October 16, 2008
Law firm directories as lame and musts-to-avoid.
Read Larry Bodine's "Only 3% of Legal Work is Influenced by Directories". And see our August post "Martindale-Hubbell: Should we all 'just say no'?". Note: after "just say no" was written, Hull McGuire promptly re-upped with M-H anyway. Our hypocrisies have no bounds.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:45 PM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2008
The Recession: Don't compete on price--especially now.
No matter how your firm bills--hourly, "value", flat or a combination--don't lower the price for your firm's services, especially for new clients or to attract work. Don't lower rates, don't change anything. If a client comes to your firm for price, it will leave your firm for price.
Special mental health tip: if a new client demands a "discount", it is likely both unsophisticated and a pain in the ass; so refer it to that firm down the street you just never liked.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:18 PM | Comments (1)
September 17, 2008
In a down economy.
In July, Tom Kane, at his well-regarded Legal Marketing Blog, focused on marketing during "bad times". Once again:
Now, More Than Ever, Talk With Your Clients
Down Economy: Rainmakers Need Not Worry
Best Practices for the Down Economy
We add: (1) Stick to clients you have. (2) Make sure all employees buy into Client Service with the fervor of evangelists. (3) Consider today terminating uninspired or "looter" employees who add no value, starting with, first, the "Unwilling", and second, the "Unable" (in good times and bad times, it's either You or Them, and eventually they will do you in). (4) Hire lawyer-consultant Tom Kane, straight-up and fair.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2008
Redux: Budgeting litigation with the client.
[E]veryone can provide a budget. Everyone can live with a budget. The real questions are whether lawyers will agree to do so and whether clients will walk with their wallets when lawyers don't.
See Pat Lamb's short but fine piece on budgeting litigation costs with a client [August 21], a subject WAC? is always re-thinking but infrequently getting right. "The Lie of Litigation Budgeting" is at his respected In Search of Perfect Client Service--the site which inspired the launch of WAC? three years ago. Pat, one the few litigators we've known with a natural gift for law firm economics, started the Valorem firm in Chicago earlier this year.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 04:17 AM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2008
Jim Hassett: "Advances"
Moving the ball. Read Jim Hassett's "How to increase results by planning sales advances" at his Legal Business Development. In his live presentations and tapes, Jim talks convincingly on the need to "plan advances" while prospecting for new business--and how to do it.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
May 16, 2008
Rjon Robbins: Failing to win.
Whether you are hunting mega-large publicly-traded or mom-and-pop small ones, to land clients, maybe you should "double your rate of failure". See Thomas Watson's Formula for Success at HowToMakeItRain.com.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 12:59 AM | Comments (1)
May 05, 2008
In 2008, how are law firms getting and keeping clients?
Brian Ritchey at More Partner Income breaks down ALM's recent survey on how larger firms globally (about 75 on up) are developing business these days. One interesting point is that only about 50% of these larger firms have a system in place that include each of the following: client interviews, client care "teams" and sales training.
Note: The grumpy but inspiring Holden Oliver and I are happy to help. We need two days with your main team and, most importantly, an iron-clad commitment and plan from your Executive Committee on how you will build and keep a client service culture at your firm after we leave your conference room. Seminars without dogged follow-up that firm management "gets" and buys into won't cut it.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:04 AM | Comments (0)
May 02, 2008
"Yes, they have more money."
Associates are different. So do they really need to market? Back to marketing, selling, clients, serving clients, keeping clients, and keeping clients you like. In a gem we missed last October, our friend Jim Hassett notes that associates, with limited time for marketing, are different from you and I, Ernest.* Also see Jim's post this week: Self-test: How efficient are your business development tactics?, an exercise for partners and senior attorneys.
*From alleged and oft-quoted exchange between F. Scott Fitzgerald and his glib friend Ernest Hemingway.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 06:31 PM | Comments (0)
April 29, 2008
Specialization: What moves clients?
See Michelle Golden's article "Defining Who You Are and Who You Aren't = Specializing". And the winner is: "a limited number of really strong things for one group...". Read more.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2008
Jim Hassett: More on what's new in getting/keeping clients.
See Part 4 of Jim's "The most important trends in legal business development".
Posted by JD Hull at 02:09 PM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2008
Kane: Identify and keep the clients you "like".
While our own Holden Oliver's on one of his important-but-demented "I love rock n' roll and hate all things PC" and "alternative lifestyles of the famous" jags, see a great Tom Kane post re: keeping just the clients you want and "like". Rather than self-indulgent and pie-in-the-sky, this principle is both logical and, for corporate lawyers, a must for doing first-rate work. Life's short and practicing law is hard. And bad clients are poison. Rule 1 at WAC? is Represent Only Clients You "Like". See Tom's "Decide on Ideal Clients by Identifying Clients You Don't Want", in one of his most repeated and critical themes.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2008
The Trends: Client retention and development.
Customer loyalty is not dead. It's different. See Jim Hassett's five part series at Legal Business Development.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 05, 2008
Client Service Rule 12: Have Fun.
"It's supposed to be fun. American law is extremely varied, elastic and constantly presenting new practice areas--especially in the larger cities. It has something for everyone.... It's a privilege and joy to do what lawyers do when they do it right."
Posted by Holden Oliver at 12:40 AM | Comments (0)
March 04, 2008
Clients.
All we know so far: getting and keeping them.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2008
Originate!
Whether you're a senior partner in the NYC branch of a 3000+ lawyer firm, or a 27-year-old associate in a 10 lawyer shop in Moline, it's a new world out there. If you want to be a player, not to mention the proud owner of a little job security, you need good clients--which are hard to get and keep. Four months ago, and along with some like-minded friends, Larry Bodine, the highly respected lawyer-consultant, and a pioneer of blogs, started up Originate! - The Attorney Business Development Advisor. The February 2008 issue has loads of great materials and guest articles by some of the leading thinkers on client development out there--and it's practical stuff you can use. See, e.g., Larry's piece "Memo to Senior Partners: Motivate Younger Lawyers for Your Business's Sake" and Amy Spach's article re: an ACC initiative: "They Say They Want a Revolution: Reconnecting Legal Costs to Value Delivered". But you must subscribe, my friends--$35 this month is price of admission. That's a Deal. Thirty-five bucks to turn the key on maybe tens or hundreds of thousands or more in business? Are you nuts? Take it. (WAC? is a subscriber.) And do it before Larry and Co. raise their prices--because they can. If you don't believe us, see the September 2007 Issue--the first one--in its entirety.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2008
How to "market" at moments you don't "need" to market.
When "the cotton is high", you make a phone call today anyway. You do it even if you're uncomfortably busy with billable work. Yeah, it's hard to switch that gear and call when you are up to your ears in work. Hard to move into marketing mode even if you know the call will take only minutes. But make time four (4) times a week to make a call to a (a) sought-after client, (b) existing client or (c) "influential" person. Keep adding to the pipeline even though it seems like the work you have today will never end--because it will.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 10:22 AM | Comments (3)
January 30, 2008
"What should I do today to increase new business?"
