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January 13, 2006
"Who's Greener--Democrats or Republicans?"
Mainly for fun, I tried to answer the above question in an informal article with a surprising conclusion I wrote for the January-February Water & Wastewater Products Magazine as part of a bi-monthly column I write called "Waterlawged." One of my firm's practice areas is environmental law--especially Clean Water Act compliance and NPDES (National Pollution Discharge Elimination System, if you really want to know) permitting. Even if you or your clients are not directly involved with environmental or natural resources law compliance--and especially if you have an interest in American politics or what goes on in Congress--you might find "Who's Greener--Democrats or Republicans?" interesting. Or at least funny.
WWP Magazine, as dull as it sounds, has great writing and useful (if sometimes technical) content. Put out by Stevens Publishing in Dallas, it is the best clean water industry publication I have seen. And WWP is fast becoming the Vanity Fair or Women's Wear Daily of the environmental trade pub circuit. It seems to be in search of sober latter-day Hunter Thompsons and good writers with environmental credentials; the writing, of course, must be dead-on accurate. And funny is not required.
Posted by JD Hull at 09:16 PM | Comments (0)
Polling The Real Jury--"So Clients, How Are We Doing?"
Jim Hassett at Law Firm Business Development just finished the third of three excellent posts I've been reading--all on what I think of as client polling. Part 3 goes a little further and discusses the client service team concept, good for larger firms. I hope people pay attention to these. They are here, here and here.
Polling the degree of client satisfaction is a hard area. Methodology is everything here. I'm certainly not an expert--I have dragged my heels for a long time on developing a new way to do this which yields honest and useful answers. Most law firms, in my view, (1) don't have the will or the stomach to poll clients about what they really think, and (2) tragically, even when we do, we often do it the wrong way. From past experience, I don't think written responses work--particularly the multiple choice/check-the-box type. It should be face-to-face, as time-consuming as that is. Nor do I think it's a great idea, in many cases, to have someone in the firm conduct interviews. Using third parties known by the client not to be employees of the firm, while more expensive, is likely to get better (i.e., more honest) results.
Jim has done some great work here. It's comprehensive, well written, practical--and it fits any size firm.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)