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Legal Commentary

In Search of Perfect Client Service

Why Lawyers Seem To Stumble. Blawg from attorney Patrick Lamb

Post Frequency: 1.8/day

Last Entry: March 17, 2011 at 16:14:07

DejaVu all over: bad habits are hard to break

Posted on November 20, 2009
ACC's Susan Hackett just posted Are Firms Tone Deaf? Why Push For Rate Increases In 2010? Almost exactly one year ago, I asked the same question in my post The Economy And Rate Increases: Someone Is Not Listening. I had raised the issue in early October 2008...

Are best practices really best?

Posted on November 19, 2009
Law firms frequently strive to identify and adapt "best practices" in whatever area is under examination. I used to think that this approach was laudable. Not anymore. The Harvard Business Review just posted Why Do We Ignore Best Practices?, which suggests some reasons why companies (firms) ignore best practices...

Richard Susskind interviews Rio Tinto Managing Attorney: A Look Into The Future?

Posted on November 17, 2009
During today's panel discussion with Richard Susskind, he mentioned that he had recorded an interview with Leah Cooper, the Managing Attorney of Rio Tinto. Fantastic discussion of Rio Tinto's outsourcing of a significant amount of work. Well worth a listen.

WOW! Jordan Furlong joins Edge International!

Posted on September 30, 2009
There is no bigger fan of Edge International than yours truly, and I've written before about my admiration for Edge's outstanding work. I've also written of my admiration for Jordan Furlong, author of the brilliant Law21.ca blog. Today I learned that Jordan has joined Edge's outstanding team...

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Ron Baker's Lean Rebuttal. Pat's comments

Posted on September 27, 2009
Ron Baker posted a long critique of the discussion on Lean. I wanted to comment on some of his arguments, so I have copied the post its entirety. My comments appear in caps within the body of Ron's post below. Forgive this unorthodox approach, but it is the only way to create the proper context without a lot of unnecessary movement from one post to the next...

Forms of Address: Personal or Impersonal?

Posted on September 26, 2009
I received an email yesterday that began "Hi Patrick J." It caused a flashback to my childhood. When my mother was angry with me, she called me Patrick J. When she was really ticked off, she called me Patrick John. And when it was certain she was going to whip my sorry behind, it was all three names, Patrick John Lamb...

Lean Discussion Very Insightful

Posted on September 24, 2009
Certain posts from In Search Of Perfect Client Service are posted on the Legal On Ramp discussion board. The comments by fellow "rampers" on my two recent posts on Lean, Lean Client Service and Update on Lean: Ron Baker Takes Issue have been so interesting that I am taking the liberty of posting them here; From Anthony Kearns, National Risk Manager for the Legal Practitioners Liability Committee (LPLC), a non-profit statutory insurer that provides first layer professional indemnity insurance to Australian law firms: Patrick, Kudos on bringing up Ron...

Update on Lean: Ron Baker takes issue

Posted on September 22, 2009
Ron Baker is one of the leading thinkers on the issue of value billing. I take what he says very seriously. In response to my previous post on Lean Client Service, Ron posted a comment. Because comments tend to get buried or lost, I wanted to share his comment and offer a further thought...

Walking and chewing gum. At the same time.

Posted on September 22, 2009
I was listening to NPR today. There was a story about how Congress could not work on climate change legislation because it was focused on the health care debate. It reminded me of a time when I asked a colleague if we could schedule a meeting to discuss a new case, only to be told that the lawyer was not available for the next month because he was writing a brief...

And This Is How PR Works

Posted on September 18, 2009
Earlier today, I wrote about the "efforts" of Reed Smith, Mayer Brown and O'Melveny to "transform" themselves by offering their clients alternative fees. The reality is that the firms weren't really doing anything. They simply had formed committees to look at alternative fees...

BigLaw dipping its little toe in alternative fees

Posted on September 18, 2009
A lot of people have been wondering whether we had reached a "tipping point" on alternative fees and there is some evidence that we have. You see, when BigLaw starts talking the talk, it means they are playing catch-up. In the past few days, if you believe the headlines, Reed Smith, Mayer Brown ("Mayer Brown and Reed Smith set to champion fixed fees")and O'Melveny ("new business model") have all made the jump...

Lean Client Service

Posted on September 18, 2009
Wikipedia defines "lean" this way: Lean manufacturing or lean production, which is often known simply as "Lean", is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination...

Valorem's Advisory Board Experience Rocks

Posted on September 17, 2009
Valorem created an Advisory Board in May. The first meeting of the Advisory Board was Tuesday. It was well-attended (7 of 10) and was incredibly valuable. There really should be a better adjective--it was that good. We are so very thankful to our Board for their time and input...

What Do Clients Pay For Certainty? Is It Worth It?

Posted on September 02, 2009
When speak before groups that include in-house lawyers or business people, I always ask at what level of certainty business decisions are made. The answers tend to range from 40% to 60%. There have been lower numbers, but I can't recall any that were higher...

Short Legal Communications

Posted on September 02, 2009
A couple of days ago, I wrote a post about lawyers refusing to take a position on something. I've gotten a lot of nice comments on ...and on the other hand ... and wanted to follow up with a short but important point. When you figure out what your real point is, the one hand you want the client to know about, express yourself succinctly...

Stuart Chanen joins Valorem!

Posted on September 01, 2009
I am thrilled to be able to share with the world that Stuart Chanen has joined Valorem! Stuart is an incredibly accomplished litigator and adds immeasurably to our strength and creativity. Here is the press release we issued a short while ago: Stuart J...

Are alternative fees like teenage sex? Find out.

Posted on September 01, 2009
I love this article. Not because it mentions my friend and client, Jeff Carr (it quotes him liberally). Not because it mentions Valorem (it does). Not even because it ends by quoting my tweet (it does). I love it because of this sentence: "Alternative fee arrangements are like teenage sex...

Former BigLaw Insider Poses Challenge For BigLaw Leaders: Hold Yourselves Accountable

Posted on August 31, 2009
Accountability 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?...

If all lunches were like this ...

Posted on August 31, 2009
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...

The Leadership Gap

Posted on August 31, 2009
My 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...

Jay Shepherd Reveals Secrets To Flat Fee Pricing

Posted on August 28, 2009
Jay 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...

Jim Calloway: BigLaw billing practices will NOT return to normal

Posted on August 27, 2009
Well 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...

GCs: Mine your data!

Posted on August 27, 2009
Interesting 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...

Rob Millard's Insights Into The Future Of Law

Posted on August 27, 2009
Rob 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...

....and on the other hand ...

Posted on August 27, 2009
Mike 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...

I am honored to be a Legal Rebel

Posted on August 26, 2009
The 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 that entered it...

DataCert To Host Seminars on AFAs: Yours Truly Speaking

Posted on August 25, 2009
Yesterday'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...

Urgency Borne of Panic Is Not Healthy

Posted on August 25, 2009
John 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 leadership and change is in Inc...

The WSJ article on hourly rates and real change

Posted on August 25, 2009
But 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 every engagement, but aren't these steps in the right direction? All the writing I've read on shift to fixed fee billing suggests it's hard, and there will be missteps along the way...

In The War Between Easy and Effective, Effective Should Win

Posted on August 24, 2009
I 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...

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