If you have a passable blog called "What About Clients?", professional people give you "free stuff" to review. Good news: it's free, and it's almost always worthwhile material. Bad news: you practice law, run a business, travel, write straight non-blog pieces for mean editors and agents, and have an inventory of worthwhile free things to review for free. More bad news: you're a picky guy on client development ideas; you want to read and hear things that both work and serve as a "call to arms". Well, lately I've been both reading the books and listening to the audio portion of Jim Hassett's ambitious
The LegalBizDev Success Kit. I'll be writing about it more. There's lots to it but, for now, hear this. The man has thought through client development and retention from A to Z. The materials are presented so that even lawyers can understand. Your firm--whether it has 1 lawyer or 3000--has two choices: hire Jim as a consultant or buy the Success Kit. Got that? If you are like virtually all law firms on the subjects of (1) marketing, and (2) keeping your best clients from going to your competitors (i.e., marketing committee is well-meaning but complacent and/or clueless, and ignores firm's own marketing professionals), you need him or it.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
January 23, 2008
"Prospects"
At FreelanceSwitch, an excerpt from a book by Ilise Benun: "10 Things You Need to Know About Your Prospects".
Posted by Holden Oliver at 04:03 PM | Comments (1)
January 17, 2008
"Dumbing it all down: getting high-end clients".
Here. Even David Maister wrote that he liked Dan Hull's post on the subject when it first appeared on October 20. "We're not worthy, we're not worthy."
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2008
Get out of the Yellow Pages now.
It may sound counter-intuitive, but we continue to believe that the "Yellow Pages" and anything like it--i.e., people look up "lawyers" who do "[specialty]" and call your firm--brings on the worst possible headaches (and clients) for anyone who is doing or wants to do work for good companies. Even inexpensive name-specialty-phone number ads yield more trouble than they are worth. If you want sophisticated clients--and not "price-shoppers" who see lawyers as providing fungible services or commodities--unlist yourselves. But stay in the White Pages so clients who already know or have heard of you can find you.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)
January 09, 2008
Kane: Get out of the office and ask.
In "Procrastinators Unite", Tom Kane notes that
since the best source of new business is from clients and referral sources, start there. Ask them. That means, plan to visit with your clients (off the clock) and those who have referred work, and talk with them about what problems they (or someone they know) are facing.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2007
Herz: Strong, authentic and enduring business relationships.
If WAC? has a strength, that strength is telling you how to make great corporate clients happy from the moment you start to do the work--and keep that going. We focus on how to mix and blend your legal skills with client service for existing clients as seamlessly as possible. And, at a minimum, we'd like you to wake up and understand (1) the importance and (2) the difficulty of achieving that combination.
However, on the subject of networking and bonding with people who can bring you work in the first place--and the deeply personal and eternally human aspect of each business relationship--we are merely wide-eyed students. No one thinks or writes about these things better than New York's Arnie Herz at Legal Sanity. He is your guru and ours. See "Re-connecting With Your Business Network".
Posted by JD Hull at 12:34 PM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2007
Jim Hassett: Selling legal services is different.
The week's post from his Legal Business Development is here.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)
December 11, 2007
The necessity and art of tooting your own horn.
Everyone from Donald Trump and Little Richard to Ralph Nader and Lance Armstrong does it--just differently--and you should, too. Only a few of us in life don't need to get that light to shine out from under that confused and conflicted place in each of us where we practice humility and good manners. Two years ago over the New Year's holiday, a man in Charleston, S.C.--a lawyer-professor-author who looked vaguely familiar--struck up a conversation with me. His wife joined us. The conversation turned from law to books, and I learned he had written one on the 1925 John Scopes trial. At the time, I was looking for a literary agent for two very different and festering book proposals, one on client-customer service in the expanding global services markets, and the other, a labor of love, on France and America between 1776 and 1789. He had great advice. Getting excited, I asked him about what book agent or agencies he used himself. He said he didn't use an agent. Surprised, I peppered him with questions on how that was possible. Finally, he said quietly, and almost embarrassed: "A while back I won a Pulitzer Prize, so I guess...I don't need an agent anymore". Had to drag that out. Well, the rest of us need to "brag" a little, and it's all in the details. But how? For more on this, and a classy example of the genre, see "Tell the World About Your Successes" at Stephen Seckler's Counsel to Counsel.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2007
More gratuitous holiday advice
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."
--Philo of Alexandria (20 BC-50 AD), with a nod to writer Dan Wakefield
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 28, 2007
The 7 Habits of Highly Useless Corporate Lawyers.
This is one of WAC?'s most clicked-on posts. But the investigative and archeological credit belongs to a vigilant D.C. securities lawyer known to some as Ernie from Glen Burnie.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 08:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2007
Hassett: "Do you want to learn how to close faster?"
And here is Jim Hassett's answer:
Me too. But we can’t. Teaching people how to close deals faster is a little like teaching gardeners how to pick tomatoes. Picking them isn’t the hard part. The hard part is growing them. [more]
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 12, 2007
Thank-you notes, gratitude, real life.
A good thank-you--a real thank-you--means something. It is notable, memorable, important.
--TS, April 2007
Last April Esquire Magazine's Tom Chiarella wrote a piece on thank-you notes; as part of his unlikely experiment in doing them, he wrote 91 handwritten ones in one week. It's called "A Little Gratitude: How to Change the Way the World Sees You, One Thank-You Note at a Time". We liked it 7 months ago when it came out, and we like it now. For the same issue, Chiarella also wrote "How to Write a Thank-You Note".
Posted by JD Hull at 12:09 AM | Comments (3)
November 08, 2007
Kane: Bad Clients
Try this mantra: "Life's short, practicing law done correctly is hard, and no client is better than a bad one." We love it when Tom Kane writes about bad clients. It gets our juices going. For WAC?, bad clients tend to be any non-corporate client--sorry, but even individuals with education and big money are generally horrible and annoying clients--and the vast majority of small and medium-sized businesses. Hey, that's just about everyone. In any event, only "hire" clients who understand your work, appreciate it, and pay you. It sounds flippant--but it's a basic truth to survive much less prosper. Good clients "get" great lawyering and great service. Bad clients do not. So see Tom's piece "Are Bad Clients Keeping You Up At Night?" Then repeat the mantra.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 12:55 AM | Comments (0)
November 03, 2007
Foonberg: "All you guys are wrong, wrong, wrong."
Chuck Newton and WAC? are Jay Foonberg fans. If you don't know who Foonberg is--whether the number of lawyers in your firm is 1 or 3000--you are missing something. You may run the risk of starving or, almost as bad, being the personal $275,000-plus-a-year slave of the man or woman down the hall who has portable clients. See Chuck's post and attached Foonberg video at "What Kind Of Law Do You Practice?"
Posted by Holden Oliver at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)
Getting clients: bird-dogs and matchmakers.
See "The Fine Art of Bird-Dogging" up at Jim Hassett's Legal Business Development. It's from his column last month at Law Firm, Inc.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:58 AM | Comments (0)
November 02, 2007
Solar Baby
Tomorrow on I'm There For You Baby, Neil Senturia and Barbara Bry will discuss solar energy--and why investors are taking off their shades and looking towards the sun. You can hear this week's episode on San Diego's CA$H 1700 AM Saturday from 1-2 PM, Pacific Time, or listen live via simulcast on the CA$H web site.
And before you listen to Saturday's show, read Wednesday's front page article in the San Diego Daily Transcript: "Networking Essential Characteristic of Entrepreneurs, According to Bry", about a talk Baby co-host Barbara Bry recently gave to business students at California State University.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2007
Get Out Of The Yellow Pages. Now.
You need to be in the "white pages" of the telephone listings so people who already know you can find your firm. But if you want good clients--if you really are seeking higher-end corporate clients--get out of the "yellow pages", or any other commercial listings in which people search for lawyers from scratch. At best, these listings produce calls and inquiries from unsophisticated users of legal services, and
waste your and your firm's time on the phone when they call. GCs, CFOs and HR people don't find law or accounting firms in such listings. Cancel those listings today. You are paying for something that disrupts you and your firm. We got out of such paid-for listing years ago. I know--it sounds arrogant, high-handed and cruel. But no mom-and-pop calls ever again may make you happier and richer.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 03:59 AM | Comments (3)
October 22, 2007
Dumbing it all down: getting high-end clients.
