It was my great fortune today to have lunch with Gerry Riskin and Rob Millard of Edge International, and my partner, Nicole Auerbach. Wow. Wow. Wow. I’m a huge fan of Edge. Gerry or Rob, alone, will inspire a great conversation, but together they ensure that the conversation will be eye-opening, mind-expanding and thought-provoking. But… Continue Reading
Monthly Archives: August 2009
The Leadership Gap
Posted in Commentary, Leadership and ManagementMy friend Ed Reeser has written extensively, in blogs, Legal On Ramp posts and articles, on leadership issues in law school. If you know Ed, you know that he is the kind of person who leads from the front and he is the kind of leader you love to follow wherever he goes. So when… Continue Reading
Former BigLaw Insider Poses Challenge For BigLaw Leaders: Hold Yourselves Accountable
Posted in CommentaryAccountability and law firm leadership (actually, management more accurately describes what goes on at most firms) are words rarely used in the same sentence, paragraph or conversation. I decried the lack of accountability last March in my post, Who Is Accountable For The Lack of Vision?. This morning’s AmLaw Daily contains a wonderful article by… Continue Reading
Jay Shepherd Reveals Secrets To Flat Fee Pricing
Posted in People, Places and BlawgsJay Shepherd hasn’t billed an hour since September 2006. In fact, no one at the Shepherd Law Group has. You read that right–the entire firm hasn’t billed an hour for 3 years. For those of you who don’t know Jay or haven’t read his blog, The Client Revolution, you’ve missed out. Shepherd Law Group is… Continue Reading
….and on the other hand …
Posted in CommentaryMike Roster, the head of the ACC Value Challenge and a former GC and outside lawyer, just relayed a story in a post on Legal On Ramp. Here’s the story: I once was at a board meeting with a director who had been a CEO of several major public companies. We had just heard a presentation… Continue Reading
Jim Calloway: BigLaw billing practices will NOT return to normal
Posted in People, Places and BlawgsWell known (and highly regarded) blogger Jim Calloway notes in a post on the billable hour debate that he’s "in the camp of those who believe law firm billing is now a matter of corporate focus and it is unlikely that large law firm billing practices will return to "normal" after the economy rights itself."… Continue Reading
GCs: Mine your data!
Posted in CommentaryInteresting post on Adam Smith Esq. about the billable hour debate really being about trust. Largely true. I envision the billable hour model to be akin to the relationship between prisoners and prison guards, with clients in the role of guards. Like prison guards forcing inmates to behave according to some set of standards and… Continue Reading
Rob Millard’s Insights Into The Future Of Law
Posted in People, Places and BlawgsRob Millard of Edge International has authored a fantastic article the "explores some of the changes in today’s world and how they might unfold, especially in the case of law firms." Rob begins his insights with this observation: The future is not what it used to be. In this turbulent 21st century, things change quickly… Continue Reading
I am honored to be a Legal Rebel
Posted in People, Places and BlawgsThe ABA’s Legal Rebels project was launched yesterday. Here’s the description of the project: The legal profession is not just struggling through a recession, but also undergoing a structural break with the past. There is a growing consensus that the profession that emerges from the recession will be different in fundamental ways from the one… Continue Reading
The WSJ article on hourly rates and real change
Posted in Commentary, Hourly Rates and AlternativesBut let’s not get to the point where we’re mocking folks who are trying to move in the "right" direction. At one point you say you can’t move from fish to fowl overnight, so don’t mock the baby steps. Maybe right now they don’t "get" that they need to squeeze out those 200 hours on… Continue Reading
Urgency Borne of Panic Is Not Healthy
Posted in Commentary, Leadership and ManagementJohn Kotter, author of A Sense Of Urgency and a professor at Harvard Business School. He is considered by many to be an authority on leadership and change. Those words are not spoken often in the context of the business of law, so it is not surprising that Kotter’s recent interview on the topic of… Continue Reading
DataCert To Host Seminars on AFAs: Yours Truly Speaking
Posted in People, Places and BlawgsYesterday’s Wall Street Journal article discussing corporations saving 15% on legal spend by using alternative fees makes DataCert’s announcement that it will be hosting seminars on Alternative Fees in Houston, Chicago and Silicon Valley all the more timely. The Houston program will be September 8, Chicago on September 22 and Silicon Valley on September 24. … Continue Reading
Mediation on the rise?
