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November 30, 2006
Get Lean, Talented and Hunt BigClients.
Now, and in the future, size may matter--but only if you are smaller, agile, muscular and can do most (90%) of the work traditionally done by large law firms (250-3000+ lawyers). Smaller firms, for most GCs on most projects, will be (a) preferred and (b) cool. Bigger firms, for most GCs on most projects, will be (a) suspect and (b) not cool. So below, per our usual rant, are 7 WAC? posts since June on why and how you can have BigClients in a boutique (5-150) setting if you have the people, a true client service culture and the discipline to keep it:
Real Elitism: Toward Building A Client-Centric Culture (6/10/06)
SRO: "Stealing and Keeping BigLaw Clients" (7/28/06)
"Give Me Your Tired, Your Rich Abused Fortune 500
Clients." (8/5/06)
Do BigClients need BigLaw more than 10% of the time? (9/22/06)
Work-life balance is a dumb-ass issue. (10/20/06)
GCs: Do you really want Big, Clumsy & Unresponsive in 50 cities worldwide? (10/21/06)
In Praise of Structure (10/30/06)
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Tell me again: GCs want what?
Corporate counsel keep telling us, pretty consistently, what they want from my firm and yours. It's trust, value and a willingness, to echo my friend Colin Samuels, to "put skin in the game". Good GCs don't like risk-averse weenies; they want to know what you think, and whether you'll be willing to take a hit with them. See this nice post and interview excerpts from Amy Campbell's Web Log, called "What Drives Corporate Counsel in Their Relationship with Outside Counsel?". And a quick note here that my friend Patrick Lamb and Hildebrandt International were kind enough to invite me to be on a truly blue-ribbon panel of bloggers and thinkers for the 14th Annual Marketing Partner Forum on January 25th, 2007. We'll discuss how modern technology can help meet the needs of general counsel, and how to reinforce existing relationships and generate new leads using technology. The panel includes Thomas Baldwin, Larry Bodine, David Bowerman, Dennis Kennedy, Pat Lamb, and J. Craig Williams.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:18 AM | Comments (0)