Last night some people asked me "how do you land or 'get' new high-end clients?" In the question, "high-end clients" are sophisticated users of legal services, which tend to be larger and/or publicly-traded companies. Could I simplify the answer--or even dumb it down--on our blog? The dumb-downed answer I come up with is 6 things: Credibility, Relationship, Limit, Keep Up, Persist, Timing. It applies to any size firm:
1. Credibility. This is an easily verifiable and true portrait of the right people with the right specialties at your shop. If you don't have the portrait, get it. You may need to make changes in your lawyers and staff.
2. Relationship. Just bonding. It needs to be a personal relationship, but not necessarily a strong one, especially at first. See Malcolm Gladwell's discussion in The Tipping Point on the art of the "weak tie". And in my book, you need to "like" that GC, CFO or HR person. It will be very hard for you to keep up the conversation that "we want your business" if you personally think the client representative is difficult, arrogant or a stone creep. Or the "chemistry" is otherwise just bad. No matter how sexy the client, you should pass and wait until they are replaced, get fired or quit. Also, the personality or style of the client rep might tell you something about the client's culture--do you really want this client?
3. Limit. Sell two or three practice areas. Do not try to sell everything your firm does. No one believes any longer that your firm--whether 10 or over 1000--can do it all and do it well, even it if can. Too much talent out there. Also, this goes to Credibility, above.
4. Keep Up. Monitor the company. If it's publicly-traded or high-profile, that's easier to do. Know stock fluctuations and news. The politics and internal events of the client are key here. You can hit them at the wrong time: in the middle of in-house lawyer changes, a company-wide short-term crisis (sometimes knowable, so read the papers) or a merger or acquisition which hasn't hit the media (so not your fault if you don't know). See Timing below.
5. Persist. The hardest of the six things. Landing great clients requires discipline and organization. And the mental health of a slab of chrome-vanadium steel. Rejection, especially at first, is logical and natural--not personal. It's your job to obtain new business. Keep making the contact, but know when to back down in the short-term. GCs and people who hire lawyers are often busier than you. And on "like", it's a two-way street. They may not "like" you. Or they may think that they have the outside lawyers they need. "Weak" GCs (fewer and fewer these days, but you'll know one when you see/hear one) may even feel pressured to use the lawyers they have--whether or not they are happy with them.
And then there's the unruly "factor": Timing.
6. Timing. Which really means luck based on persistence. Right place, right time. But you are making luck happen. Because you persist, you are on the phone with a GC you are hunting, sitting in a some CFO's office, or just sent a happy "thought-you-might-be-interested-in this" e-mail--when something your firm can do for the client has recently come up. Congrats, my friend, Persistence and Luck just collided. And see Keep Up above. Stuff happens to companies--some of it bad, some of it good, some of it knowable. Don't call the GC on the day the NYT reports the insider-trading scandal. Let luck happen without interference from you.
Getting high-end clients. All dumbed down for you--and yet still very hard to do.
And then...you must deliver to keep the client. Even harder.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:50 PM | Comments (1)
October 20, 2007
Cole Silver: For Lawyers Who Hate to Sell
Which is most lawyers at any law firm, and most professionals at any professional services firm. For them, as well for as "the few" of us who actually like trying our hand at branding, marketing and selling, there's a very fine collection of resources--both links and books--at New Jersey-based The Silver Group, Ltd, owned by Cole Silver.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2007
Does your firm charge enough for its work?
See at Tom Collins' More Partner Income his article Surveys Show Most Law Firms Are Underpriced. Excerpt: "On the whole 'low prices' for the majority of law firms are more self-inflicted than due to pressure from clients."
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2007
Tom Kane: Four marketing laws for lawyers
Tom Kane published the first of four short articles yesterday: "Four Laws for Successful Lawyer Marketing - Part I". Based on this, and Tom's usual fare, the series promises to be excellent. His first law is the Law of Perception--the one that for excellent lawyers is hard to grasp. WAC? thinks of it as the unfortunate but true "it-just-doesn't-matter-that-you're-better" principle.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:09 AM | Comments (1)
October 01, 2007
Do BigClients need BigLaw more than 10% of the time?
It's here, from September 2006, and a favorite post of ours. The piece is pro-BigLaw (over 1,000 lawyers), but lawyers and their marketing people connected with all sorts of firms--mega-big, large, medium and tiny--can find something they don't like about it. The point is this: 90% of the important corporate legal work being done right now by firms between 150 and 3000 lawyers can be done by boutiques and smaller firms. If it has the
right people, your firm can land Fortune 500 companies and keep them. And don't forget to maintain or raise your rates. Competing on price for higher-end work is for chumps and will only hurt you in both marketing and client retention. Remember, in this "model", your lawyers and services/products are first-rate, and your client service is superior. So find out what the "BigLaw" rate is--and match or exceed it.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:50 PM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2007
"Spend a Few Minutes Each Day on Business Development"
From Tom Kane at his The Legal Marketing Blog, inspired by virtual marketing coach Terrie Wheeler in this month's ABA Law Practice Today:
You can overcome your procrastination when it comes to developing business by doing a simple item each day. If you don’t get started, you may never become an effective marketer.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2007
Rule 12: Have Fun.
It's supposed to be fun. American law is extremely varied, elastic and constantly presenting new practice areas. It has something for everyone. I am convinced of this. Please keep the faith and keep looking until you find it. Put another way, don't quit before the miracle occurs. It's there, and it's all inside you, in front of you. Simple--but still hard. It's a privilege and joy to do what lawyers do when they do it right.
In the 12 Rules of Client Service, Rule 12, the last one, is Have Fun. If you are not having fun, you are doing something wrong. Period.
Any questions?
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2007
Rule 11: Treat Each Co-Worker Like He or She Is Your Best Client.
In our 12 Rules of Client Service, this one, Rule 11, is perhaps the hardest one to achieve. The Driven and The Motivated--at least the able and confident ones--want people just like them in their workplace. This is admirable, and can cause problems.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2007
Tune in: I'm There For You Baby
Today on Baby, women entrepreneurs talk straight about what it takes to climb the corporate ladder. You can hear this week's episode on San Diego's CA$H 1700 AM Saturday from 1-2 PM, Pacific Time, or listen live via simulcast on the CA$H web site.
Posted by Tom Welshonce at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)
September 14, 2007
Rule 10: Be Accurate, Thorough and Timely--But Not Perfect.
Ah, devil perfectionism. Curse of eldest children, professionals, knowledge workers, some spouses, the geek classes and the tech-eiosie ("techwazee"). The horror, the horror. Okay, so we're on a Joseph Conrad jag. Be excellent, not perfect--that's one way to summarize Rule 10 of WAC?'s 12 Rules of Client Service.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2007
John Remsen: Looking like a lawyer
Medieval, old school, vain and running dog lackey of good GCs at good companies, WAC? (Dan Hull) met Atlanta-based law firm marketer John Remsen at an IBLC meeting last September in Milwaukee, was impressed, "liked his play" and loved his presentation. From The Remsen Group's website, here's "Enough is Enough: Lawyers Should Look Like Lawyers!"
