I recently read about a General Counsel breathing a sigh of relief regarding his ability to navigate the new economic reality by securing 25% discounts on hourly rates from his outside counsel. That sounds good, but there are two things that should temper that sigh of relief. First, it is not sustainable. At some point,
Commentary
George Floyd, and our patriotic duty to protest: what it means to me
By Patrick Lamb on
Posted in Commentary
This is personal. It is has nothing to do with law, and nothing to do with customer experience. It has to do with my heart. But mostly, it has to do with my soul. I write to assemble thoughts, to test the coherence of my thinking–an internal check–and to invite others to comment, dispute, debate,…
The Next Normal: Is There a Roadmap That Gets Us There?
By Patrick Lamb on
We have to change the way we think about change. To get to the Next Normal and succeed in that new era, we are going to have to change. A lot. As a profession, we are, to be honest, not very good at change. We have to become better. How we do so is the…
The Challenge of Reopening College Campuses
By Patrick Lamb on
Guest post by Philip Harris
Perhaps by Memorial Day, college presidents and their leadership teams will face what will likely be the most important decision of their collective tenures: when to open the dormitories and classrooms on their campuses following the COVID-19 crisis. Even though we are bombarded with new information each …
Higher Education Legal Departments and Cost Reduction
By Patrick Lamb on
Guest post, by Philip Harris
The current environment is spawning conversations about reducing costs as a means of responding to the loss of revenue that many businesses are experiencing. Many businesses already have laid off and furloughed employees and cut their compensation. No one seems to know how long this will last.
The pressure to…
The Next Normal: Moving from “Just Lawyers” to Multi-Professional Teams
By Patrick Lamb on
Law departments are not immune from the exceptionalism that pervades much of the legal industry. Lawyers, generally, think they are special. See here and here. And the problem is worse as lawyers get both older and more successful. I was fortunate to early on have an experience that vividly proved to me that despite…
The Next Normal: Prioritized Pricing
By Patrick Lamb on
I was born in Detroit and grew up in the heyday of the auto industry. So, when I first heard Ron Baker speak about Lee Iacocca, I listened with great interest. Iacocca was a Detroit icon, first for his trailblazing work for Ford and later for saving Chrysler. Ron set the stage: Chevrolet had created…
The Next Normal: Law Departments Learn to Prioritize Spend Based on Fundamental Investment Analysis
By Patrick Lamb on
Every day, businesses prioritize. They invest in one thing, not another. They fix one problem, but defer fixing another. The build one facility, but not another. They pursue one strategy to the exclusion of others. These decisions are almost always made based on some form of return-on-investment or cost-benefit analysis. ROI is coin-of-the-realm for operating…
The Next Normal
By Patrick Lamb on
From 2010 until 2016, I was a columnist for the online ABA Journal’s The New Normal column. I was invited to start the column as a result of the creation of Valorem Law Group in 2008. We started a law firm just before the Great Recession and because of the novel model and approach, we…
War is The Continuation of Politics by Other Means
By Patrick Lamb on
Heck of a title for a post about litigation, isn’t it? Bear with me for a few paragraphs and my point will be clear. I promise.
Before I go further, ask yourself why you don’t outsource problem solving for your own problems. Have you ever thought about going up to a random stranger and asking…