Tom Kane of Legal Marketing Blog weighs in here. His post’s title aside, Tom most certainly is not part of the “peanut gallery.” Its a strong post. Please read it.
Monthly Archives: January 2006
Client Satisfaction Surveys–Still More To Think About
Posted in Client Surveys and AuditsLatest in the series–Jim Hassert at Law Firm Business Development with Part 5 of his series on this most important topic.
Speed: The Essential Ingredient
Posted in Client ServiceI was absolutely stunned to read this post by Tom Collins, who writes morepartnerincome. To set the stage, Tom tells this story: The attorneys were talking about handling e-mail and phone calls. The partner from the young firm bragged that he made a practice of always responding to e-mail the next day. His practice was… Continue Reading
Bill Clinton: Bringing New Meaning To Client Service?
Posted in GeneralHilarious post by Dan Hull following up on the news that Bill Clinton is eligible to reinstate his law degree. On behalf of his firm, Dan posts this ad: WANTED: Of counsel for growing Pittsburgh-based boutique business law firm. Must have at least 8 years of highest level federal Exec. Branch experience, world-wide connections, Yale… Continue Reading
Client Satisfaction Surveys: The Team Conducting The Survey
Posted in Client Surveys and AuditsFour posts today follow up on a conversation among Jim Hassert, Dan Hull and me. For a summary, see this post. The issue we discussed was whether the person conducting the satisfaction survey should be associated with the firm. Jim followed up with some further thoughts today, reaching the conclusion that he was comfortable with… Continue Reading
Associate Pay Raises
Posted in Hourly Rates and Alternatives, Leadership and ManagementI was just reading the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. Seems that Mayer Brown, DLA Piper and Latham are joining the growing tide of firms raising the starting salaries of their first year associates to $135,000. Mark Jungers of Major Lindsey & Africa, a prominent recruiting firm, predicted that Kirkland, Sidley, Winston and McDermott will quickly… Continue Reading
David Maister joins blogosphere
Posted in People, Places and BlawgsDavid Maister, who inspired me with several presentations and inspires me with his books and articles, has joined the blogosphere. He is blog is called Passion, People and Principles. He explains the blog name this way: The title of my blog derives from a comment made by Tom Peters who observed in his blog that… Continue Reading
Branding? YES!
Posted in Marketing, Branding and SalesDan Hull recently posted that “Law Firm Logos are Goofy, Useless, a Waste of Time and Money.” And then he promised to let us know what he really thinks about logos. Seriously, Dan drew on a post from Tom Kane who writes the Legal Marketing Blog. Tom’s post on logos drew on a post by… Continue Reading
Short Summary Of 2006 Marketing Partner Forum
Posted in Marketing, Branding and SalesI returned yesterday from the 2006 Marketing Partner Forum. I had the honor of serving on Thomson Legalworks’ planning committee, so I am biased about the programming. But having acknowledged that, I do believe it was an excellent program. Congrats to the Legalworks people who worked so hard. The kudos you have received have… Continue Reading
Is Rainmaking A Learned Skill Or A Natural Trait?
Posted in Leadership and Management, Marketing, Branding and SalesLarry Bodine summarized Dr. Larry Richard’s presentation at the 2006 Marketing Partner Forum here. Dr. Richard is the head of Hildebrandt’s Leadership & Organization Development Practice Group, which helps law firms and legal departments on people issues. Since the early 1980′s, he has pioneered the application of psychology and other behavioral sciences to the improvement… Continue Reading
My Marketing Partner Forum Speech Slides Attached
Posted in Marketing, Branding and SalesI spoke on smaller firms staying competitive in a changing environment. My powerpoint is attached. Marketing Partner Forum–Lamb Speech Slides
Its Not Price. Its Value.
