Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices : Gerry Riskin : Edge International

 

Source:  ABA Journal Post referencing BTI PDF from which above image was extracted.

"In a press release, Michael Rynowecer, president of BTI Consulting, calls the findings “a big ray of sunshine in what has been a very stormy environment.” He cautions, however, that some law firms won’t benefit from the increase in spending."

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

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:

1. Bulletproof existing clients (complacency is deadly in light of the predator-like behaviour you can expect from your competitors as their revenues diminish)
2. Concentrate Business Development training and strategic assistance on your best rainmakers (Train the rest later - for now, you need results)
3. Coach all partners on how to deal with fee resistance (Your partners will be divided and conquered unless you give them the tools and confidence to effectively deal with the inevitable fee resistance that accompanies a recession.)

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.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

 

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!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

 

I was honoured to be included in the round table that culminated in the cover story of Law Pro

Click on the image to download the PDF.

I am in good company.  The roundtable included:

Karen MacKay

Merrilyn Astin Tarlton and

Ed Flitton

If you would like the entire magazine, download it here

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

 

               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.

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

 

Patrick was kindly referring to my August 2007 post called Doom and Gloom in the Legal Profession - It's Coming which I promised to eat if wrong.  I am sorry I don't have to eat it for reasons you will see if you review it.

In any event, read Patrick Lamb's recent post A Brief Look Back.  A Sober Look Forward. for an interesting update from the perspective of a top business litigator (Patrick) who along with his brilliant colleagues at The Valorem Law Group is walking the talk about killing the billable hour.  

A special THANK YOU to Patrick Lamb for his most gracious comments.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

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.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

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

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

 

PUNCHLINE:  (yes, I'll start with it) Managing Partners: I don't think you should downsize now unless you absolutely have to.  It's a rough world out there - you should have cut the underperformers a long time ago.  BUT, if you HAVE TO, if you MUST, then learn from one of the most successful and business savvy people out there, Guy Kawasaki - read The Art of Laying People Off

Excerpts to tempt you:

6 Share the pain. When people around you are losing their jobs, you can share the pain, too. Cut your pay. In fact, the higher the employee, the bigger the percentage of pay reduction. Take a smaller office. Turn in the company car. Reassign your personal assistant to a revenue-generating position. Fly coach. Stay in motels. Sell the boxseat tickets to the ball game. Give your 30-inch flat-panel display to a programmer who could use it to debug faster. Do something, however symbolic.

8 Don’t ask for pity. Sometimes managers go to great lengths to show the person they’re laying off (or firing) how hard it is on them. Th is reminds me of the old definition of chutzpah: A boy murders his parents and then asks the court for leniency because he’s an orphan. The person who suffers is the one being terminated, not the manager.

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (3)
• Trackbacks

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.

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

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.

 

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

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”

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

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.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)

What is your initial reaction to the title of this blog post?  I thought it was daft… until I read the complete post by Susan Cramm on June 25, 2008 on her Harvard Business Blog: Having IT Your Way.

Here is an excerpt from her blog post:

Over the past decade, IT organizations have worked hard to improve services and in turn increase IT’s impact on the business. But in the quest to deliver great service, IT actually may have been disabling rather than enabling the enterprise.

How? In two ways. First, continual hand-holding leads to a loss of precious time that could be devoted to more important activities. Second, helping others who can help themselves circumvents learning. It lets them off the hook and alleviates their sense of responsibility. And ultimately it slows down progress as communication is constantly being run through an intermediary. In delegation lingo, this is called taking on someone else’s monkey.

PUNCHLINE:   Based on my observations in the firms I serve around the world, I would say that too many lawyers pride themselves on their IT incompetencies believing that it makes them somehow charming and brilliant.  I say they might as well be sneaking into the firm at night and taking cash out of the safe.  The costs associated with that attitude include:

• poorer client service by failing to capitalize on the efficiencies technology offers
• competitive disadvantage (clients do not find incompetency charming ever)
• wasted IT personnel time
• distracting and therefore delaying or discouraging the latest IT initiatives
• <I’ll bet the IT folks out there can add lots to this list>

Allow me to transpose one of Susan’s comments for Managing Partners and CIO’s in the legal profession:

Pleasing partners shouldn't be IT’s ultimate goal (or that of the Managing Partner). Rather, the ultimate goal of the Managing Partner and the CIO is to ensure the success of the firm. Help IT serve you and the firm by making sure that IT isn’t doing anything for individuals that they can, and should, do for themselves.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

Tom Peters on the Definition of Leadership from Tom Peters on Vimeo.

