It is my pleasure to introduce you to an extraordinary lawyer, educator and philanthropist, Tom Bean, of 150 year old law firm Verrill Dana in Boston, whose practice focuses on businesses that are experiencing financial distress. Tom is also cofounder and chair of the advisory board of the Spark Academy – and a self-described “head cheerleader” of the school.

The Spark Academy is certainly worth cheering about. This public school in Lawrence, MA focuses on building the connections between healthy bodies and healthy minds. Students attend school for eight hours a day, and more than two of those hours are devoted to physical movement and athletic activity. For the balance of the day, they are challenged academically. The school’s mission is to “inspire and develop critical thinkers, skillful communicators, constructive team members, and healthy bodies.”

The approach seems to be working: last year the Spark Academy enjoyed 97% attendance. Students clearly enjoy going to school, and their scores on both physical and academic metrics are outstanding. Here is a video with more information about the school:

It is always a pleasure for me to counter the too-frequent incidences of lawyer-bashing that we see in the media, which have led to a reputation for the profession that is most often undeserved and unfair. Tom Bean is great example of a lawyer who is contributing his resources to the betterment of the world around him – both “on the job” and when he’s off the clock.

If you are interested in supporting The Spark Academy, feel free to contact Tom via his email.

As always, your comments and feedback are welcome, either on this blog or via my email.

I recently had the pleasure of visiting with my good friend Sebastián Carey – one of the world’s leading experts on technology and the law – at his home in Chile. We talked not only about the latest developments in legal IT, but also about the new interest of law firms from the UK, the US and other countries in establishing a presence in Latin America.

Amazing Firms Amazing Practices Oct 13Sebastián’s role as an advisor to international firms in the field of legal information technology, particularly in Latin America, was recently acknowledged by the prestigious Legal IT Insider newsletter based in the UK, which sees Latin America as a major contender – along with China and South Africa – for a dramatic increase in activity by international law firms in the near future.

“Baker & McKenzie and White & Case already have a presence there,” writes Charles Christian, publisher of Legal IT Insider, “while Dentons, Garrigues Abogados, DLA Piper, Norton Rose Fulbright and Hogan Lovells are all in talks with potential partners/looking to open offices. In fact Joe Andrew, the global chair of Dentons, has been quoted as saying the Latin American legal market ‘is on the brink of a seismic change’.”

As for Sebastián, a sidebar to the article describes him as a “great source of on-the-ground intelligence on the Latin American legal IT scene.” I couldn’t agree more – and I happen to know that he has a very large group of clients, nearly 1000, of which most rank in Band 1 or Band 2 in Chambers and Partners, Latin America.

You can download the September, 2013 issue (#267) of Legal IT Insider here (check out page 11 for the article I’ve referred to in this post). You can contact Sebastián Carey directly at scarey@tecnolex.cl

I invite your feedback on this post or any other matter, either via the comments section on this blog or by e-mailing me directly.

I am delighted to announce that Edge International’s Bithika Anand, founder of India’s Legal League Consulting LLC, will host the first-ever management event for India’s legal industry to include both law firms and legal departments.

Presentation and discussion topics include strategies of firm governance, mergers and acquisitions, and dealing with an economic downturn.

The one-day event will take place on November 23rd, 2013 at the Leela Kempinski Gurgaon hotel in New Delhi, and it features an outstanding program and many opportunities for networking:

 

If you wish any additional information, visit the conference page on the Legal League Consulting website, or email Bithika Anand.

I congratulate Bithika and her team for all their work in putting together this ground-breaking event.

As always, I invite your thoughts and feedback, either via this blog or by emailing me directly.

 

 

An article by my friend Michael P. Maslanka, “Seven Mindsets of Effective General Counsel,” appeared recently in Texas Lawyer. It includes advice that I found useful, and I hope you will as well.

Riskin Amazing Firms Amazing PracticesIn the article Mike suggests that "How lawyers think determines how we act." With that in mind, he encourages general counsel to “seek useful mindsets” rather than looking for answers.

The seven top mindsets he recommends – each of which he relates with humour and the benefit of experience – draw from a range of sources, including the military (e.g., “Pick the hill you want to die on”) to literature and film (e.g., despite what a character in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov says, Mike proposes that “A general counsel is not a conscience for hire”).

