In Search of Perfect Client Service

Valorem's website is now live.  I really haven't had to put together a website before--it is a lot harder than I imagined.  Anyway, we are trying to be clear about our message and communicate a bit more personality than the ordinary law firm website.  I'm too close to the thing to know if we achieved our objectives.  I would certainly welcome any feedback anyone has to offer.

We were guided in large measure by Sonny Cohen and Jeff Kenny at Duo Consulting.  Duo provided a lot of really constructive input in very positive and upbeat ways.  Needless to say, a lot of the site's good qualities are attributable to Duo.  The shortcomings belong to me.

Thanks in advance who care to share thoughts, reactions and comments.

| 3 Comments | Permalink |

Well, we  just finished our first full week.  Its already been a wild ride.

I don't intend to have ISOPCS become a diary reporting on the events of Valorem Law Group, but VLG is, in many respects a Client Service laboratory where we are seeking to push the client service envelope.  But I wanted to use this space to acknowledge the many emails and calls we have received wishing us well and applauding our experiment.  We already received extensive coverage in the print  media and online.  For an example of the former, check out this story from the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.  For an example of the latter, check on this story in the National Law Journal (web only; subscription required). 

We are deeply appreciative the good wishes and favorable comments so many have offered. 

But its just one week, and there is much left to do.  Actually, "much" is a dramatic understatement.  I'm off now and will be back soon.

| 0 Comments | Permalink |

Not Gerry.  Raquel.

Let me explain.

Gerry was in Chicago yesterday, so we planned dinner as is our habit when he is visiting.  He called to tell me his daughter Raquel was in town.  "Would I mind if she joined us."  "Of course not.  Gerry and I got to the restaurant first and were having a beverage.  When Raquel walked in, every eye in the joint was on her.  I am sure you can understand why.

 Raquel is an actress and a model, but clearly her father's daughter in terms of her intellect, intellectual curiosity and creativity.  I learned during our dinner that she also is a "Hometown Hottie," having advanced to the semi-finals in Maxim magazine's contest.

So here's the challenge for the legal blogging community:  We need to rally votes for Raquel!.  You can see how deserving she is, but when you add the sass and the personality, you've got a young woman who deserves to get to the finals!  Here's where to go to cast your vote--visit the sight often and vote as often as you like (it's a Chicagoan's dream election!)

Vote for Raquel here.

Raquel has been in a number of TV shows and has some movie credits too.  She was the star of "Killer Bash", playing the role of Becky Jeckyl.  One reviewer wrote ' For an independent film without much hype, Killer Bash was greatly entertaining and Raquel Riskin is a great new actress.

Gerry is very proud of all of his children.   And like any proud parent, he would love to see his daughter succeed in this contest.  I'd love to see her succeed too.  I also think it would be interesting to test the real power of the legal blogosphere.  So here's my proposal.  Post about this yourself--let's get the "VOTE RAQUEL" movement publicized as far and wide as the legal blogosphere can reach.  Let's make the movement viral.

| 0 Comments | Permalink |

  My family and I are enjoying a long weekend at our lake home in Stevensville, Michigan.  I've been playing with a new digital camera.  These two shots are from the top of our bluff overlooking scenic Lake Michigan.  I wish you all a happy 4th of July!

| 2 Comments | Permalink |

This is off topic, but I couldn't resist.  Ran across this quote from Thomas Jefferson: "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."

Notwithstanding the proclaimed allegiance to the wishes of the founding fathers (and Jefferson qualifies, doesn't he?), the war on terror is used to justify the abrogation of any freedom, the infringement of any right, the assertion of any power. 

America is the land of the free.  Nobody ever said freedom is easy.  But if you abandon freedoms just because you're attacked, hasn't the other guy already won?

| 0 Comments | Permalink |

But without the fanfare associated with Michael Jordan's return to the Bulls on March 18, 1995.

But still, I've been away from this blog for a while.  For those interested, it was time for some introspection.  So while I haven't been writing, I have been thinking and reading, and thinking some more.  I wonder where our profession is going.  I wonder where our country is going, and what part lawyers have played in its current bitterly partisan divide.  I've been wondering when winning elections and building majorities became more important than finding solutions.