Posted in CommentaryLast week, I wrote about corporate America instructing its counsel to make litigation go away rather than spending money defending lawsuits. Perhaps one way it is doing this is by increasing the use of mediation. Mediation is a good investment of time and money, especially if you get a good mediator.
In The War Between Easy and Effective, Effective Should Win
Posted in CommentaryI am really annoyed. I just read a post at Above The Law, Under Attack, Should Billable Hour Be Concerned For Its Safety? The post concludes with this observation: It is easy to say that the billable hour doesn’t reward efficiency. And clients can demand fixed rate solutions if they want to. But right now… Continue Reading
Wall Street Journal Article Is Further Evidence Of Move Away From Billable Hour
Posted in Commentary, Hourly Rates and AlternativesThe front page of today Wall Street Journal contains an article, ‘Billable Hour’ Under Attack,that poses more questions than it answers. Amongst the useful insights: corporate spending on flat fees is up 50% over the same period last year corporations using flat fees are experiencing 15% average savings over those not using flat fees But… Continue Reading
Legal Community Veterans Continue Attack on Billable Hour
Posted in Commentary, Hourly Rates and AlternativesIn two separate articles, long-time law firm consultant Joel Henning and former GE GC Ben Heineman, Jr. and William Lee, co-managing partner of WilmerHale, have highlighted the plight of the profession borne of the billable hour and the model that creates a ponzie-scheme-like need for ever increasing revenue in law firms. Henning’s article, A… Continue Reading
BigLaw Still Facing Problems?
Posted in CommentaryAnecdotes first: A short while ago, I had lunch with a friend, a BigLaw partner. This partner’s firm had gone through two rounds of associate and staff layoffs, a round of partner reduction and some de-equitizations. According to this partner, more of each are on the near horizon, as in 2009 sometime. I heard similar… Continue Reading
War and Litigation Budgets
Posted in Hourly Rates and AlternativesMy friend Dan Hull at What About Clients? has an interesting post on litigation budgets. Here is Dan’s key point: War is the last of all things to go according to schedule. – Thucydides (460 BC – 395 BC) in The History of the Peloponnesian War. Bill Turner of Womble Carlyle recently wrote that… Continue Reading
“What happens if ….?”
Posted in Leadership and Management, People, Places and BlawgsI met Gini Dietrich on Twitter. Gini is the CEO of Arment Dietrich, a public relations firm in Chicago. Gini also is the primary author of the blog The Fight Against Destructive Spin. In a recent post, Gini, an avid cyclist, recounted how she had been riding along with fellow cyclists talking about the Bears. … Continue Reading
“Make this go away”: Corporate America’s New Take On Litigation
Posted in CommentaryThe online version of National Law Journal contains an interesting analysis of the impact the recession is having on how corporate America looks at litigation. In For Litigators, A Different Kind Of Recession,author Karen Sloan analyzes various data and surveys and reaches some interesting conclusions. Here is the critical part for me: A survey of… Continue Reading
Some Reflections On Client Service
Posted in Client Service, Client Surveys and Audits, CommentaryOver the weekend, I was cleaning out some old files on my computer and I ran across a slide show I had put together for a presentation on client service. I thought I would post them here. There were two over-arching points to the presentation that are worth reminding yourself of everyday: 1. You need… Continue Reading
Hourly Billing And The PEP Conundrum
Posted in CommentaryLet’s say you’re the managing partner of an AmLaw 200 firm. You’ve terminated associates and staff (using, of course, the kinder and gentler term "lay offs"), you’ve eliminated free coffee, taken tissues away from associates and staff (presumably you had the good grace to do this after all the layoffs), raised the amount people have… Continue Reading
Rain Today Publishes Lamb-Auerbach Article On Client Loyalty As By-Product Of Great Leadership
Posted in Commentary, People, Places and BlawgsNicole Auerbach and I were honored to be asked to author a chapter in a RainToday.com special report, The One Piece of Advice You Need to Earn Your Clients’ Loyalty. Our submission, Client Loyalty As A By-Product Of Firm Leadership, has received several positive comments on Twitter since the RainToday.com posting ("great leadership article"). … Continue Reading
Virtual Firms And The Future Of Law Practice
Posted in CommentaryVery interesting article in the Legal Technology section of law.com today, Does The Future Belong To Virtual Law Firms? The articles discusses how Virtual Law Partners secured a client that is incorporated in Delaware and based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and is represented by a VLP partner living in Cali, Columbia. Pretty cool. The article… Continue Reading