I highly recommend Mike Maslanka’s article and, as always, I invite your comments – on his advice or any other matter  – either via this blog or by emailing me directly.

(Note: Free login to ALM required.)

I recently came across a fascinating video presentation by management expert, academic and author Gary Hamel. Hamel is a founder of Strategos, an international management consulting firm based in Chicago.

In the video, Hamel notes that today, leaders often appear to be coming up short. This is not an individual problem, he says: it is an organizational problem. Hamel feels that the essential problem is that our leaders – the people at the top of our organizations – are too busy to do everything they are required to do. In his words, we have built organizations that demand leaders with “the innovation and instincts of Steve Jobs, the political skills of Lee Kwan Yew, and the emotional intelligence of Desmond Tutu.” Such individuals, he notes dryly, are few and far between.

Hamel talks about how organizations need to restructure to meet the demands of the new creative economy – not only to more broadly syndicate the work that is increasingly expected of leaders, but also to reconsider how compensation is assigned so that it is no longer associated with hierarchy but rather with value.

He talks about how CEOs will need to “unleash the latent leadership across [their] organization[s],” step by step, and he provides examples of companies that have started to do that.

It is a fascinating video and I encourage you to take ten minutes to listen to it – or to check out the transcript of the interview that follows it on the McKinsey & Company page.

As always, I invite your comments, either via this blog or by emailing me directly.

Do you conduct business development primarily through scattershot, "one-to-many" promotional approaches, such as newsletters, speeches and websites?

Edge International CommuniqueDo you conduct business development primarily through scattershot, "one-to-many" promotional approaches, such as newsletters, speeches and websites?

In the most recent issue of Edge International Communiqué, my colleague Michael J. White argues that  "brand-building" activities such as these, which attempt to reach prospective clients "from the outside," can be less-than-effective ways of expanding a firm’s client base.

Instead he suggests working through insiders at prospect companies. He says that through this approach, client developers "learn information and context that are not publicly available…," and are able to find work that may become a first engagement, focus on their knowledge of issues and specifics, and gain the support of persons of influence at the prospective client company.

Mike provides some excellent concrete suggestions regarding how to build a successful promotional strategy with an "inside" approach. I encourage you to have a look at this and the other excellent articles in the August issue of Edge International Communiqué.

You can also subscribe to EIC by clicking on the link at the bottom of this menu of archived issues. EIC is published once each month and features articles by Edge International partners from around the world on a variety of issues relating to law-office management and governance.

 

Holding breakout sessions at retreats and workshops allows the management of law firms to maximize the input it receives from associates and partners on a range of topics. In the most recent issue of Edge International Communiqué, I offer a few guidelines that meeting facilitators can use to increase the effectiveness of these breakout groups.

Here is the article:

Guide to Breakout Facilitation

Following a few guidelines can increase the effectiveness of breakout groups at retreats and workshops

Riskin, Amazing Firms Amazing Practices, July 2013

 

Many law firm retreats and workshops include breakout groups for the purpose of acting as brain trusts for the firm, and conceiving options and alternatives that are actionable. The Achilles’ heel for many such breakout groups is that they may be led by a lawyer who has no idea as to the subtleties of facilitation.

The fundamental objective of the breakout group is to provide ideas back to the plenary that are capable of execution. It should be clearly understood that the senior leadership of the firm will be the final arbiter as to what actions are actually taken.
 
In meetings that I convene, I like to have 20 minutes to train the breakout leaders, but for those of you with whom I do not have the privilege of interacting, here’s a checklist of useful points:

