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January 18, 2011
Small, Medium-Sized and Start-Up Clients are a Miserable, Demeaning and Tortuous Hell.
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That Walker's well-credentialed law firm specializes in that work, apparently without morning drinking, Ludes, Thorazine, Ether or routine institutionalizations of its lawyers, makes us think things through a bit more.
For about 12 years, our firm has shied away from representing start-ups--even those run by savvy entrepreneurs with past successes and big bucks. To be more precise, until very recently, we have routinely run from them.
Reason: Start-ups are rarely sophisticated users of legal services. Same for individual, Mom-and-Pop and "SME" clients.
They cannot distinguish between, say, a David Boies or James Freund, and JoJo the Demented Car Accident Lawyer.
Although often creative and way fun, start-up people and other smaller clients are moreover (a) paranoid about lawyers ("lawyers are all alike and our enemy"), (b) flat-out cheap and/or (c) too wild and crazy to listen to us.
But we have been wrong about many things. Here's a gem from earlier this year at Venture Hacks, guest-authored by Scott Walker, a Los Angeles-based lawyer with a solid background, and an interesting and relatively new boutique firm focusing on start-up clients. It's called "Top 10 Reasons Why Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers".
My favorites: No. 5. "Because they spend too much time on insignificant issues”. And No. 1--but you'll have to see for yourself.
Like the undersigned, Walker's a transplant to Southern California from the East and still keeps offices back there. He even mentions Skadden M&A legend and author James Freund. Freund's now decades-old classic on "lawyering" was required reading for new associates in the D.C. office I worked in at my old firm, marked the first time anyone married client service to substantive practice, and (unfortunately) would still seem revolutionary to most lawyers practicing today.
Walker also cites my talented friend Tom Kane, the lawyer-consultant who I had the honor to meet in late 2008.
So I was intrigued. There is hardly anything in Walker's post with which I disagree. None of its content is new to my firm or this blog. But it is written from the viewpoint of clients I generally think are without a clue about evaluating legal services. We do appreciate Walker's piece is in part a marketing exercise--but what isn't?
(My post here and others at this blog imply that if you are an experienced and take-charge GC from a publicly-traded company, please call; if you are not, don't even think about it.)
While I still think of working for start-ups as a miserable and tortuous hell, the post and the related fact that Walker's credentialed law firm specializes in that work--apparently without morning drinking, Thorazine, or routine institutionalizations of its lawyers--makes us re-think things. Nicely done.
(Originally appeared Feb. 24, 2010)
Posted by JD Hull at January 18, 2011 11:59 PM
Comments
I heard that. And I'll get even.
Posted by: JoJo The Demented Car Accident Lawyer at January 18, 2011 02:28 AM
I Love You. I really do. I would even buy you flowers and dinner. Thanks to you I now have a working blog.
Posted by: bucknell university at January 19, 2011 12:40 PM
That's good. What are you doing later on? Age? How much do you weigh?
Posted by: Hull at January 19, 2011 01:22 PM