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February 15, 2008
Mediating Internationally: Interview with Lord Woolf
At the International Dispute Negotiation series of The International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR), hear the latest IDN interview, No. 13, "A conversation with Lord Harry Woolf", England’s former Lord Chief Justice. Hosted by Michael McIlwrath, Senior Litigation Counsel with General Electric based in Florence, Italy and CPR President Kathy Bryan.
Posted by Brooke Powell at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Redux: Slick Answers to Lazy Interrogatories.
Color me silly, but I love and respect written discovery during the pretrial process in American federal courts. Years ago, a fed-up U.S. district court judge, throwing up his hands during arguments by lawyers on a motion to compel discovery responses, referred to answers to interrogatories as "slick lawyer answers to lazy lawyer questions".
I feel his pain.
Once a new second year associate who worked briefly for our firm (after one year at another firm) complained that we were putting too much thought into a set of interrogatories under Rule 33, Fed. R. Civ. P. Our new hire patiently explained to me that interrogatories and other written discovery were in fact "simply a way for lawyers to bill time so they could make money, and nothing more." He was adamant about it, too.
Nice guy, and I liked him--I always try to take his cab when I'm in Pittsburgh.
But complex and hard-fought civil cases really do turn about 90 per cent on the quality of the discovery questions and requests, including deposition questions, and the responses to them. And well-thought out and strategically-timed written discovery is the best way there is to prepare great depositions--and get ready for trial.
JDH
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:00 PM | Comments (2)
What if you only represented clients you actually "liked"?
Only a few books I can find on the subject of rendering services to customers in the business sections of Borders or Barnes & Noble ever mention it. In the context of lawyer services, it's simply this: except for some court appointments and pro bono engagements, what if we only chose to represent clients we liked?
By "like", I mean it loosely: to derive for whatever reason real pleasure and satisfaction while doing legal work for a individual or organization.
My firm shies away from individuals as clients, regardless of his or her resources. We usually represent businesses. So in the case of an organization, we "like" the client because overall we somehow feel comfortable with or maybe even admire the personality, business culture or goals of that client, personally like/admire the client reps and general counsel, or both.
My firm "likes" business clients which are experienced, sophisticated users of legal services. When we perform well, the client appreciates us and signals that appreciation. So then we like the client even more, and want to do an even better job or keep doing the good job we are doing so we can derive more real pleasure from the engagement, and obtain more work.
As simple and as annoyingly Mr. Rogers-esque as this all sounds, we have never, ever had good long-term relationships with any organization client which did not genuinely appreciate what we were doing for it and show it (good clients "get" lawyering, have used different lawyers frequently in the past and understand the vast differences in quality between lawyers out there in the international market), or which had disturbing corporate personalities (i.e., mean-spirited Rambo cultures, groups with employees given to blame-storming, or companies with disorganized, internally-uncommunicative or just plain lazy staffs).
Lots of such "broken" clients make money in spite of themselves--but they are never worth it for the long haul.
We rely on repeat business. For us, there's no substantial reason to accept a new engagement unless we think we might want to represent that client in the long term. For years, I often sensed before the first draft of the representation letter was done that the new client didn't fit us. Usually I couldn't articulate it--or maybe I just disliked the client rep. But because of the money or the prestige of the engagement, we took the project, and kept going after the repeat business anyway. A few years ago, we stopped doing that.
Does my attitude clash with some people's notions of real client service, duty to the profession or basic law firm economics? It sure does. And today I don't think I can practice law any other way. In the long term, having no client is better than a bad client--or one that I don't see courting down the road.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2008
Redux: In Praise of Structure
Read it here.
Posted by Tom Welshonce at 01:49 PM | Comments (0)
Striking writers vote to go back to work
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 07:06 AM | Comments (0)
Marco Island, Florida
Naples, with a 25% reduction in pretense.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:02 AM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2008
Rule 11: Treat Each Co-Worker Like He or She is Your Best Client
Here.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)
Naples, Collier County, Florida
Winter suburb of the American Midwestern cities.
Posted by JD Hull at 06:26 AM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2008
U.S. Democrats: Horserace!
Pardon my dripping schoolboy excitement. But even the most dreamy, idealistic American kid growing up in the 1960s--was there any better and more interesting time to grow up?--could not have imagined a "run-off" between two candidates like HRC and Obama. You need to stand back and look at this one, the 2008 election: the most spirited, surprising and genuinely defining (just who are Americans anyway?) U.S. election in WAC?'s lifetime. Still 8 months away from November. After Saturday's primaries and caucuses--in which Obama wins big in Nebraska, Louisiana, Washington state--HRC has 1,084 delegates to 1,057 for Obama. 2,025 delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination. See The Washington Post.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)
Mardi Gras: we got sober and we missed it.
Forget about the economy, the 2008 elections, lack of cultural literacy and anything else that ails you. Dr. John and his satchel of gris-gris remedies can help. So can Ray Ward.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)
"Do we really need a memo on that?"*
Go the mirror and practice saying that to yourself and to your GC.
Save money, time and relationships. Answer the question. Cut to the chase. Take a stand. Aside from necessary opinion letters, do not offer to write or write a cover-everyone's-ass and/or comprehensive "all-legal-theories-and-strategies" memorandum unless your in-house lawyer really wants it. And then try to talk her or him out of it. Part of your job as outside counsel is to guide and make the GC be and look good by saving money and time. Also: if you are in litigation, test out your brilliant ideas and research in a draft brief or another instrument or document the client can actually use later on. Skip the 10-, 20- and 35-page memo. Try to make memos you do write short, and reflect the group's cumulative thinking on that issue or project. Quit re-inventing. Make clients trust you.
*The actual question is borrowed, stolen or paraphrased from some other lawyer--likely a law firm management "great" like Patrick McKenna, Jim Durham or Patrick Lamb (I can't remember which)--and my firm loves it. So do pleasantly-surprised clients. We have had it in practice so long that it became "ours." Mea culpa for not disclosing the first time I posted it today.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:32 PM | Comments (0)
Clients "want an attorney who blogs"?
We picked up this post from this week's fine Blawg Review #146: "Why Every Client Should Want an Attorney Who Blawgs" at Ohio Practical Business Law Counsel. This is well-written and well worth your time. However, we continue to think that most clients worth having--and certainly busy in-house counsel--have no time to read blogs, think about blogs or to blog themselves. And real clients want their real lawyers working their asses off solving problems--not blogging. Blogger-professionals need to get over themselves. A client's knowledge that you are blogging regularly is about as helpful--or harmful--as knowing that you go to the track a couple of times a week with your drunken philandering stoner high school friend Ernie from Glen Burnie. Colorful and interesting--but so what? And with the wrong client, it could even hurt. Moreover, blogging still has a geeky connotation with the over-45 crowd who control much of the work law firms get. Clients could care less if you blog and might even resent it. Still, read Teri Rasmussen's post for a counter-intuitive counter-view. We of course may be wrong--but we are not about to trumpet the fact to our best clients that "hey, we be blogging". They don't care--and we should not expect them to care.
Work first. Blog later. And keep it to yourself.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 01:35 PM | Comments (7)
February 10, 2008
Gates of Vienna
Home to "Counter-Jihad", and one of the most read blogs ever.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:29 PM | Comments (0)
Perfectionism: Great Destroyer of Great Young Lawyers.
Be more excellent without it. From our client service "12-step" program, which we never joke about: Rule 10: Be Accurate, Thorough and Timely--But Not Perfect.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 09:08 AM | Comments (0)