Whether you are Firm Chair, Managing Parter, Practice Group Leader, Industry Group Leader or Client Team Leader, I believe 3 minutes and 53 seconds will prove a useful catalyst for your thought. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (5)
• Trackbacks

To download this article, click on an image or this link.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

As Nicole Nehama Auerbach joins Valorem, she says:

“I saw Valorem as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really make a difference in the way litigation is handled... I was captivated by the firm’s commitment to provide real value to business clients, and, in particular, its emphasis on alternative fees. Alternative fees are more important than ever to clients as the economy fluctuates and rates continue their upward march. Traditional law firms have been slow to recognize the need to satisfy their clients’ economic concerns."

Valorem Law Group represents a head on assault on the billable hour.  Here's an excerpt from thier new web site:


The top ten list…

1. We are all refugees of elite BigLaw firms;
2. We are skilled courtroom lawyers, in practice and at heart;
3. We are revolutionaries and risk-takers, entrepreneurs at heart;
4. We bring a single-mindedness to the notion of client service;
5. We believe you are entitled to budget certainty, to a real and realized commitment to help you deal with the cost pressures you face;
6. We believe that the practice of law is an art, not a science;
7. We believe in collaboration and hold the team rather than the individual sacrosanct;
8. We love technology and efficiency -- the more red tape we hack through, the better;
9. We take our work very seriously -- ourselves, not so much;
10. We are real people, with supportive spouses and wonderful kids (who, at least today, appear to really like us).

They even have the audacity to say this:

We provide value or you adjust the bill.

I recommend a thorough tour of their web site.

My Opinion:  Don't bet against these people - they are proven champions as individuals and together they are going to disturb the peace of the billable hour.  I say BRAVO!!  The leader is Patrick Lamb (center in photo above) - learn even more at his famous blog: In Search of Client Service

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

General Mills' Roderick Palmore

According to Roderick Palmore, executive vice president, general counsel and chief compliance and risk management officer at General Mills Inc:

"The statistics speak for themselves.  They say our progress in the profession has been disappointing."

Attention Managing Partners:

More than 100 general counsel executives of Fortune 500 companies and managing partners of U.S. law firms are convening next month in an effort to come up with specific ways to improve diversity in the legal profession Managing Partners

The 100 GC’s (in addition to Palmore from general Mills), will include the likes of

General Mills Inc.
The Boeing Co.
Prudential Financial Inc.
Microsoft Corp.
Johnson & Johnson
Tyson Foods Inc.
The Coca-Cola Co.
Bank of America Corp.

See the full story at Law.com in Amanda Bronstad’s piece today called GCs and Law Firm Managing Partners to Convene Over Diversity (also the source of Palmore's photo in this post)

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)

Is your “winning streak” about to become a “losing streak”?  I believe it is likely unless you prepare for the test you didn’t ask for but are about to take.  Let's be honest, most law firms have had a pretty good run and your partners are well accustomed to it.  Will your partners understand what a decrease is? Will your firm maintain the winning attitude that brought you this far?  If you don’t think the next few miles of road are bumpier than you're used to then the following may be of little interest (except perhaps for the reference to “denying the facts”).



I Irecommend that you visit (or revisit) Confidence - How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End by Harvard’s Rosabeth Moss Kanter. 





Rosabeth Moss Kanter's biography for those interested

Confidence is a road map that helps you react more constructively than you might otherwise have to the challenges you will face (like this deteriorating economy).  The losing streak is fraught with a disease whose symptoms will infect your people - they include::

• Stop communicating
• Criticize and blame
• Disrespect others
• Become isolated
• Focus inward
• Let inequalities develop and persist
• Lose initiative
• Forget goals and aspirations
• Spread negativity
• Deny Facts

Your job as a Managing Partner (or as a member of the senior management team) is to understand and live Kanter's three cornerstones  of confidence:

• Accountability
• Collaboration
• Initiative

Most Managing Partners don’t read business books (don’t be insulted – you don’t have time and our studies so indicate).  So may I suggest you subscribe to one of the two excellent services that I subscibe tothat  summarize or abstract many good books for you in a short 10 to 20 minute read. Often they also provide an audible version for your iPod also from 10 to 20 minutes in length.

Check out Soundview Summaries and getAbstract.  If there are others, let me know.

