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May 11, 2009
The Scramble for Value.
Susan Hackett, general counsel of the ACC, says the new approach to value is necessary because law firms had become so expensive that their fees often outstripped the value of the problem they were brought in to resolve.
The scramble for value, the debate on new models, the future of law firms--the discussion needs a touchstone. There are lots of ways to provide value to higher-end clients: hourly fees, not hourly fees, and hybrids, new firm business models, and all manner of "paradigm-shifts". But WAC? still maintains that they begin and end with customer (lawyers call them "client") relationships.
And Trust. Trust is the place of definitions for all service providers--not just for lawyers.
Anyway, here's one (via Canada's often-prescient Jordan Furlong at Law21) worth reading we missed two weeks ago from Penn's Wharton School: "Legal Strategy 101: It's Time for Law Firms to Re-think Their Business Model". A thoughtful and competent article, if a bit "lawyer-centric". I think we should just get used to it. Lawyers are not special. We are servants, if often well-paid ones.
Billing models, partnership structures, staffing alternatives, the care and feeding of associates, firm culture, collegiality--they mean nothing unless designed and maintained for clients' day-to-day needs. We are not royalty. We serve. We anticipate, prevent and solve client problems. Nothing more. Can we focus more on the real deal: the Art of the Client. What else is there?
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
Simple Priorities: Clients First, Lawyers Second.
We work hard, play hard, enjoy life to its fullest. We just don't do so at the expense of the people who put their trust in us. The Slackoisie can't comprehend this as being possible; pleasure is on their terms or can't possibly exist.
--SHG, May 11, 2009
Work-Life. Life-Work. Work as Optional. Lawyer Training as Watered-Down. Work as a Privilege. Work as Important. Clients as The Touchstone? Or is it: Law Firms and their Employees as the Main Event? Stylize Mediocrity? Well, why not? Just make mailing-it-in part of the new U.S. lawyer culture in the middle of a recession. Lawyers might really like it.
That's the New Program, isn't it?
Well, WAC? is very confused. Before we (1) lose our bearings, (2) get a life, or (3) blow a jurisdictional deadline today because it was inconvenient for us to meet it, we will certainly reread Scott Greenfield's radical pro-client (weird, eh?) opus at Simple Justice in "The Slackoisie Fight Back".
Last week in Chicago, Greenfield attended the heavily GC-attended SuperConference by InsideCounsel magazine--spearheaded by Summit Media's hard-working and artful Sheila Brennan. There, at the staid Chicago Fairmont, Greenfield apparently just lost it, and blew, as it were, a tube. He was, and still is, messing up the "Work-Life Balance Movement" for a lot of people. And in particular he is putting the hurt on those who, ironically, are most passionate about Work when they argue for the right not to do it. Can Greenfield be stopped? At least muzzled? Some people. Get the net.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:00 AM | Comments (1)