Thank you Arnie Herz(Legal Sanity Blog) for interview
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My good friend Arnie Herz (Lawyer and Consultant) was kind enough to interview me for his blog:
the legal sanity mentor: gerry riskin
Managing Partners should have 3 priorities as confidence index drops to record low
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:
- Bulletproof existing clients (complacency is deadly in light of the predator-like behaviour you can expect from your competitors as their revenues diminish)
- Concentrate Business Development training and strategic assistance on your best rainmakers (Train the rest later - for now, you need results)
- 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.
Cravath Swaine & Moore Killing the Billable Hour?
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.
Leaders: Genuine Inspiration from Sir Richard Branson
Is the UK's wealthiest man also its wisest? If you have about 1/2 hour to sit in on a fascinating conversation with Sir Richard, head over to Adventures in Strategy, my Edge colleague and friend, Robert Millard's blog post: Richard Branson on Life, Succeeding in Business and Everything
(Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 30:44.)
I am very biased - Richard Branson is one of my heroes - nevertheless I will risk exclaiming that there is no Managing Partner who could experience this discussion and not be inspired.
Gaining Influence as a law firm CMO
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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:- Changing to reflect new consumer [client?] buying behavior
- Shaping the Company's [Firm's?] public profile
- Managing Complexity
- Building new Marketing Capabilities
- Take time to understand what's really happening with customers [clients?]
- Foster the right connection between the CMO's efforts and those other parts of the organization
- Be a "thought partner" for the CMO as he or she transforms the marketing organization.
NOTE: General access to McKinsey Quarterly is free but requires registration and log-in - for recommended article, premium (paid) subscription is required.
Contemplating advertising? You had better "Nail It"
Greenfield/Belser nails law firm advertising.
Read Larry Bodine's post to see why he liked it so much: A Law Firm Announcement that Clients Will Actually Read
My Opinion: Refreshing!
Client Satisfaction may be EXTREMELY Profitable
(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.)