PUNCHLINE:  Put Rosabeth Moss Kanter on your informal advisory team by buying the book or subscribing to one of the summary services above.  You cannot prevent the legal profession from having a losing streak here – but you can prevent your firm from having one.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Here’s the actual quote: 

Lawyers are smart, but this herd mentality seems absolutely irrational, economically speaking — and not because the compensation is too high. The top law firms have been stuck in copycat mode for years. As soon as one of them raises salaries for associates, the others fall in line almost immediately.

Later in the article NYT asks: 

But think about this for a moment: Is there any other business in which every competitor matches salaries and bonuses almost identically?

In response to:

Evan R. Chesler, Cravath’s presiding partner, told The New York Times last month that the firm had originally wanted to “thank our lawyers for the hard work this year and the good year we’ve had.”

NYT offered:

It’s a nice thought but somewhat specious. Partners at law firms are a notoriously greedy bunch — that’s why they accept so few new partners — making it hard to believe that they are willing to part with their money so easily. I suggest there is something else at play: Law firms match bonuses to secure bragging rights.

My View:  Given the economic challenges the legal profession is about to face I believe large salary increases and bonuses are risky…  a handful of firms can play the game because they have spectacular revenues to encroach upon but if the main stream gets caught in this game we are going to see casualties.  Over my many years of working with law firms globally there is a season you want to avoid like the plague – that’s “shrinking pie” season (when the cycle leaves less for partners to share).  Everything becomes more painful – rewarding stars means starving others and laying partners off (or de-equitizing) requires more courage because the world is a lot tougher for those who are being disenfranchised.  Somehow when the pie shrinks, a very negative game of dominos ensues.  Huge associate salaries and bonuses accelerate the shrinking of the partner pie which I argue has its perils.

Read the entire article: Lawyers Compete, Except in Bonuses

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

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).

PUNCHLINE:  I wish Mo Fo and Cavaney every success.  I offer the polite caution, however, that I have watched some very talented, intelligent and accomplished individuals who were not themselves lawyers get devoured in the law firm environment by the ferocious independence of many individual partners who felt quite comfortable in their belief that a non-lawyer could not possibly handle the job and that criticism could be heaped upon him (or her) in abundance.   Having said that, I am aware of several notable successes where non-lawyers have maneuvered the maze with aplomb and have gained the internal respect that has allowed them to get on with the job.  Pat Cavaney’s impressive background will help a lot but it won’t be enough without some serious help from the firm’s senior leadership and a lot of skill on his part - which he likely possesses based on the following (published by Techie Evangelist while he was Senior Vice President at Hewlett-Packard):

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.

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.

I believe the legal profession has much to gain by importing talent from outside and I wish Mo Fo and Pat Cavaney every success.

Thank you to the ABA Journal for serving as a source for this post - see their November 20th article:  Non-Lawyer Now at Helm of 1,000-Attorney Law Firm

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The New York Times Business section included an article yesterday called:  For Lawyers, Perks to Fit a Lifestyle.

The article alluded to a variety of perks including money, candied apples, milkshakes, car discounts, valet services, wine, office parties, in-office gourmet meals on silver platters, nap rooms, child care, emergency nanny services, sabbaticals and even an occasional masseuse.

Perhaps this was the most important perk mentioned:

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.

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.”

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.

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).

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

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…

Joanna Pachner of Canada’s highly respected publication,  Financial Post Business, writes in detail today about how and why the highly respected and profitable Canadian law firm of Goodman & Carr met its demise.

Punchline:  If you are on the senior management team of your law firm, this may be a beacon of what to avoid in your own firm’s future.  And, integrity drives me to day this, based on my own experience working with law firms globally, many firms have some of these destructive elements already in place.  Perhaps the question is: when the tipping point is reached (that leads to a firm’s ultimate demise).  If you care about your own firm, read this article: Driven to [Self-] Destruction Financial Post Business, October 2, 2007.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Harvard Business Online has a coach named Marshall Goldsmith who has written or co-edited 22 books.  In answer to the question:

How Do I Provide Meaningful Recognition?

Marshall references the following:

1. 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.).
2. Write down the names of the people in each group.
3. Post your list in a place you can't miss seeing regularly.
4. 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?”
5. 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.
6. Don’t do anything that takes up too much time. This process needs to be time-efficient or you won’t stick with it.
7. 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.
8. Stick with the process. You won’t see much impact in a week – but you will see a huge difference in a year.

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.

Read the entire Harvard Business Online post: How Do I Provide Meaningful Recognition?

• Email This
• Print
• Comments

Lovells offers a “try out” Critical Thinking test which you can take right now, anonymously.