I have found no answers, save for one.  As a profession, we are failing.  Failing our clients, but more importantly, failing ourselves.  And the real question for me is what am I going to do about it.  That answer remains to be determined.

As far as this blog goes, I hope it will continue to earn many of the compliments that people have offered to it during its year plus existence.

| 1 Comments | Permalink |

If you're reading this,you have found your way to my new URL. Thank you! If you have been kind enough to list me on your blogroll, I would be most appreciative if you would note the change on your blog.

Please let me know what you think of the new look!

| 8 Comments | Permalink |

Thanks (I think) to my friend Dan Hull for tagging me for the "4 Things" series of questions.  Kind of fun to think of all of them except for figuring out 4 people to tag at the end.  Here goes!

Four Jobs I've Had.

1.  Overhead crane operator at General Motors plant  2.  Paralegal at Kirkland & Ellis  3. Truck loader at General Cold Storage Warehouse  4.  Writing Instructor at Michigan Law School

4 movies I can watch over and over

• Kill Bill 1 and 2
• The Quiet Man
• The Godfather
• Caddyshack

4 TV Shows I love To Watch

• Seinfeld reruns
• The New Yankee Workshop
• Monday Night Football
• ER

4 Places I've Been On Vacation

• Hiking in the Canadian Rockies (Banff)
• Istanbul
• Ireland
• San Diego

4 songs playing in my head

• Walk The Line (saw the movie, the song stuck)
• Heart of the Matter (Don Henley)
• You're still the one (Shania Twain)
• Don't Know Much (Ronstadt and Neville)

4 favorite dishes

• Macademia crusted Halibut with bananas  (Peohe's, Coronado Island)
• Broiled asparagus w/ blue cheese (Barbara Lamb)
• Pan fried Lake Michigan perch (me)
• Maggiano's Chopped Salad

4 websites I visit daily

• Tom Peters
• What About Clients
• Adam Smith Esq.
• Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices

4 books I'd grab in an earthquake

• Trinity
• Something by CS Lewis
• How to survive an earthquake
• The Bourne Supremecy

4 places I would rather be

• on a cruise in the Mediterrean
• Gerry Riskin's home in Anguilla
• flyfishing
• standing in front of a jury closing

4 Bloggers I'm tagging

• Gerry Riskin
• Matt Homann
• Bruce MacEwen
• The Wired GC

| 0 Comments | Permalink |

Greetings from Tucson, Arizona, where it is sunny and a delightful 68 degrees.  By contrast, Chicago, which I left on Friday for this brief vacation, had a high of 8 degrees on Saturday, and a low of -7 degrees.  Brrrrrrr.

As someone who is constantly "searching" (in my case, for perfect client service), I thought it would be useful to search for a common theme underlying what we do.  I asked my son for help.

We tried other tools as well.

    Here's what we learned. 

Our blawgs are about .  We share our ideas with clients and others in order to stimulate thought and dialogue.  The discourse that follows strengthens our ideas.  With that, here are some blawg posts that reflect creativity, thought, provocation, stimulation.

Let me begin by mentioning two people I spent time with this past week.  Gerry Riskin, author or Amazing Firms Amazing Practices provides a global perspective on the diversity challenge faced by law firms around the world.  Michelle Golden, who writes Golden Practices, provided some great career advice for marketers.

Matt Homann at the [non]billable hour is the source of two terrific posts, one direct from Matt and one from his guest blogger Ron Baker.  In his own right, Matt provided a Great Client Brainstorming Tip.  Matt's guest blogger Ron Baker authored a very provocative post positing that Attorneys Aren't Knowledge Workers.  Or are they?  Kudos to Matt for extending the invitation to Ron Baker, a giant in the area of Value Billing.