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2007
Rule Nine: Be There For Clients -- 24/7
From WAC?'s 12 Rules, here is Rule Nine. If you have thought through this rule, and you still disagree with it, that's fine. However, we are 100% certain that you are in the wrong profession. Here's the silver lining: if you indeed have good clients--i.e., sophisticated users of legal services with interesting problems to solve who pay well and on time--feel free to let us know the names of their GCs. Or, even better, just have them contact us. Our contact information, phone numbers and e-mail addresses are on the website. We'll unburden you. No problem.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:06 PM | Comments (1)
August 29, 2007
Two great client-centric blogs to visit.
The reason they are so helpful may lie in the fact that lawyers, accountants, and other "suits" are just a small part of their audiences. See Management Craft by Lisa Haneberg and Church of the Customer by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba. These sites focus on the art of the relationship: getting and keeping clients.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2007
Rule Eight: Think Like the Client--Help Control Costs.
Are you really "partnering" with your business client--or is that just part of the requisite marketing rubric on your website? See Rule 8, from WAC?'s 12 Rules of Client Service, on other people's money.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2007
Jim Hassett: Cross Selling
See Jim Hassett's post on cross selling, a favorite WAC? subject.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 07:57 AM | Comments (1)
August 07, 2007
Arnie Herz: It's personal.
See this one (along with the linked-to materials) by Arnie Herz at Legal Sanity. I first saw this post last week, got distracted with other things, and then was reminded again today that it's out there and how great it is by the always-vigilant Stark County Law Library Blog.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Rule Seven: Know the Client
Here.
....Take time out to learn the stock price, industry, day-to-day culture, players and overall goals of your client. Visit their offices and plants. Do it free of charge....Devise a system to keep abreast.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
August 01, 2007
Rule Six: Working = Marketing.
From our 12 Rules of Client Service, Rule Six: When you work, you are marketing. It presupposes that you love practicing law, and that you want to do repeat work for good clients you like. It's our favorite. And it's the one that's hardest for lawyers and other service professionals to grasp. An issue: right now, in 2007, do you work for that Fortune 100 or 1000 client you prize with the same passion and at the same level you did in 1997, when you first landed it?
Posted by Holden Oliver at 12:42 AM | Comments (0)
July 30, 2007
Happy 5th Birthday, Sarbanes-Oxley, you big brute.
It's been five years now; it was signed into law by President Bush on July 30, 2002. Major, sweeping and unprecedented, the business media said. True, no desirable corporate client can ignore it. And SOX changed public accounting forever. So how we doing? At London-based The Economist, reportedly the favorite magazine of Bill Gates these days, see "Sarbanes-Oxley: Five Years Under the Thumb".
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2007
Rule Five: "Over-Communicate": Bombard, Copy and Confirm
From our 12 Rules of Client Service, here's Rule Five. Not everyone agrees with this one. But it works as a general rule. In fact, if you work hard at consistently informing clients of everything as things happens--and it's harder to do this with proportion and class than it sounds, folks--you can't lose. With thanks to a well-known lawyer's lawyer and client service thinker-doer named Jay Foonberg.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2007
Rule Four: "Deliver legal services that change the way clients think about lawyers".
It's summer: a season to step back from the canvas and a time, if you will, for simple tool sharpening--and we at WAC? are simple tools, if nothing else. From our world famous counter-intuitive 12 Rules of Client Service, see "Rule Four: Deliver legal services that change the way clients think about lawyers".
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2007
Thoughtful Canada Gets It?
Since starting this blog less than two years ago, WAC? has feared that, for most lawyers worldwide, "client service" and "law practice management" are at best a couple of empty soundbytes we all feed our clients, client prospects and employees. It all sounds good; it's become our routine requisite rubbish for websites and ad campaigns. But ever since I discovered CBA PracticeLink--which seems to feature "Clients" as the main event of lawyering--I've wondered if Canadians see these topics differently.
Well, maybe WAC? was right. Canadian lawyer David J. Bilinsky, who straddles Canada and its mild-mannered southern neighbor, is Practice Management Advisor of the Law Society of British Columbia, Editor-in-Chief of the ABA's Law Practice Magazine and former chair of ABA TECHSHOW. David has a new blog, and it promises to be another quality Canadian (okay, Canadian-American) site: Thoughtful Legal Management. Watch this one.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:59 PM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2007
It's that Muscle Boutique thing again...
While WAC? still thinks that solos face a tough time obtaining and keeping Fortune 500 clients (minimum: you need 3 full-time higher-end well-paid lawyers--each king-hell crazy about client service), we do like Susan Cartier Liebel's post "Solo and Small Firms Should Go In For the Kill", which echos some of our own usual rants re: firms between 5 and 100 lawyers serving clients normally represented by much larger law firms. And we love Susan's pluck. Her post turns on yesterday's Patrick Lamb discussion on GC dissatisfaction. Hat tip to the mysterious Editor of Blawg Review.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:44 PM | Comments (2)
June 29, 2007
Hassett: 34 questions for clients and prospects
Every Wednesday, Jim Hassett at Legal Business Development gives us a thoughtful and practical article on the art of the client. We especially liked this week's post, 34 Questions for Clients and Prospects. Jim's simple but revolutionary idea: get clients to talk about their companies; get lawyers to listen.
Posted by JD Hull at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)
June 27, 2007
Golden Practices
Upbeat, honest and just plain fun, Michelle Golden of Golden Marketing Inc. and Golden Practices may very well be the "anti-Geek". Michelle gets out there and actually talks to people face-to-face. She understands services, and how clients may experience them. And she gets what blogging is--and what it isn't. In the two years she's been blogging, Michelle has gained quite a following, which include cynics and non-gushers like the people who write WAC? See, for an introduction to Michelle, "Diving into the Blogosphere? Where to Begin." and "Why Does Social Media Work?"
Posted by Holden Oliver at 07:40 PM | Comments (1)
June 15, 2007
When you work, you are marketing.
When we are working, we are always marketing--and constantly sending clients barrages of small but powerful ads. Positive ads, negative ads, "true color" ads. From the 12 Rules of Client Service, see Rule Six: When You Work, You Are Marketing.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
June 06, 2007
So why waste side 2 of your business card?
From Jim Calloway's Law Practice Tips Blog, do see What's On The Back Of Your Business Card?
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)
May 30, 2007
Large Law Firms
Patrick Lamb and Tom Kane comment on "The Way of the Mastodon", by Sun Microsystems General Counsel Mike Dillon. That article, which appeared on Dillon's own blog last week, has attracted major attention. Update: At Legal Blog Watch, lawyer-journalist Robert Ambrogi was also impressed by Dillon's piece.
Posted by JD Hull at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2007
We all work in the global services economy.
"We are all in the business of selling solutions--products and goods are just tools and details."
--Overheard in a Los Angeles coffee shop.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2007
Redux: What about clients you just don't like?
Answer: Don't court or accept them in the first place. If you already have such a client, you get through it, you try to do the best job you can, and you dump that client ASAP.
Sound unprofessional or unlawyer-like? Maybe so. Yet, with the notable exceptions of some criminal defendant appointments by a court and pro bono work, neither your client nor your firm should be even slightly prejudiced by distrust, disdain or an uneasy relationship. See our November 19, 2005 post "Rule 1: Represent only clients you like". And hear this from a 2006 radio show we appeared on.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:03 PM | Comments (2)
May 06, 2007
Kane: Mid-sized firms v. big firms
On one of our favorite subjects, Tom Kane at Legal Marketing Blog has "Mid-sized and Small Firms Can Compete With BigLaw." He also follows up on the disturbing BTI Consulting Group, Inc. study released last year, concluding that a sizable majority of U.S. general counsel at bigger companies were not happy with their law firms.