Lovells is one of the largest international business legal practices, with over three thousand people operating from 26 offices in Europe, Asia and the United States.

It is amusing to hear Americans debate the non-constitutionality of asking applicants to submit to testing while the rest of the world has absolutely no problem with it and in fact sees significant benefits.  I will leave that debate to others but thought you might have some fun with a sample test.

Take Lovells' Critical Thinking test HERE. 

PUNCHLINE:  Enjoy!!  I’ll tell you my score if you tell me yours!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments

In Three myths about legal services offshoring (The Hindu) there is some very very sobering information especially for those who hope that it means offshoring will just fade away sooner or later.

If you intend to practice law for 10 or more years then:   READ THE ARTICLE

Here are some teasers/excerpts:

"Attacks on the competence of Indian lawyers and law graduates are about as valid as saying that Indian software engineers are incapable of handling sophisticated IT (information technology) work. To the contrary, the Indian IT industry is a world leader, and the same will be the case with offshored legal services."

"A recent study conducted by Harvard Law School and LexisNexis reveals that 75 per cent of US law graduates admit they do not have the necessary skills to practise law."

"So you would expect that these deficiencies would be met by rigorous training programs undertaken by Western law firms. Guess again! The Harvard-LexisNexis study reveals that 64 per cent of young lawyers receive no organised, on-the-job training."

"By contrast, reputable legal services offshoring companies in India provide rigorous training to their lawyers, and the hours spent on training do not appear on invoices to clients."  

"…at least in the US, law graduates for the most part are notoriously incapable of writing effectively in English. The problem is so severe that some large US law firms now assign a writing coach to each incoming associate. However, most lawyers in the West never receive this kind of training. By contrast, reputable legal services offshoring companies in India train all their attorneys in English writing."

"The future of the legal services offshoring industry in India appears very bright."

"Corporations, not Western law firms, will drive the market in the years ahead."

"Another way that corporations will drive the market, indirectly, is by obtaining flat (or fixed) rate billing from their outside counsel, instead of hourly billing. For example, the mega law firm, Morgan Lewis & Bockius, now handles all of the litigation for Cisco Systems for a fixed annual fee."

"Every sector of the legal offshoring industry will grow dramatically, including lower end services, such as document coding and legal transcription. Ultimately, however, the biggest impact, the long-term mother lode, will be higher-value services such as legal research and drafting – services that constitute the bulk of the legal work now done in the West."

"Long-term, India’s enormous, mostly untapped population of over one billion citizens will continue to make India competitive in relation to other offshore destinations… ultimately it will not only decrease poverty, but increase the number of law graduates."

"On the most positive note, the growth and development of the legal offshoring industry in India will help bring about a major change in the way legal services are delivered in the West."

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (2)

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.

Much has been written about him and by him but now there us a book called:  What Made jack welch JACK WELCH: How Ordinary People Become Extraordinary Leaders by Stephen H. Baum and Dave Conti.  (I borrowed from this title in naming this post because I believe that Managing Partners might find this analysis helpful.)

Here is an excerpt from a blog post today on Management Craft, Discussions About State of the Art Management which highlights an article called Shaping Experiences by one of the book's authors, Stephen H. Baum. 

This excerpt from the article is what I believe may be a useful self-assessment checklist for managing partners:

"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.?
"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."

See the full blog post here or order the book here.

Incidentally, about Stephen Baum:

"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."

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)

       Mike Dillon

Would you listen to the General Counsel of Sun Microsystems, if he said:

“I do believe that there may be times when a $1,000/hour fee is warranted”

“…just yesterday, I read of another example of how law firms continue to be primarily focused on maintaining profits through consolidation and growth of headcount. As a GC, what I'd rather see is an article about how law firms are creating new business models that reflect the reality of my organization - providing consistently high quality of service with a constant focus on efficiency.”

“As recently as four years ago, we had several hundred (that's always embarrassing for me to say) law firms that we used for general purpose legal work in the United States. Since then, we have been aggressively reducing this number to the point that this year we announced that we are moving to nine "Preferred Partner" firms.”

“…we are already seeing examples where … firms are proposing creative pricing models and investing in better understanding our business.”

“…we needed to have about 10,000 agreements reviewed and summarized for an on-line database. We send out an RFP to a large number of firms and through this process filtered the number of candidates down to a handful. These were then invited to participate in an on-line competition for the work. During the course of the event, it was fascinating to see firms from around the world compete to win the business. (If you've ever sold anything on eBay, you know the feeling.)”

