms this is a shift in mindset from , "I'll do it only if I personally have a profound belief in the initiative," to "I will trust my leaders enough to follow through on committments even if they might be flawed.
PUNCHLINE: This doesn't mean that we can't strenuously argue with leaders as plans are formulated  it means, once the decision is made by a properly constituted leadership team, we will follow through notwithstanding our doubt.
See the Links heading at Larry Anderson's One Sentence Journal site for his new RSS feeds.
Just have a look at Seth's post today: "Thirty seconds"
PR Newsire (United Business Media) announced the top 20 Corporate Law Firms in America ranked by Directors and General Counsel:
The top 20 national corporate law firms for 2005, according to the directors surveyed by Corporate Board Member (with their 2004 ranking in parentheses), are:
1. Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, New York (1)
2. Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, New York (3)
3. Cravath Swaine & Moore, New York (2)
4. Sullivan & Cromwell, New York (4)
5. Jones Day, Cleveland (7)
6. Davis Polk & Wardwell, New York (5)
7. Baker & McKenzie, Chicago (6)
8. Kirkland & Ellis, Chicago (11)
9. Latham & Watkins, Los Angeles (10)
10. Shearman & Sterling, New York (13)
11. Weil Gotshal & Manges, New York (9)
12. Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Los Angeles (8)
13. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Palo Alto (18)
14. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Dallas (16)
15. Fulbright & Jaworski, Houston (12)
16. O'Melveny & Myers, Los Angeles (15)
17. Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, New York (-)
18. Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, Washington D.C. (-)
19. Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, Chicago (20)
20. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, New York (17)
Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom topped the list for five straight years according to Corporate Board Member Magazine.
This isn't entirely a joke. Some Managing Partners may think their appointment was divinely inspired but almost all report that their partners neither show an appropriate level of respect nor comply with many of their requests.
Well Managing Partners, you may not be alone. According to his religion, the election of the late Pope was divinely inspired. Notwithstanding that, according to a BBC account, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, the personal secretary of the late Pope John Paul II, says he has not burned the former pontiff's personal papers as the Pope had requested.
In the church to which Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz belongs, the Pope was the closest living mortal to a diety, (even fast tracked to Sainthood by the newly elected Pope). Yet, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz is reported to have failed to accede to his late employer's request. Does he think like partners in law firms that he can simply ignore his leader? On what basis? I guess the same basis that partners in most law firms feel that there is no rule or law that the partnership or Managing Partner can make that would apply to them... that their discretion is the true diety.
Not only does he want to preserve what he was asked to destroy, he wants to broadcast the contents on Polish radio. Is nothing sacred (pun very much intended)?
Food for Thought: This is rather ironic, don't you think? Andersen went down for destroying papers only to be vindicated by the US Supreme Court - and it looks like Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz can unilaterally disobey the Pope and NOT destroy papers - with no apparent consequences - well, at least none that have been reported so far. (Perhaps the real consequences will occur at the pearly gates... for the Andersen crew, the Archbishop - and maybe even for your partners.)
So, Managing Partners, even if your election had been inspired by your Creator, most of your partners wouldn't listen to you anyway. Feel better?
I am often asked if I can train practice group leaders or industry group leaders or department chairs to properly manage their respective charges. Often, these people are entirely unmanaged because the Managing Partner thinks that their supervision consists entirely of appointing them.
So, my questions for Managing Partners include:
Are you managing your managers?
Are you a leadership role model for the leaders you appointed?Do you monitor performance and give helpful feedback, one leader at a time?
Do you bring your leaders together to share collective experiences and learn from each other?
Expect no more from those you have appointed than they see exhibited in your own performance.
Finally, if you want leadership training for those who report to you, attend every session with them... not just to learn along side them but to give guidance as they encounter the inevitable plethora of leadership decisions.
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