Posted in Hourly Rates and AlternativesDan Hull has a good post on his What About Clients blog about price competition. His approach is not to compete on price but instead to compete on service, not price. His insight, which I cannot improve on in any way, is that “if clients come to you for price, they will leave you for… Continue Reading
Good summary on Traits Clients Seek
Posted in Client ServiceFascinating post by James Hassett of Law Firm Business Development summarizing a presentation by Paul Clifford at a recent New England Legal Marketing Association meeting. Clifford is a former managing partner at a mid-size Boston law firm. Clifford’s thesis is that the market for legal services is becoming more and more competitive. Writes Hassett: Many of the trends… Continue Reading
Outsourcing Litigation Oversight
Posted in Hourly Rates and Alternatives, Trends and InnovationsIn December, I ran a post about outsourcing the legal function or at least parts of it (here). My thesis was (and remains) that certain inside functions could be handled better by outside counsel on a fixed fee that would be competitive with or less than the cost of the inside lawyer). The Wired GC… Continue Reading
New Book by Ron Baker: Pricing On Purpose
Posted in Hourly Rates and AlternativesThanks to Michelle Golden at Golden Practices for her discussion of Ron Baker’s new book, Pricing on Purpose. The book is available here. Baker is a thought leader in the area of value pricing, and I have rarely seen Michelle as worked up about a topic as she is in her post of the book. … Continue Reading
Emasculating Chief Marketing Officers Is Not A Good Thing
Posted in Leadership and ManagementThere seems to be a spate of examples of leadership failures and successes. Having provided an example of bad leadership and one of good leadership, here is another example of bad leadership. Thanks to Larry Bodine for this recent example in Larry Bodine’s Legal Marketing Blog. I left Larry a note–I would love to know… Continue Reading
Revisit Tom Kane’s Top Ten Marketing List
Posted in Client ServiceTom Kane of Legal Marketing Blog kindly picked up on a couple of my recent posts and weaved them together in a way that had not occurred to me, but which makes great sense. In the course of his post, he referred to his Top Ten Marketing Tips, which I did not recall reading. So… Continue Reading
Good Leadership Story
Posted in Leadership and ManagementI’ve been writing more about leadership and execution lately because they are essential factors for success. Bruce MacEwen at Adam Smith, Esq. has a good post about Clifford Chance’s Peter Cornell that talks about these factors.
The One Question To Ask Clients When Doing Satisfaction Surveys
Posted in Client Surveys and AuditsI’ve written several times about client surveys. For example, here and here. The case for conducting client surveys is so compelling that its hard to believe that there are firms that don’t do them, let alone that the majority of firms don’t do them. I saw from this post by Dan Hull that his firm… Continue Reading
You have to work hard to get the “Eye-sparkle factor”
Posted in Leadership and ManagementTom Peters regularly speaks and writes about the importance of talent. In his book Sixty, Tom writes in point 24 that “he/she who has the . . . best roster . . . rules.” A year ago, Tom told this story: Some people’s eyes have an engaging, infectious “sparkle.” Some don’t. Hire [only?] those who… Continue Reading
The Value Of Vigorous Debate
Posted in Leadership and ManagementI’ll admit it: I was a high school and college debater. Those were formative years and many lessons I learned have stayed with me. Perhaps the most important is the value of vigorous debate. Looking for ways to defeat your colleagues’ arguments. We believed that if an argument could survive our practice, it had an… Continue Reading
Four Realities of Value Based Pricing–The Second Reality
Posted in Hourly Rates and AlternativesIn November, I began a discussion of value-based pricing. I had clipped a piece that discussed the “four realities” of value pricing but had omitted to clip the name of the author. I now know that it was Mike McLaughlin of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants. Now that I can attribute the material to Mike, I’d… Continue Reading
Invitation To Ralph Palumbo To Join Blogosphere
Posted in Client Service, Trends and InnovationsFrom time to time, I have the opportunity to provide examples of great client service or innovative thinking in the area. Today, I want to highlight the work of Ralph Palumbo of the The Summit Law Group in Seattle. The firm has a great story to tell: We formed Summit Law Group to revolutionize the… Continue Reading
NBA Centers Illustrate The Value Of Being Big
Posted in Client Service, Selection of counselThe Greatest American Lawyer has a very interesting post titled “Being Big Provides No Intrinsic Value To The Client At All.” GAL posits this question: So what value is there to the client in being big? Oh sure, big law has developed a method to bill clients more hours and to drive its own internal… Continue Reading