Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices

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.

FOOTNOTE:  Perhaps this is the reason Lovells has been awarded Best Website at the 2007 annual Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) awards, in the category for companies recruiting between 30 and 100 graduates.  Read more...

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."

The despised business of videoconferencing is about to get a new lease on life.

This weeks Economist has an article on Telepresence.  The full title is “Behold, telepresence - Far away yet strangely personal”.  (Requires subscription).  Image above is from the article.

Here are a few excerpts to whet your appetite for the story – the headings are mine:

The Problem:

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:

Managing Partners – don’t think about this opportunity from the law firm’s perspective but rather your client’s.  You may have some clients who will acquire this technology and will want you to participate – I welcome this as I believe that most law firm technology comes because the clients want us to have it (sometimes, “insist”).   If top corporations in your markets populate your client list, perhaps you should become familiar enough with this technology to initiate the discussion with your major clients.  After all, wouldn’t it be refreshing for your client to believe of you that your firm is progressive enough to be at the forefront?

Footnote (Greetings from Uruguay):  Speaking of technology and the world becoming more virtual, I posted this blog entry from my hotel room in Montevideo, Uruguay following an assignment with an MDP (accounting and law) firm here.  The Economist arrived promptly on my desk top this morning and I was able to effortlessly post this story.  Perhaps before too long I will be able to conduct the kind of assignment I traveled here for by video conference.

About The Economist: You can of course buy the hard copy or subscribe on line. This story is marked: Aug 23rd 2007 | SAN FRANCISCO
 From The Economist print edition