Posted by Holden Oliver at 02:06 PM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2007
Rule Eight: Think Like the Client--Help Control Costs.
Rule Eight: Think Like The Client--Help Control Costs. (See the first 7 rules 1-6 here and 7 here).
Ask any associate lawyer or paralegal what a "profit" is.
You will get two kinds of answers. Both answers are "correct"--but neither of them helps anyone in your firm think like the client.
The answers will be something like this: (1) "A profit is money remaining after deducting costs from receipts." This is the correct young transactional/tax lawyer answer. Or (2) "it's money left over at the end of the hunt." This is the correct fire-breathing young litigator answer.
The right answer?
A profit is a reward for being efficient. And until a lawyer, paralegal or staffer gets that, she or he will never know how a client--or a law firm partner--thinks.
Rule 8 is really simple. Watch and minimize costs and show the client that you are interested in doing that. Go beyond just avoiding wasteful spending, and think of the client's business as yours. Factor cost (including fees!) into everything you think, say and do. Let the client know that you know that holding down costs is good for both the client and your law firm. You want repeat clients, and a maximum of steady income streams, so let clients know you really care about saving it money because of just that: you want to keep costs down so the client will stay with the firm in the long-term.
Most clients not only get this but appreciate it greatly in time. Three years ago, at the beginning of a fairly intense but short-term lobbying project in DC for a new client (a high-tech company with a fabulous product), I told the client's CEO--by the way, she was brilliant, talented and rich but surprisingly unsophisticated on the use of lawyers--that she had three options on legal paths she could take on the project, and that I wanted her to use the least expensive one on legal fees. She actually said: "Dan, you know we really like you guys. But your goal has got to be to make as many thousands of dollars you can a month from this project. Why a cheap avenue for me that involves fewer lawyer hours? Why should I take this seriously?" My answer: "Because whether you sell this company or not, we want to represent it or whatever company you next develop on a long term basis, and we would rather work for you for years and years than just a few months."
That made sense to her. Everyone in our shop needs (1) to think in terms of holding down client costs--attorney fees and out-of-pocket expenses--at every step and every moment of a client project, (2) to know why, and (3) to be prepared to explain that to the client.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2007
True Lawyer Professionalism
We once briefly engaged for litigation a local counsel who focused more on preserving personal relationships with local lawyers than on going to bat for our mutual client. It was like having a tennis doubles partner on heroin with weights strapped to each leg. The guy never got it. While it's true that one of the advantages of any local counsel in litigation is a knowledge of, and rapport with, the local law cattle, those relationships always come second. Anything less is, at best, unprofessional and, at worst, a conflict of interest. The following posts, from our Federal Courts series, are among the most visited WAC? articles:
See also, Professionalism Revisited: What About the Client?, from the San Diego Daily Transcript, April 29, 2005, by one of America's most client-centric lawyers.
Posted by JD Hull at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)
April 11, 2007
WAC? loves Baseball Blawg Review #103
Do see Blawg Review this week and Jon Frieden's #103.
Occasionally patriotic, WAC? loves baseball, our national sport. Like the law profession itself, baseball (1) is great fun to play or watch, (2) is way more complex than meets the eye, and (3) features some of the most difficult, funny, demented and inscrutable rogues on the planet.
A bonus: the first opening day ceremonial pitch (in 1910) by an American president was a hurl by my kind of Chief Executive--a portly Cincinnati-bred lawyer's lawyer and former journalist who graduated from WAC?'s law school in 1880 and who spent some time in the humble suburb of Indian Hill, Ohio, where I attended high school and grew up, sort of, mainly, before heading to points East and to DC.
DC area-based Jonathan Frieden, an IP litigator who writes E-Commerce Law, is the host of Blawg Review #103 which, in honor of baseball's opening day, is the "BaseBlawg Review". Fine job by Jon and his interesting blog, which we just discovered. See in particular Jim Hassett's piece on how to qualify new clients. Trust us: Having No Client--and instead working harder and smarter to get the right client--is always better than the Working for the Wrong Client.
Posted by JD Hull at 04:50 AM | Comments (0)
April 08, 2007
Renewal, rebirth--and tool sharpening.
Spring ushers in important observances by most religions. But nearly everyone--Pagans, athiests, humans who notice their natural world a bit more, and just folks in Pittsburgh and Cleveland eating and watching TV--do a dance or two to celebrate rebirth, renewal, the beginning of a new life cycle, the order of things, Being Here Now, fresh starts and real resolutions for real life. Well, here's one observance for us more pedestrian types who have to work tomorrow: The 12 Rules of Client Service. They are based on real life and real lawyering--in that order.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:51 AM | Comments (1)
April 02, 2007
"Yo, partner dudes, don't be puttin' the hurt on my work-life balance."
American and European lawyer-bloggers have written a lot lately about "work-life balance". In the event any of you bloggers have good corporate clients who are a bit nervous about the W-L thing, please feel free to ask the General Counsel of those clients to call immediately Hull McGuire PC--contacts: Dan Hull (CA), Julie McGuire (PA) or Al Sturtevant (DC)--for a lively chat about the W-L issue. If we like your clients enough, we will happily unburden you of them to lessen the terrible, inconvenient and just plain pesky stresses of the challenges and ardors of corporate law practice. We'll even throw in ceasing to flog our associate lawyers for a week--well, maybe--if you'll do this. Thanks, dudes.
Posted by JD Hull at 09:59 PM | Comments (1)
March 30, 2007
Asking clients for work: "Why are lawyers so shy?"
Over the years this keeps happening:
I take a General Counsel or non-lawyer executive or CFO of a targeted client to lunch or dinner to ask for work. At some point I briefly say what my firm does and how we can help the client on particular legal issues it has. I ask a few questions. I do a short (very informal) pitch which ends with: "We like [the company] and we'd love to work with you. How can I win/earn your business?"
The client rep laughs and says something like, "That's refreshing--because I can't tell you how many times I have dined, gone to sporting events or played golf with lawyers and they never ask me for my business. Sometimes this goes on for years. I know that's why they are there--but they won't ever get to the point."
"So what's up with that?" he or she continues, often openly amused. "Are most lawyers shy or something? Why would I want to hire a law firm not aggressive enough, direct enough or business-oriented enough to just ask for the work?"
True story: One in-house counsel from a Fortune 100 told me that a partner in a major law firm he saw regularly for years couldn't bring himself to inquire. They lawyer was the in-house guy's next door neighbor.
Is the careful, rational, polite, risk-averse "lawyer personality" to blame? I have no idea.....but I do know that business clients--whether or not they buy the image of the fire-breathing lawyer-AlphaHuman they see on television--expect lawyers to have the business instincts and the stones to ask for the work. So ask. Practice first if you must. Get a pitch and a strategy for each meeting. Don't wait until 30 minutes goes by or the table is cleared. Ask.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:58 AM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2007
Asking for the business.
It sounds easy but lawyers have trouble doing it. In fact, the concept of "asking for the business" is revolutionary thinking for some of us. Not part of the lawyer personality. So for some direction, see my friend Jim Hassett's post "When To Close And 'Ask For The Business'" at his Legal Business Development.
Posted by JD Hull at 04:21 PM | Comments (0)
Real, inexpensive and "natural" branding ideas.
To me, real branding for a services firm should be cheap, "natural", and not with goofy initials or logos that only work for IBM or Microsoft: just "real look and feel" trade dress branding, the kind associated with workaday letterhead and envelopes, and forged in the customer's overstimulated brain through repetition. Your name, the print style, color--decide, keep it, don't change it. See Michelle Golden's post Fun Branding for a Law Firm.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:40 AM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2007
Pat Lamb: The billable hour is doing just fine, thank you.
