Seth Godin, puts his Stanford MBA to good use as he illustrates that this “Local Max” is probably where your law firm is right now. The pain that you would sustain at points B and C leads to the “Big Max” (below). If we extrapolate from Seth’s comments combined with my observations of our profession, almost no law firm is willing to pay the price to get to the “Big Max”. When I asked Seth Godin for his thoughts on how his analysis applies to professional service firms, and law firms in particular, he said:

I’d argue that superstar lawyers are the ones that did something that got them in a lot of trouble with their partners

Don’t read that too negatively — let’s remember just how risk averse law firms tend to be — therefore innovation comes at the price of making a firm a bit uncomfortable (maybe very uncomfortable). Two questions: 1) Do you think Seth’s analysis is indeed applicable to law firms? 2) When you contemplate your firm’s future, what would it really take to get the partners to agree to endure B and C? [Seth’s quote posted with permission] Read Seth’s complete post. Addendum: Thank you to Michelle Golden for comment below