While almost every post from Dennis Kennedy prompts a great deal of thought, his retrospective look at blogging "What Would I Do Differently If I Started Blogging Today?" provides lessons for bloggers of levels of experience. Taking from from the blawg world to the real one, Ernie the Attorney continues his posts on the difficult road to recovery for his beloved New Orleans with the good news that the Jazz Fest is going forward in late April and early May. Every time I read Ernie's first hand accounts of the city's recovery, I am reminded to count my blessings.

The Greatest American Lawyer continues his challenge to orthodoxy with his post on integrating skype into his arsenal.  And my friend Dan Hull who authors the aptly named What About Clients continues his periodic challenge to all of us to write better.  Dan also had a wonderful post on negativity in the profession, engagingly captioned Law Profession Negativity In All Its Forms, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Half Full Cups, Defendants.  JS Logan with some nice insights on customer satisfaction .

In his Legal Marketing Blog, Tom Kane weighs in this week with some additional thoughts on the very important topic of client satisfaction interviews.  It is such an important topic that every entry that makes you think about it is very important. Nathan Burke asks us to consider whether our law firm web sites inspire client confidence in a terrific lawfirmblogging post. Kevin Thompson at Cyberlaw Central raises a truly profound question about detecting the tone of our emails, a question of great significance to client service. In that same vein, mediator Diane Levin, author of MediationNewsOnline, asks us to look at our emails in her post Architect or Arsonist: using email to build not burn bridges.  And on a macro level, Bruce MacEwen of Adam Smith, Esq. asks the extraordinarily provocative question "Do You Have A Chief Strategy Officer?" In a compelling manner, he then analyzes the importance of being able to answer that question affirmatively. Bruce also weighs in with the must-read post What P & G Teaches.  The story reveals how business is changing the internal value placed on managers competing with one another and focusing instead on the value of collaboration.  In the eat-what-you-kill world of law firm compensation, the moral of the story should challenge convention.

David Maister, new to the blogging world but long a leader in the world of thinking, posted a reprise of something he wrote a while ago, but timeless and inspiring. The post in his Passion, People and Principles is entitled, simply, The Managing Partner's Speech.  Many of us would love to work for a partner who was able to give the speech genuinely.

In the world of ideas from the substantive law arena, check out this post from the Health Care Law Blog asking "Should Consumers of Health Care Have More Rights To Protect Their Medical Information? " Tough question. (By the way, kudos to Bob Coffield for his work as host of last week's Blawg Review).  From The Trademark Blog comes this analysis of how Opposition to DYKES ON BIKES Opens A Pandora's Box in that realm. Also in the trademark world comes this from Likelihood Of Confusion: Trademark McCrisis? (Or McArabia).  Kevin Thompson of Cyberlaw Central provides this summary of an important cyberlaw case in Domain name dispute: Digital Telemedia, Inc. vs. C.I. Host, Inc.   The case involves a recent domain name dispute where the Plaintiff lost its bid to have a domain name transferred on a summary judgment motion.  It's interesting because one of the Defendants has prior common law rights, but the actual use of the domain name may still have been infringing.  Professor Stephen Bainbridge asks a question most CEOs hope is answered affirmatively--Is SOX Unconstitutional?--in his Professor Bainbridge.com.

The general world of blogging is chock full of ideas.  Check out this post in Scobleizer about search engine lies.  The title is way cool:  Brrreeeport crazy and more search engine lies.  Thanks to last week's host Bob Coffield for submitting this, along with this comment:

I thought you might want to mention Robert Scoble's interesting experiment using Technorati tags and a fictitious term "Brrreeeport". It shows how one person can impact the way search is done on the internet. It has been the top search/tag on Technorati all week long. Also you might want to include a reference and a technorati tag to brrreeeport in blawg review since it will then get picked up and get some air time online. I've gotten a number of hits to my blog just by posting the quick post that is attached to this submission.

In the food for thought, weirdness category, check out this post from f/k/a.  I, for one, do not ever want to be "weird tagged."

Its always nice to end with a question, so I look again to JS Logan. Check out his post Making Sense of What, Why, And How.  Which of those questions is most important?