From my other friend and mentor, The Blawgfather, Patrick Lamb, at In Search of Perfect Client Service, this is good, even if it does mention me and mine:
NEWS FLASH! Reports of the Death of Hourly Rates Greatly Exaggerated!
Posted by JD Hull at 03:22 AM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2007
Tom Kane: Don't compete on price.
See this valuable advice from Tom Kane at his Legal Marketing Blog: "Don't Compete on Price, It's a Loser". My two cents: that goes double if you are a boutique, or cluster of boutiques, competing for high-end clients with large law firms. In that case, you might even want to charge a bit more. And if you leave a large firm, be sure to keep your rates at least as high as they were.
Don't bottom-feed. Compete on service.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:57 AM | Comments (1)
February 15, 2007
Golden Volver: "Few Firms Get the Point of Differentiation"
For more on law firm differentiation/branding in the post below, see this 2006 post by Michelle Golden at Golden Practices called "Few Firms Get the Point of Differentiation".
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Lamb: The "Disturbing Sameness of Law Firm Marketing"
The "disturbing sameness of law firm marketing and its disturbing ineffectiveness" is just one great money quote. Patrick Lamb, Chicago trial lawyer, and Blogfather of Client Service, has this fine post, "Is Culture Change A Prerequisite To Marketing Success?", at his In Search of Perfect Client Service. Recently, Pat and I were speakers at a law marketing conference, and two things, which are likely related, greatly surprised me: (1) many law firm marketing chiefs--some law firm partners, some CMOs--at the nation's largest law firms privately informed me that they were "second class citizens" (if not creative but troublesome peasants), and not often listened to; and (2) with very few exceptions, the marketing approaches taken by about 100 "top" American law firms were the same (i.e., fungible and generic plans and devices) and nearly impossible to differentiate from one another. All that talent and opportunity, all that sameness.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:27 PM | Comments (1)
February 10, 2007
Tom Kane: Stop Procrastinating - Fire Those Bad Clients
Here.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
February 08, 2007
An evolving new rejoinder to beefs about imperfect client service?
Re: chilling effect on complaints about mediocre, lame and/or bad lawyering or "Well, dang, we weren't that bad--so we'd like $1 million, dirtbags." See at Overlawyered "Chew out your lawyers, get sued for defamation". Apparently, in the NY state case, the qualified privilege--which the Manhattan trial court insisted was "absolute" instead (WAC? questions that, but it's a good result)--won the day. Still, whoa.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:14 PM | Comments (1)
February 04, 2007
"Get lean, get talented and hunt BigClients".
Let's review, shall we?
Get off your knees. Stop bottom-feeding. Be a man, or woman.
But be somebody. Now, and in the future, law firm size may matter--but only if at your core you are smaller, agile, muscular and can do most (90%) of the work traditionally done by large law firms (250-3000+ lawyers). And smaller (up to 150) 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", as the mysterious anonymous all-powerful Editor of Blawg Review once termed it, are 9 WAC? (nine, count 'em) posts over the past few months on why and how you can have BigClients in boutiques or clusters of boutiques(5-150) setting if you have the talent, a true client service culture and the discipline to keep it:
In Praise of Structure (10/30/06)
Real Elitism: Toward Building A Client-Centric Culture (6/10/06)
The 7 Habits of Highly Useless Corporate Lawyers (6/27/06)
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)
And: "Clientwork": The 12 Rules Of Client Service (4/3/06)
Posted by JD Hull at 06:59 PM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2007
Business-Getter Summit: 14th Annual Marketing Partner Forum
Beginning today, Hildebrandt International hosts the 14th Annual Marketing Partner Forum: Innovative Marketing & Business Development in the 21st Century at the Four Seasons Aviara in San Diego. On the 25th, WAC? (Dan Hull) serves on a panel on the subject of how law firms can use the Internet to keep existing business clients and generate new ones. Blogs, podcasts and webinars will be discussed--and demonstrated--as part of the cyber-marketing mix. WAC?'s friend and inspirer Chicago trial lawyer Patrick Lamb, of In Search of Perfect Client Service, will serve as moderator. Other panelists are Larry Bodine of the LawMarketing Blog, David Bowerman of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP, Vickie Spang of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP and J. Craig Williams of The Williams Law Firm, PC and May It Please The Court.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)
January 20, 2007
Math on Management: Connections, Relationships, Money.
In our new services world, making real connections (see Arnie Herz and Lisa Haneberg) with clients or GCs you "like" (see WAC?) lead to relationships, which are assets and money we must manage. WAC? gets it now. Manage your connections. Manage your money.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2007
Must-Read Jay Shepherd Post: Clients Don't Like You...
Most business people rightly think we lawyers are necessary evils, and at best tolerable if we slip back into our coffins before dawn. We lack business sense in most respects. And we don't communicate well with business clients. See from Jay Shepherd's Gruntled Employees "Why businesspeople hate lawyers".
Posted by JD Hull at 07:10 PM | Comments (3)
December 20, 2006
Clients in 3-D
See Michelle Golden's post "Visit Your Clients".
Posted by JD Hull at 11:49 PM | Comments (0)
December 18, 2006
Industry-Based Practice Groups
Tom Kane at Legal Marketing Blog is reading WAC?'s mind these days--and gives a suggestion which my firm will institute at the beginning of next year, starting with our firm's practice for clients in the automotive, steel, manufacturing and energy industries. See "Form Industry-based Practice Groups". Clients want you to know their business, their industry.
Posted by JD Hull at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2006
Women and start-ups: This Week's "Baby" Show.
"I'm There for you Baby", hosted by WAC? friends Neil Senturia and Barbara Bry, airs from 1-2 p.m., West Coast time on San Diego's CASH 1700 AM, or listen live via simulcast on the CASH website. This week includes a discussion with female entrepreneurs.
Posted by Tom Welshonce at 10:44 PM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2006
Jim Hassett's Not So Excellent Adventure
Bad service, bad buzz. As Harry Beckwith's young son once said, "too often, service sucks". From Jim Hassett at Legal Business Development, here's "Unhappy customers and my problems with ACT". Don't tug on Superman's cape, dude.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:17 AM | Comments (0)
December 04, 2006
Jim Hassett: Lawyer Marketing in 7 Words
And they are: Meet the right people, advance the relationship. Or kiss the frogs, sort the princes, and keep moving? Well, Jim's is shorter, better. See Jim Hassett's "Everything You Need to Know About Legal Business Development, in Seven Words" at Legal Business Development.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2006
You Gotta Believe--or just sell shoes, drive cab, whatever.
Why WAC?'s Client Service Model & 12 Rules May Not Work.
Answer: Because people are selfish, and WAC?'s 12 Rules of True Client Service presupposes that people are not selfish--that you and your staff will put clients before yourselves and All Things other than blood, country, God, a job at the White House or dinner with Parker Posey. Conservative humorist and writer P.J. O'Rourke said it best, sort of, in explaining in an article for Rolling Stone Magazine in July of 1995, why he went from National Lampoon to jester for the right:
No child ever wrote Santa, "Bring me, and a bunch of kids I've never met, a pony, and we'll share."
O'Rourke is right, of course. People are selfish. Period.
So there's no point in being nice to anyone, even clients, because it doesn't get you anything today, right?
Well, no, wrong. There's a "blind faith"-based and slightly zen-like remedy for the 12 Rules' blissful ignorance of human nature, and here it is: Rule 13: You Gotta Believe.
