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February 24, 2006
Jim Hassett: Safeguarding Your Best Clients and Customers.
Jim Hassett at Law Firm Business Development, one of my favorite blogs, has a terrific two-part discussion on "Bulletproofing your crown jewel clients" which is here and here. It's based on a talk Gerry Riskin gave last month at the Marketing Partner Conference in Florida. It's really about risk reduction--and another Hassett analysis we should all read.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:42 AM | Comments (0)
Tag, You're It..."4 things".
Ernie The Attorney (Ernest Svenson) "tagged" me for a chain-mail "4 Things" series of questions. And I'm supposed to "tag" 4 people at the end. So:
4 jobs I've had:
Keebler Co. Cookie Packer
Manager of a Krogers Meat Department
Tennis Teacher in Michigan and North Carolina
Waiter at Hugh Kelly's The Irish Times Bar
4 movies I can watch over and over:
Once Upon a Time in America
The Last Seduction
Blue Velvet
The Ladies' Man
4 TV shows I love to watch:
Any show with Ellen Bry in it
The Sopranos
Boston Legal
Re-runs of St. Elsewhere
4 places I've been on vacation:
Kitzbuhel, Austria
Pointe Aux Barques, Michigan
Uncharted Fishing Camp Near Island of Coiba, Pananma
Hugh Kelly's The Irish Times Bar
4 tunes that play through my head:
The Telephone Song
Voodoo Child
Gimme Shelter
Crossroads (Cream's live version)
4 favorite dishes:
Filet Mignon
Lobster Anything
Anything with peanuts or peanut butter in it.
Adriana Linares
Four websites I visit daily:
WSJ Law Blog
In Search of Perfect Client Service
Wonkette
Stark County Law Library Blog
Four books I'd grab in an earthquake:
Sam Hazo's Stills
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
The Adventure of English
Flaubert's Parrot or The Art of Travel
Four places I'd rather be:
Cluny Abbey, Roman baths level, Left Bank, Paris
Kent or Suffolk, England
Pointe Aux Barques, Michigan
Kelly's Irish Times in Washington, D.C.
Four Bloggers I'm Tagging
Chris Abraham
Patrick Lamb
Michelle Golden
Tom Kane
Posted by JD Hull at 07:21 AM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2006
Last Call: Western European Legal Weblogs? Or... It's All Happening at the Zoo.
So far I received--mainly from English, Scottish and Swedish lawyers--about 15 names of English-version western European blawgs in response to my posts over the last week. You can see them in the comments here. Any others? The short-term goal is to compile a list of active high quality (even profane and strident is okay--i.e., Brits value oddity now and then) western European blawgs. Next, we'll put calls out for blawgs in Australia/New Zealand, China, Japan, Eastern Europe, South Africa, Russia, the Middle East, Latin America, etc. A few points on all this:
1. The long-term goal is to expand and deepen our running "conversation"--and help link American legal bloggers to lawyers and resources (both "legal" and non-legal) in other countries, other spheres and other on-line communities. Just as many of us would like to know what non-lawyer American bloggers are thinking and doing about the law, business, marketing and the world in general, some of us would also like to know what "foreign" lawyers are thinking and doing.
2. The Problem. American lawyers who blog--and bloggers everywhere for that matter--limit themselves in geography and audience. We tend to "talk to ourselves". That's ironic. Even though we are all in the ideas business--and even though we have this wonderful ability to reach people everywhere in a matter of seconds--we often limit ourselves to insular conversations in this discipline or that one, engaging primarily people "just like us". Well-educated Americans are guilty of this in and out of blogging.
3. Clients. If you have business clients--and even if you have mom-and-pop clients or solely clients which are individuals--you and your clients are likely very soon to be doing business abroad or for interests abroad if you are not already. It's all happening now--even for American litigators. Contact me and I'll give you examples of German and UK clients in our own practice.
4. Language barriers? This is primarily a North American problem. Foreign professionals--German, French, Spanish, Scandinavian and Latin American--are fluently speaking, writing and doing business in American English and "English" English with great skill. They have been for years. And many, many foreign sites now offer English versions as well. We don't need to master new languages.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2006
Adam Smith, Esq: "What P&G Teaches".