Finally, a thought about US--the blawggers of the world.  I read many, many posts to prepare this review.  My reaction?  Wow!  There are an awful lot of smart, thoughtful people out there.  My emphasis is on the smart and thoughtful, but check out this post about the "lot" part of my reaction--from Bill Gratsch at Blawg.org.  Now look at the future in this Concurring Opinion post. The quality of our ideas will be a significant factor in the future of blawging.

Ideas, the spice of life.  So long from sunny and warm Tucson.  In a couple of hours, I'll be back in the cold Windy City.

| 1 Comments | Permalink |

Hilarious 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 law degree, one year at Oxford, own money and people skills. Must be able to sell anything to anyone. And be originally from Hope, Arkansas. State government experience not required but preferred. United Nations experience also a big plus. You don't need to re-locate. Happy to set up the office for you. Wherever you want. Harlem or Chappaqua is okay. Or DC. You decide. You can work out of your house. Whatever. NOTE: No previous private law practice experience necessary. Not a problem--no problem at all. Excellent benefits package.

So I start thinking--Bill Clinton and client service.  The possibilities are endless.  But too easy.  So I'll refrain. But let your mind run wild. 

| 0 Comments | Permalink |

My 4 kids are counting the minutes until Santa's arrival.  Their bedtime announces the beginning of my "assembly period."  It is a fun time, producing many special memories.  I hope all of you experience similar special moments this holiday season.  Merry Christmas from all the Lambs.

| 0 Comments | Permalink |

Good writing is good writing.  Or is it.  Dan Hull had a terrific post on how we write for our clients.   I posted a comment, suggesting good writing knew no venue, and it shouldn't matter whether the writing was a pleading or a letter.  Or, as I just posted, an invoice.  Communications are effective when they are clear, concise and direct.

Dan has just responded to my comment with another very thoughtful post.  In this post, he notes that the norm in many courts is to use enough legalese to fill a truck.  After considering the value of piecemeal change, he issues this challenge to himself and the rest of us: 

"Doesn't changing legal writing to just clear and simple writing come down to to leadership? Maybe I should start setting a better example. Why not buck the traditions 100%--whether it's writing to courts, to clients or to other lawyers--and never use those expressions again? Ever."

That sound you hear coming from my office is loud clapping.  A standing ovation for Dan.  Hooray!  I will be with you every step of the way.

Actually, a confession.  I practice in a lot of different states. I can't remember all the terms some courts get their kicks from.  I don't know what a demurrer is, but I do know what a motion to dismiss is.  So I use words I know.  A simple mind yields simple writing.  I'm lucky in that respect.

| 1 Comments | Permalink |

I watched Discovery lift off yesterday.  The explosion into the sky no longer seemed routine.  I heard this morning that there are concerns about lost heat shield tiles.  Join me in praying for a successful flight and a safe return home.

| 0 Comments | Permalink |

Happy Fathers Day to all Dads out there.  Today is worth a second or two to remember the important place our kids have in our lives.  Give 'em a hug and let them know. 

| 0 Comments | Permalink |

Every football season, you hear about players who have arthroscopic knee surgery and then return to play two weeks later.  It doesn't seem to be that big a deal.  Well, I had my knee 'scoped on Monday.  All I can say is that it is a miracle that these guys can run and tackle and so forth in two weeks time.  I am fortunate that my parents are visiting for a week-I stole my Dad's cane just so I can walk around the house!  Actually, "walking" is too charitable a description of what I am doing.  Its an ugly picture, and I'll save you from it.

| 0 Comments | Permalink |

Lawyers, it seems, can't do anything right.  Our marketing, for the most part, is early 20th century.  Most of us rely on a financial system (hourly billing) that places our economic interests at odds with those of our clients.  And as a group, we generally fail to satisfy our clients and very few of us engender the kind of client or customer loyalty that businesses prize.

This blog exists to address the issues that keep our profession in the backwoods. There are many issues that directly or indirectly influence client service,from firm cultures to billing methods, from client focus to comprehending client business objectives.  All will be grist for the mill.

| 0 Comments | Permalink |