Get spiritual, get crazy, but somehow get it. History teaches that only Spiritual or Crazy can truly trump and defeat Selfish. So try one of them--Spiritual or Crazy--in your shop, keeping in mind that may be closely related ("Insanity is half-way to Enlightenment," a mildly crazy Duke religion professor once said.) But seriously, folks...somehow, some way, you and yours must believe that for your business to be what it is supposed to me--and to mean anything at all--the Client is first, right, The Main Asset, It, prime, special, All Things, The One Thing, Center of Cosmos, Alpha, paramount, Godhead, the Big Dog, more-important-than-you, more-important-than-dinner-with-Parker Posey--and the key to your success, wealth and happiness.
The client relationship as a valued asset. You must be willing to sacrifice for it. The idea, and the passion that carries it, can never be the object of derision. It's the one sacred thing. (Nothing else needs to be.) Everyone at your shop must always buy into client service passionately.
It doesn't matter how you get people to buy into client service passion. It just must be real.
You can (a) try hiring or even creating the spiritual Steve Covey-type ("Last night, the Forms of Beauty and Truth appeared to me in a vision, and asked me for alignment of principles with our company's principles, to take place later today, around 2:00 PM in the Lavender Conference Room, and please bring your own toga and sandals...") or (b) take the easier, quicker crazy-about-service route by hiring Wharton, Tuck or Fuqua B-school grads who are already believers ("I'll torture, and then fire, and maybe even kill, anyone who doesn't bend over backwards for every client every moment on my watch...") for whatever reasons, and who are otherwise sane, mainly. It doesn't matter which oddball or zealot you recruit. Just find them. Chances are it can't be taught.
They can be selfish. Even really out there. But they gotta believe in serving clients 24/7.
Anyone who does not buy into true client service must be asked to leave, and leave quickly, without attempts at "rehabilitation". So consider this easy-to-use quick exit interview talk, which you can memorize, and with which we'll conclude:
Dude, Justin[*], you don't believe what we believe about clients, and that's fine. So this is not working out.
Look, we know this firm is not for everyone. You are likely miserable here. We're probably all crazy, Dan Hull, and Julie McGuire, especially--they are real pieces of or work, and especially Hull, what a whackjob, eh? [optional, of course]--but, dude, Justin, real client service is what we really are all about. Julie and Dan are militant about that. They are serious.
Here, client service is not a gimmick or line we tell to clients to get them here. It's something we do ourselves to make them stay here. And it holds everything at Hull McGuire together. It's a religion. Okay, it's a little weird. Extreme. A Passion, Justin. May even be a cult. But there is nothing else. Nothing. Everything flows from it.
Thanks, Justin, and take care.
*All males we fire are named Justin, Brandon or Josh--go figure.
Posted by JD Hull at 02:06 PM | Comments (0)
Kid From Brooklyn opines on candor, client expectations.
This weekend, visit the Big Man, the Kid from Brooklyn (links above)--he's "always, always" happy to see you.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:48 AM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2006
ClientTown or LawyerTown? Which do you practice in?
Do you practice law in a (1) "clients' town" or (2) a "lawyers' town"?
The latter, very common, is a local culture where lawyer clubbiness, lawyer schedules and lawyer convenience always trump client needs behind the smokescreen of "professionalism". Here we meet the lawyer as king, diva and sacred cow. In a lawyers' town, lawyers and their delays, lack of discipline, procrastinations, disorganization, lack of business sense and failure to execute and move matters along--failings which would get them axed in a heartbeat at a well-run American company--must always be indulged. And even the sleaziest and most marginal lawyers must be treated by each other and speak to each other in a certain way. Client interests are secondary. Well, if you practice in a lawyers' town, are you going to do anything about it? Can we show some leadership? Can we retire lawyer "professionalism" and "civility" issues once and for all and replace them with something better: a new client-focused set of folkways?
Sorry, but in its current form, lawyer professionalism is a morally pretentious, archaic, hypocritical and silly movement which lawyers' towns tend to invest in heavily to protect and coddle apathetic, mediocre and lazy lawyering. It keeps standards low, and the tone lawyer-centric. Current lawyer professionalism is: "pro-lawyer", prissy, routinely and dishonestly misused by incompetent and uncaring lawyers in defense of their delays and screw ups, a waste of time and money, and anti-client. Just talking about it makes clients think we have our heads up our wazoos.
Face it, folks, most lawyers are not especially virtuous, or even that bright. Or classy. We are not royalty. Or even brave. Many of us are hesitant, non-confrontational and risk-averse to the point of being cowards who hide way too often in the rubric of "let's be prudent". To the surprise and dismay of our own clients--who had thought that lawyers were supposed to be innovators, activists and true heros--too few of us fit those descriptions. We follow. We hem and haw. We wet our finger and put it in the air. We aren't "special". And we are a dime a dozen. Now, in the U.S., anyone with enough money, barely average intelligence, well below-the-norm ethics and character, and the ability to converse without stuttering or drooling excessively, can become a lawyer. So let's not put on goofy airs.
Real professionalism, with the client as the touchstone, might have been a good thing. But ironically lawyer "civility" issues have helped breed in modern U.S. lawyering an even lower regard for the client--even for great corporate clients. Clients risk being relegated to mere equipment. Listen: Unless your General Counsel or client rep is Mr. Rogers, The Church Lady or Liberace with a law degree, most clients don't care in the least if you are "professional" (i.e., courtly, accomodating and nice), or if you spend your spare time socializing with and kissing up to the local law cattle. They do care about planning, execution and results from motivated, honest and aggressive lawyers. See "Professionalism Revisited: What About the Client?", appearing last year in the San Diego Daily Transcript.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:12 AM | Comments (3)
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)
November 28, 2006
Why the WAC? Client Service Model/12 Rules May Not Work.
The answer is coming soon, reluctantly, but with a remedy. Hint: because humans are selfish creatures. To get ready, see the 12 Rules first.
Posted by JD Hull at 01:26 PM | Comments (0)
November 24, 2006
"I'm There for you Baby" Gets International.
"I'm There for you Baby", with serial over-achievers Neil Senturia and Barbara Bry, airs at its regular time tomorrow. Tune in to San Diego's CA$H 1700 AM, 1-2 p.m., West Coast time, or listen "live" via simulcast on the CA$H web site. This week includes: "The best and brightest are coming to the United States to seek their entrepreneurial fortunes--we should welcome them." ITFYB is about dreams, running a business, clients, employees and money.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:07 AM | Comments (0)
November 23, 2006
"Customers are always..."
If you haven't seen Maria Palma's Customers Are Always blog lately, you should. There are consistently good pieces of advice here by someone who knows, cares about and lives and breathes real service. Presented here are customers and clients as both valued people and business assets--without a trace of cynicism or negativity. It's all real.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)
November 17, 2006
Redux: The 7 Habits of Highly Useless Corporate Lawyers
Remember Ernie from Glen Burnie and his story about the 1836 Virginia document? Tonight I met with EFGB at the Old Ebbitt Grill on 15th Street. Under blistering cross-examinations by three of our old friends, mainly transactional types, the kind of guys who beat fish to death with their bare hands, Ernie stuck to his story. "The 7 Habits of Highly Useless Corporate Lawyers".
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 16, 2006
Patten: Unhappy Lawyering = Unhappy Clients.
From Britain's Justin Patten at Human Law, see "If 40% of lawyers are not happy with their career choice do you expect good client service?"