Please read this February 19 Adam Smith post. This is lawyer blogging at its best: taking ideas that work for successful businesses which manage and sell outside the bubble of lawyerdom and seeing if they might work for law firms. Adam Smith (Bruce MacEwen) in "What P&G Teaches" makes a daring but on-mark stab at applying consumer products leader Procter & Gamble's simply-stated, flexible and disciplined world view on who it is and what it does to the law firm. Or to any business which takes itself seriously and is willing to change when it must. Accompanying Bruce's post is a recent WSJ piece and a July 2005 McKinsey & Company interview/article covering changes in "dog-eat-dog" P&G brand manager culture, the importance of constantly listening to customers and its current "turn-around" CEO, A.G. Lafley, who breaks ranks with many past P&G chiefs in his nearly Stephen Covey-like leadership style.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:54 PM | Comments (0)
Great Response to "Lawyers As Trusted Advisors"
In response to the post immediately below on Arnie Herz's "Lawyers As Trusted Advisors", I received a great comment from Mr. Moe Levine which is self-explanatory and republished virtually verbatim below:
Unfortunately, clients and markets are smart enough to understand that they don't want lawyers as trusted advisers.
There is a lawyer and sociologist named Mark Suchman, he used to teach at Wisconsin and now is on the West Coast, who has written very extensively on the fact that over time lawyers relationships with clients must deteriorate, because clients learn to do more and more for themselves. His best paper was delivered in about 1992 to a Bar Program in Chicago. The basic idea is that the more clients can do for themselves, the less they need lawyers and the more task specific lawyer client relationships will become. He really paints as excellent picture of what the practice has become and where it is headed.
I agree with 95% of what Moe is saying here. In fact, my firm wants its clients to not need or use us for things they can do themselves. We like that. That's good. When a client can do things on its own, that's an enormously satisfying moment for us--and a lot of what lawyering (and this blog) is all about. Smaller clients and start-ups can be taught to do lots of things on their own; common examples are safe hiring/firing practices, conducting a sexual harassment investigation, self-audits for environmental compliance, trademark and copyright applications and keeping corporate minutes.
You are finally adding value as a lawyer when you teach clients how to do these types of things and teach them when they really need a lawyer. Once "taught" they can bring more difficult matters to you and ones which don't fall under the category of "putting out [unnecessary] fires". The challenge is: (1) getting new businesses to spend money on lawyering in the initial stages of development or when a problem comes up for the first time, (2) teaching clients to do things themselves, or with minimum of our help, and (3) educating them on when they need lawyers and when they don't. You may lose "short-term" money, but you get in return long-term clients, more interesting work in which you are really "helping" and a real relationship with a client where the lawyer is valued as an advisor. And you have trust.
Posted by JD Hull at 06:39 PM | Comments (0)
"Lawyers As Trusted Advisers"
Clearly, I'm having post-envy here, and wish I had written the above-entitled post but Arnie Herz at Legal Sanity did instead. If you are relationship-driven in your approach to clients--which is just about the only overall model I can come up with--and you seek true partnership and "consigliere" roles with your best clients, you should read Arnie's post "Lawyers As Trusted Advisors". This man not only thinks before he writes, he gets it.
Posted by JD Hull at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2006
Clean Water Act Argument in SC Today: So What Are "Waters of the U.S." These Days, Anyway?
See today's WSJ Law Blog. If your firm does any environmental law, you may know know that two critical companion cases were argued today on the reach of the 33-year-old federal Clean Water Act in a test of the new U.S. Supreme Court. I almost forgot about this--probably because it was such a strange development (no pun), I was in denial the case even got as far as it did. In the two cases, developers are challenging the federal government's authority to regulate (and protect) wetlands.
Simply put, the question is: will wetlands or any other waterways which you can't float a boat in still fall under the jurisdiction of the federal Clean Water Act? If the answer is "no"--i.e., wetlands and certain smaller tributaries to navigable waters are now suddenly "out"--the Clean Water Act and much of its jurisprudence is changed forever unless Congress steps in. Although the case affects many U.S. businesses and persons from diverse political camps in different ways, it's in many ways a straightforward Environmentalists v. U.S. Business dispute. Also see the Associated Press's coverage of the argument.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:15 PM | Comments (0)
Revisited: European blawgs anyone?
I'm still compiling a list of active worthwhile European legal blogs--especially those originating from or about the UK, Germany and France (English versions if possible), western Europe generally and the European Union. I've received some good responses (in comments to February 16 post) If anyone else of any nationality can recommend European sites they like and visit frequently, I would appreciate it.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:20 AM | Comments (0)
Abraham & Del Bianco--Two People You Should Get To Know.
No--this is not a multicultural-sounding law firm. It's two very different Washington, D.C. people I know who are both "digitally-advanced", and who I urge everyone to get to know personally and professionaly. Since more than 10 people a day (still mostly relatives and associates paid to view it but it's getting there) finally are visiting and really reading this site, I thought, why not briefly sing Chris's and Mark's praises in a post? I met DC-based Chris Abraham, an expert on corporate blogging and building on-line communities, and a very interesting human (likely because he's not a lawyer), at a Renaissance Weekend a few years back in California. His blog is at www.ChrisAbraham.com .
