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. 
10 Myths about Innovations in Professional Service Firms
Thank you to Monica Bay of The Common Scold for writing about this article by one of my Edge International partners, Robert Millard, from our latest issue of the Edge International Review. I am posting this article (in a single page format) at Monica’s request so that you can view it in your browser or download it as you see fit.
Allen & Overy (London) lawyers will practice on dead bodies
This shocking story is absolutely true. If you are curious about how one of the world’s great law firms is going to end up on a medieval burial chamber, read all about it at a fabulous web site called “Roll on Friday” which typically contains four or five cool stories about London firms each week
the UK wit is priceless. Here’s a teaser: according to Roll on Friday, this is an Allen & Overy lawyer settling into a new office. 
If you liked this story, you’ll love some of the other stories like: Angry Frenchman demonstrates outside Clifford Chance Dundas hands out ｣1million in bonuses Aussie law firm gives staff bonus in shoes *New QC selection process announced Lawyer in Rottweiler guide dog scam You can subcribe by email these people don’t know what RSS is yet. * for American readers, QC is Queen’s Counsel
an honour bestowed in the name of the Queen on lawyers in commonwealth jurisdictions. QC’s are entitled to wear silk barristers robes in court and therefore QC’s are referred to colloquially as “silks”
Met with Lexthink’s Matt Homann
You probably know Matthew Homann, lawyer and mediator, as a prolific blogger. 
What you may not know is that Matthew is one of the principals of LexThink. 
Matthew and I met on Monday in Los Angeles at an undisclosed secure location where we could have a discrete discussion about blogging and LexThink: Here’s a hint: 
Thank you, Matt, for a creative and catalytic discussion. Also, stay tuned for some exciting news about what LexThink can do for groups of lawyers from multiple firms as well as within individual firms.
Every Lawyer Makes This Mistake
Because every human makes this mistake and I argue that lawyers are human, therefore
OK, thank you ROCKETBOOM, July 6th edition, for this story and thank you MIT for being so brilliant (as usual) and humbling the rest of us by exposing our limited perceptions with this cool illustration. The A square and the B square are the same shade of grey. Don’t take my word for it, I’m a lawyer, too. Check it out! Then, let’s all stop jumping to conclusions. P.S. A mistake I will never make again is failing to catch the Rocketboom’s daily vlog
Law Firms as “Exclusive Clubs for White Men”
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
Edge International Review Winter 2005 edition
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. 
Orrick Herrington & Sutcliff will sell to your law firm
Orrick Herrington & Sutcliff is a magnificent firm that had the courage to be innovative and create a Virginia based service center for itself. 
and now, according to an article in The Lawyer.com:
Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe is planning a new outsourcing services company for other law firms.
“The truth is that the global 100 are competing with each other, but most lawyers aren’t in those firms. There’s a whole universe of lawyers who are spending inordinate amounts of money doing their own finances and supporting their technology and we can do it for a fraction of the cost,” said Baxter.
Fast Forward: There will be amazing challenges watching the outcome will be akin to NASA scientists watching Deep Impact. There will be surprises and perhaps more success than many will have the courage to predict. Punchline: Whatever happens, keep an eye on this and learn from it we don’t see too many clear transitions in the practice of law if this works, it will in hindsight have been a big one.
Larry Bodine + Hospital = Creative
Metaphors and analogies help us understand and apply principles. In his post, “Market as Hospitals Do“, Larry Bodine demonstrates the art. 
Punchline: Transcending our context ignites our imagination – use this phenomenon with your colleagues and watch them find the magic that tries so hard to hide inside them. Thank you, Larry Bodine, for the reminder. 
Is Palo Alto back on the law firm map?
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. 