“…we quietly started a small team several years ago called "GLN" (Global Legal Services). They are focused on efficiently handling the less complex, but higher volume agreements and services we provide.”

The above quotes are from a single blog post called: Context is everything by Mike Dillon
Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Sun Legal Department of
Sun Microsystems, Inc.: .

PUNCHLINE:  Managing Partners – do you dare not read his future blog posts?

• Email This
• Print
• Comments

It is with personal sadness that I post this news. In September, one of Canada's most respected law firms will close its doors forever according to a story by lawyer/journalist Jim Middlemiss in today's Financial Post: “Lawyer exodus shutters Desjardins”.

Jim starts his story:

An era will end for the 100-lawyer law firm Desjardins Ducharme LLP in September. The once-esteemed law firm will close after more than 50 years in business.

For those unfamiliar with Desjardins Ducharme, Kip Cobbett's comment in the story sums it up:

Kip Cobbett, [Managing Partner and COO of] Stikeman Elliott LLP in Montreal, said it is "very sad" to see Desjardins' demise. "It was a wonderful firm. It will certainly change the landscape."

The inevitable autopsy will point to a plethora of possible causes.  In my view the imperative for firm leaders who read this is not an analysis of Desjardins Ducharme in particular but rather the realization that complacency, even in the blue chip firms, can be lethal.

Punchline:  The relentless tsunami of change in the legal market place will not spare a firm unable to maneuver out of its path - no matter that firm's historic financial success, no matter that firm's pedigree, no matter that firm's history, no matter that firm's exemplary reputation.  In my view the harsh lesson here is simple: manage or prepare to perish!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments

The Wall Street Journal posts: Slater & Gordon: The World’s First Publicly Traded Law Firm

Managing Partners and other members of law firm C suites had better look at Slater & Gordon’s prospectus – it’s a gold mine, (pun intended).

Have a look at how risks are described – the Wall Street Journal post quotes the passage balancing professional responsibility and shareholder profits.

"Lawyers have a primary duty to the courts and a secondary duty to their clients. These duties are paramount given the nature of the Company’s business as an Incorporated Legal Practice. There could be circumstances in which the lawyers of Slater & Gordon are required to act in accordance with these duties and contrary to other corporate responsibilities and against the interests of Shareholders or the short-term profitability of the Company."

I adored the "Key Risks" page (click on it to download pdf of this page):



PUNCHLINE:  If this does not fascinate you, you should resign from your leadership position.  I am not saying you should follow suit – I want you to know what your options are and what your competitors might be up to way sooner than you would like to think.

Science fiction movies adore time travel and ripples in the primordial fabric.  We are witnessing a collision - the future has just exploded into the present.  With Clemente in the UK just over the horizon, please fasten your seatbelts - this is a pivotal moment for the legal profession and for the Managing Partners within it.  Like Dennis Hopper's famous line in the movie Speed, "what are you going to do, Jack"

You may want to reference my earlier post:  The end of the legal profession as you knew it...

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)

(Click on image to see original enlarged version)

I was fascinated by this piece at the Consumerist:   How To Beat The Stock Market: Buy Companies With High Customer Satisfaction Scores

If the same phenomenon occurs in the legal profession, there would be a tremendous return on investment from enhancing client satisfaction.

The story is that a portfolio comprised of “companies at the top 20% of the the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)... greatly outperformed the stock market, generating a 40% return.

“From 1996-2003, the portfolio outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 93%, the S&P 500 by 201%, and NASDAQ by 335%.”

How would you like to out perform the average law firm by somewhere between 93% and 335%?  More importantly, how much should you invest in order to reap a return of that nature?

Don’t bother disseminating this information to your people in order to encourage them to focus on enhancing client satisfaction.  Their consequential improved knowledge on the subject will do little.  It takes results (client satisfaction) to get results (improved profitability).  SKILLS rather than knowledge with be essential to achieve the desired outcome.

PUNCHLINE:  In my opinion, there is an overabundance of information in law firms and a dearth of client-relations training.  If you are a Managing Partner, you may want to balance this disparity.

Note:  I admit that this post is an act of unbridled extrapolation.  I cannot prove that the empirical research referenced would apply to the legal profession per se but my view is that it probably would.

(Thank you to my son, Daniel, for bringing this to my attention.  Daniel (Riskin) is a PhD and a renowned expert on bats - he discovered Vampire bats run - check out his site.)

• Email This
• Print
• Comments