Another Washingtonian, and a D.C. native, Mark Del Bianco is an uncommonly talented telecom lawyer, lawyer's lawyer and friend who I have known most of my professional life. Mark is also an invitee to Renaissance but is always too busy to go. See Mark's main site at www.MarkDelBianco.com. Both Mark and Chris are in demand these days. Visit their sites and you can quickly figure out why. Very good people to know. And Mark and Chris--whether they know it or not--in different conversations two years ago got me interested in blogging. In fact, both had to explain to me the meaning of "blog". Neither Mark or Chris know about this post and both of them would be embarrassed by it. Well, maybe not Chris--he's got that Steve Jobs thing going.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:06 AM | Comments (0)
Client Interviews Need to Be A Continuing Issue--So Clip and Save this Post.
Three days ago Tom Kane at the The Legal Marketing Blog gave us another useful post on client feedback interviews, which stars a February 9 Small Firm Business article on taking client interviews to the next level. So if you click on Tom's post and then click on this, which collects all of the Michelle Golden-Jim Hassett-Patrick Lamb-Tom Kane multi-blog discussion on client interviews, and then follow the links, you have some great materials and comments on not only the need for client interviews but exactly how to do it. And, for my money, it's hard to improve on Tom's January 30 post on the 3-part formula for correct interviews: (1) Interviews by third party professionals (2) followed promptly by a visit from senior management and (3) assignment of a client service team or liaison to each key client.
Posted by JD Hull at 06:53 AM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2006
Patrick Lamb: Blawg Review #45
My friend and frequent cyber-mentor Patrick Lamb at In Search of Perfect Client Service did the honors this week for Blawg Review #45, which reviewed last week's posts. As usual, Pat does a superb job.
Pat and I are both practicing business litigators approximately the same age. We both were raised in the Midwest, were high-school debater types and have strong dashes of Gaelic DNA. We are both serious students of client service and law practice management. So over a year ago, when I was reviewing blawgs to see if I wanted to launch one myself, I was particularly interested in and struck by Pat's hugely popular blog. Then I thought it was the best legal weblog. I still think it's the best. We are all lucky to have the guy around.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:48 PM | Comments (0)
Being There: Availability.
Three weeks ago Allison Shields at Legal Ease Blog wrote a first-rate and thoughtful piece "How Available Are You?" and it deservedly attracted a lot of attention. About the same time, Tom Collins at MorePartnerIncome had a solid post on the same subject. Read these if you haven't. People noticed Allison's and Jim's posts and responded. These kinds of posts seem to hit a nerve. People want to talk about availability. At the request of a friend and first-rate lawyer, I'm working on a short review of a truly wonderful and needed book called The Essential Little Book of Great Lawyering, by lawyer-author-consultant Jim Durham, formerly managing partner at Ropes & Gray and Law Firm Development Group. It's a fine, fine book--and I'll talk more about it another day. About halfway through the book, Jim talks about the importance of 24-hour "accessibility" and "responsiveness" to clients. Not everyone agrees with that one--but I loved it.
My firm's website has said since day one that we are available to clients 24-hours-a-day. And it's true. However, with planning, no one in our firm has ever been inconvenienced by our policy. Years ago 2 different lawyers with great credentials were asking Hull McGuire for work we couldn't get done without outside help. Each told me point blank in so many words that the "anti-quality-of-life/Rambo" (I'm paraphrasing) tones of our 24-hour promise on the website alone "scared" (now I'm quoting) them. We didn't stay in contact with either one professionally after they made their "quality of life" position clear. Nice guys--but I didn't want our clients anywhere near them.
The 24/7 ethos may be a minority view--old school, or maybe new school. But I think not being available to clients 24/7 (vacations included) is: (1) arrogant, (2) spoiled, and (3) just plain dumb. Nothing radical about this, folks. Attorneys are not royalty. And practicing law is often hard. Our clients deserve a lot. They are often hard-won from much larger firms. Competition is only increasing as we finally realize that "law is a business", and that we now live in a world which never sleeps. My firm wants to be the firm clients or would-be clients think of when they ask themselves: "Who can I get to do this now? Like right now?" With the exception of one German manufacturing client (and I was glad the rep in that case woke me up), in 20 years no one has ever called me at 3:00 in the morning. But if you are trying to discourage a good business client from calling you on the weekends or at odd hours, or during your family vacation, tell them to call me collect. Be glad to take the call. For each client or industry we serve, we always have two people who can take your client's call.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:06 PM | Comments (0)