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2006
Measuring Client Satisfaction
See Jim Hassett's two most recent posts at Legal Business Development.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)
November 12, 2006
2 Golden Posts from the St. Louis Mafia.
I like American rivertowns: Cincinnati, Louisville, Evansville, Memphis, St. Louis. I spent a good portion of my life in and out of Midwestern rivertowns, Cincinnati, my favorite, in particular. In fact, my first professional article ever, nearly 30 years ago, was about the renaissance of an ancient, tough and hard-working little town called New Richmond, Ohio, for the Sunday supplement of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Many river cities in the Midwest are known for their stability, hard work and being the headquarters for major blue chip corporations. But St. Louis seems to have taken that a step further. So what is the deal with St. Louis, Missouri? Is a disproportionate share of innovative thinkers and cutting-edge bloggers/blawgers using St. Louis as a base? Sometimes, you wonder. So many genuinely exciting takes on marketing, client retention and firm management seems to flow out of that town. Blog City. Idea City. Anyway, St. Louis, a new Seattle, is lucky. One of their leaders, and a favorite of mine since WAC? began, is Michelle Golden at Golden Practices. She has 2 new fine posts: "Measuring What Matters", a discussion of Ron Baker's new book Measuring What Matters to Customers: Using Key Predictive Indicators, and "Do You Have 5 Minutes to Market Today?"
Posted by JD Hull at 06:44 PM | Comments (0)
November 10, 2006
Quit working on Maggie's farm.
Start by tuning into www.imthereforyoubaby.com and The Entrepreneur's Guide to Galaxy--with our friends Barbara Bry and Neil Senturia--tomorrow, Saturday, at 1-2 pm California time. Listen live in San Diego area at 1700 AM or via simulcast on the CASH 1700 web site.
Posted by JD Hull at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)
November 09, 2006
Will Your Clients Help Market Your Firm?
From one of the smartest law practice management sites, which should be on your short list if you read just a few blogs each week, here's "How Likely Are Your Clients to Recommend Your Law Firm?" by Nashville-based Tom Collins at More Partner Income.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2006
Just Doing the Work is Marketing.
Note What About Clients? Rule Six: When You Work, You Are Marketing. And then read from the ABA's LPM Section's Law Practice TODAY, consultant Wendy Werner's "Customer Service for Lawyers":
Why do some law firms excel at bringing in new business and keeping clients while others struggle? They understand that every contact every time shapes the client’s opinion.
Ah, the Big Secret in 8 words. Exciting. Read more.
Posted by JD Hull at 06:17 PM | Comments (0)
November 07, 2006
12 Rules of Client Service
The goal of the "What About Clients?" 12 Rules is outrageous client service--but the 12 Rules' way of getting there is to align the interests of clients and customers and service providers. They were derived from the "How To Practice Law" section of our firm's Practice Guide, written for associates and paralegals in 2000. The rules, like service itself, are not perfect, and can be improved. Promise: This model works--if you work at it. Follow these rules by building a disciplined culture at your shop where they are enforced and kept alive--and your clients and firm both get stronger and better together. You'll see repeat business. You'll make money. And assuming you have the talent pool, and the right people to do the work, you can steal and keep any good client you covet. No limits.
The Catch: Instituting the 12 Rules (as opposed to just following them) is very, very hard work, whether your firm already has a passion for customer service, or has been happy going from day to day with only the faintest sense of its mediocrity. Real client service is as difficult and as important as your day-to-day work. But the two must be merged:
1. Represent only clients you like.
2. The client is the main event.
3. Make sure everyone in your firm knows the client is the main event.
4. Deliver legal work that changes the way clients think about lawyers.
5. Over-communicate: bombard, copy and confirm.
6. When you work, you are marketing.
7. Know the client.
8. Think like the client--help control costs.
9. Be there for clients--24/7.
10. Be accurate, thorough and timely--but not perfect.
11. Treat each co-worker like he or she is your best client.
12. Have fun.
Copyright 2005 John Daniel Hull IV, Julie Elizabeth McGuire, Hull McGuire PC, All Rights Reserved.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 05, 2006
Guess what? You're a salesperson.
Here's "Do You Consider Yourself a Salesperson?" by Tom Kane over at his blog, the consistently fine LegalMarketingBlog.com.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:25 PM | Comments (0)
November 02, 2006
The rise, sort of, of legal weblogs.
Do I think blogging is (a) important or (b) the wave of the future?
Answers: (a) no, and (b) I have no idea. However, blogging, currently, due to its evolving role as a clearinghouse, lab and media outlet for the success or failure of new ideas, is telling us where the best of the legal profession will be in 10 years. It's attracted some well-respected law and business minds, and their firms along with them. In the near term, "blawgs" have become a way to keep abreast of events and developments in business law in particular at almost lightning speed. Whether you have a blog or not, there's a huge payoff in reading them. Not reading legal weblogs a couple of times a week may very well be something we do at our peril.
Frankly, that has surprised me. Blogging by lawyers is no fad. But a really good, consistently good, blawg is hard to find. Most, but not all, of the great ones are by "full-time" bloggers, usually lawyers and often consultants.* To keep a good one going, you need a unifying concept, ideas, energy and discipline, especially if you still practice law. Do realize that, if you do have a blog, in-house counsel for publicly-traded clients do like legal weblogs. And why not? Blogs are damn cute, currently popular and show your tech-ness.
But what GCs really like, however, are Working Lawyers. They really don't want to see a 500-word post on "The Mood of the Beltway" or "Why I Like Plato, My Cat" the day before your 4-week IP/antitrust jury trial starts at the Eastern District in Alexandria. And consider this, too: if a GC or associate GC for ACME International has time to read your "blawg" every day, well, that may not be a good sign re: the GC or this company. Blogging for most of us is not the main event--and it shouldn't be.
* I can think of about eight (8) "greats" offhand, 5 of whom I "know". I would identify them but all 8 of these talented people are hopelessly vain and self-absorbed pains in the ass. It's why I like them.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2006
Hill & Knowlton blog: Client Service Insights
My friend Pat Lamb of In Search of Perfect Client Service made me aware of Hill & Knowlton's blog Client Service Insights. WAC? is going to permanently link to this one. Clever and interesting, CSI just conducted and announced a "winner" of its First Annual Scariest Client Service Stories Contest in honor of Halloween. On the homepage currently: "Insight #1 - Client service excellence isn't about doing the things no one else can do; it's about doing the things anyone can do, but just don't." So simple, it's scary. Read that to yourself a couple of times. Then ask your brilliant young associates--the ones who like you were law review editors and still think it's all about being "smart"--to read it exactly 13 times. Aloud, in unison.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:46 AM | Comments (1)
October 23, 2006
Go-to lawyers.
Here's a great practical post I almost missed but quite a few others noticed. It's by Blawg Review mainstay Colin Samuels at Infamy or Praise and called "Eight (or Nine) Attributes of a Go-To Lawyer". Colin comments on and even adds to a list from an article in the June 2006 issue of Corporate Counsel by Daniel DiLucchio. Two key traits on the list are:
6. Willing to "put skin in the game" — Able to take a calculated risk with a client and communicate that he's standing behind him.
8. Sense of urgency — Shares the client's need to move quickly in a highly competitive environment.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2006
"And a thousand telephones that will not ring..."
That's from Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisted, which Johnny Winter also did--but without that weird police siren. How are GCs really finding firms these days? If your website doesn't hit them right, will that mean no rings? Do they use Google? Carolyn Elefant's new piece at Legal Blog Watch, "Corporate Counsel Using Web Sites and Search Engines to Find Outside Counsel", is fascinating, instructive and loud.
Posted by JD Hull at