  • The facilitator should not impart his or her own views and ideas, but rather should manage the process and track the outcomes.
  • The facilitator therefore need not be the most senior or prominent member of the group; one of the upcoming members may be better positioned to do a great job.
  • The facilitator can capture ideas by making his or her own notes, preferably on a flipchart; when the notes are his or her own, the facilitator is typically in a stronger position to report with confidence than if he or she is reading the notes of someone else
  • The breakout groups should be of a manageable size – let us say no more than 12 – and the facilitator should ensure maximum participation by as many of the individuals present as possible. One approach I frequently use is to ask each member of the breakout group to answer a simple question in a phrase or sentence on a piece of paper. Depending on the sensitivity of the topic, I may simply ask people to read their responses, or gather up the papers, shuffle to redistribute them, and have each read by someone else. This only takes a few moments and ensures diversity of opinion rather than the domination of a few.
  • Another way to get more people involved is simply to say something like, "John, you haven’t said much. What do you think about…?" This is especially helpful for those who may be quite introverted or who simply typically yield the floor to more senior or dominant members of the breakout group.
  • The most critical part of the facilitator’s role is to ensure that people describe options and alternatives that are specific enough that they could be delegated as actions should the firm endorse them. For example, discussions about abstract thoughts like, "We should get closer to our clients," are meaningless compared to ones like, "We should create a hierarchy of our most important clients and prioritize our efforts with them. We should start that process by taking our top ten percent and dividing them into three categories, A, B and C, based on the following criteria . . . ."
  • Reports back to the plenary from the facilitator should be strictly time-limited. Allowed to meander, reporters sometimes ramble and the report can go on endlessly. I strongly favor an enforced time-limited process, perhaps four minutes per reporter, with a timer in the audience who taps the table 30 seconds before time is up and then continuously taps when the time is up. The role of timekeeper is typically regarded as fun and the participants will enjoy it. In rare cases, you can give someone permission to go on for a couple of extra moments if that is your wisdom, but I have rarely found extensions of time to be useful.

I hope your next event which includes breakout groups will be more productive based on these ideas. As always, if you have questions or would like to discuss your event (off the meter) I would be delighted to speak with you.

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I invite you to read two other interesting and informative articles in the July, 2013 issue of Edge International Communiqué.

I also invite you to subscribe to Edge International Communiqué (EIC) by clicking on the link at the bottom of this menu of archived issues. EIC is published once each month and features articles by Edge International partners from around the world on a variety of issues relating to law-office management and governance.

 

An article about severe cutbacks at a major U.S. law firm, which included the termination of 30 associates and 110 support staff and cuts to partners’ salaries, recently appeared in the “DealBook” section of the New York Times. The piece raised a general alarm about the financial challenges facing the legal profession, quoting sources that cited a diminishing market for “high-end legal services” as the impetus for the downturn.
 


I would have been more impressed with this article – and with Weil, Gotshal & Manges – if reference had been made to streamlining production methods by utilizing legal project management, or staffing differently to optimize value to clients.

The story, as far as it goes, does little to dispel the speculation that the move was a cost-reduction strategy intended to protect the incomes of those earning 2.2 million per year each. I understand the competitive nature of the major firms and the need to keep stars, but $2.2 million per partner is likely not sustainable in the new reality.

I invite your comments on this post, and welcome any questions you may have about legal project management and other cost-effective strategies.
 

When it comes to managing our law firms, including leadership and business development, we tend to apply our lawyering skills to the detriment of our organizations

Gerry Riskin Edge International

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An article that recently appeared in Lifehack, "How to Stop Being an Over-Thinker" by Craig Harper, explains how we may be sabotaging ourselves by over-thinking. It also provides insight and concrete suggestions (e.g., "Ask yourself the right questions") that can help us to develop patterns of behaviour that will enhance our approaches to our management and leadership roles.

I highly recommend this article, and I welcome your feedback.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some law firm leaders complain that they can’t give orders in a partnership.  Gettysburg was proof that you can not get your orders obeyed even in the military if you are not a true leader.

A number of weeks ago, I spent the day in the battlefields of Gettysburg with two retired army colonels. These leadership specialists guided an advanced entrepreneurial class from Penn State University (and me as a guest) for a leadership training day using the battlefield as an instructional tool. The tour was not strenuous (although some walking is involved) – and I learned a lot. It was an amazing experience and a very clever way to use the historic three-day battle as a source of inspiration and learning.

If you are interested in taking one of these fascinating tours – either at Gettysburg or at several other historic locations in the U.S. – contact retired U.S. Army Colonel Dr. Jeffrey McCausland, founder and CEO of Diamond6 Leadership and Strategy LLC. More information about the company’s individual, group and corporate leadership programs is available on the Diamond6 website.