“Imagine this business school case study:  A global business is managed by part-time leaders with minimal business training.  The business offers different products to different customers depending on the varying skills and interests of the local service providers, who also serve as the salespeople, project managers and product managers.  Pricing is customized to each transaction and rarely follows a cohesive strategy, save for the fiat that prices must increase each year.  Marketing consists of promoting the business’s capabilities, which are presented as vast and unparalleled.  Customer demand has been a constant for as long as anyone can remember.  The challenge:  Customer demand shifts overnight from a constant to a variable, with immense competition for declining customer budgets.  What should the leaders do first to ensure the survival of the business?”

Welcome to the dilemma facing law firm leaders today.  How would you respond?  See my recent article here in the ABA‘s Law Practice Today ezine.

Autumn is the time of year to see the orange and black of Halloween and the red and green of Christmas.  It’s also the season of pink slips.  As corporations reach the end of their fiscal year, the likelihood of senior management initiating layoffs is as certain as Santa Claus appearing in the Macy’s Day parade. And the aftermath is typically as messy as the kitchen after a Thanksgiving dinner for twenty.

The two primary catalysts for these layoffs are short-term profit maximization and strategic reorganizations.  Simple business math suggests that a company expecting to fall short of its top line revenue projections must lower costs in order to deliver the bottom line expected by Wall Street analysts.  By the time the fourth quarter has come around, misplaced optimism has masked the under-performance for too long and now there are few options to quickly lower costs.  Terminating employees is a guaranteed get-rich-quick scheme for many companies.

This is also the time when company executives engage in the annual budget dance which inevitably concludes in taking on questionable revenue and profit goals assigned by the parent company leaders, who in turn are influenced by industry analysts who don’t acknowledge business cycles and accept nothing less than steady, predictable growth.  When there is no rational plan to achieve stretch goals, then it’s time to reorganize!  There is no greater disruption to a company’s performance and growth than constant reorganization, yet some companies engage in such activities every year, even multiple times each year.  And every reorganization is accompanied by employee terminations.

Obviously there are many poorly-run companies in dire need of change, and there are always employees who don’t perform well and need to move on, and competitive forces can lower demand which requires a company to downsize.  But many companies fail to distinguish between the layoffs caused by poor performance and those in which the employees are merely economic victims.

I recently re-read this Wall Street Journal article “If You Fire People, Don’t Be A Jerk About It” by Kelly K. Spors, which discusses different approaches for terminating an employee. The article strongly urges managers to act reasonably so the terminated employees can depart with dignity and self-respect. As I’ve written previously, change doesn’t have to take place without compassion.

There are very few circumstances in which an employee, a grown man or woman who days before was a valued contributor, should be given a few moments to place personal belongings in a cardboard box and be escorted to the door in full view of colleagues.

Managers shouldn’t allow the personnel or legal departments to unilaterally dictate the terms of all severance packages.  Every seasoned manager has a story of a jilted employee who was denied proper benefits ending up in an influential position with a client, and the loss of sales resulting from their residual anger always costs far more than simply offering a fair severance package.

Sadly, there are many hiring managers who assume an out-of-work employee is always damaged goods.  So employees who are terminated due to economic conditions rather than poor performance should be given a respectful reference, acknowledging that their departure resulted from business conditions.

Yes, I know that the lawyers and HR staff will offer different views, based on their zeal to eliminate all risk. Managing a business is all about managing risk, and successful businesses managers make risky decisions every day.  If we took action only when we could be sure of eliminating all risk, then we wouldn’t act and we would inevitably fail.

When it comes to conducting layoffs that aren’t performance-based, make the decisions that are appropriate for the short-term and long-term health of the business.  Incorporate the expectation that alumni of your organization will talk about you when they leave and the impact of this viral marketing will be meaningful, one way or another.  It’s your choice whether they leave as happy alumni or outraged alumni.

If you’re a business leader exploring options for downsizing your workforce, it’s good business to take an approach that preserves the departing employees’ dignity, and preserves for your organization the opportunity to do business again somewhere down the road with these employees, their families, their friends, their acquaintances, their social media connections, their subsequent employers and their clients. It is indeed a small world.

Clients have demanded changes from their law firms for years, but the economic downturn accelerated this process.  Law firms have begun to adapt business concepts that have proven to be effective in other business segments.  The most progressive law firms have embraced these changes and proactively seek opportunities to showcase their new capabilities to clients and prospects.  Leaders at these law firms have also discovered that change can be more profitable and help the firm stand apart from those clinging to the old ways.  Marketing takes on a whole new meaning at firms where growth is predicated on news ways of doing business.

To read the full article published in The Legal Intelligencer, click here (a subscription may be required.)

I’m continually amazed at the curious phenomenon common to the legal profession, where we anoint to celebrity status certain lawyers who appear to have mastered a particular subject matter. It goes beyond wishful thinking and bleeds into blind optimism that somehow we are as world-famous, if not world-class, as we think.

I visited four cities during one busy week recently, meeting with something like twenty law firm clients of all shapes and sizes to discuss trends in legal marketing and business development.  In separate conversations at three different firms, legal marketers described one of their top lawyers as “One of the best, if not the best, in the country in this practice area.”  This would be a startling coincidence, as the cities and firms I visited could best be described as a random sample from the NLJ 250.  What are the odds that of all the practice areas, and of all the firms in this group offering these practice areas, and of all of the lawyers in these firms engaged in these practice areas, I was sufficiently fortunate to cross paths with the top practitioner three separate times? Astounding!

The stark reality is that not every accomplished lawyer is a celebrity.  And even those who have mastered their domain and are indeed shining lights in the profession are often little more than transient blips in the daily lives of the business professionals who hire them.  Ouch.

I’ve written previously about this concept, which hearkens back to our school days.  Imagine the coolest guy or the most popular gal in your high school.  Now imagine your hero transplanted overnight to a different school a thousand miles away.  Will Miss Popular or Mister Big Man on Campus be afforded the same privileges and adoration by the fawning class immediately upon arrival?  Isn’t it more likely that some measure of their “success” is a function of time and location and isn’t readily transferable, at least not immediately?  I say this with the greatest amount of respect for the exemplary credentials and accomplishments of the many lawyers I’ve hired and on whom I’ve relied over the years in my corporate career:  I simply can’t recall your names, even though by and large I valued your contribution in addressing my business issues.

A couple years ago I gave a talk to a group of lawyers assembled for a conference in a South American country.  After I had returned to the airport and while sitting in the business lounge awaiting my flight home, I suddenly became aware of a large number of thick-necked men in dark suits roaming about and a growing sense of hustle in the airport staff.  One beefy man was evidently assigned to watch me, as he stood a short distance away gazing alertly in my direction.  In time a private plane pulled up on the tarmac outside the ground floor lounge and a non-descript man in a natty suit disembarked and was accompanied into the lounge by several stern men, and when the bags were retrieved they all disappeared in a flash out a side door.  To this day I have no idea who this dignitary was, although he was clearly of some importance to the locals.  However, I have a distinct recollection of annoyance, as whoever he was delayed all air traffic for a short time, including my departure, which put my later connecting flight at risk.

This anecdote came to mind recently when I was chatting with a General Counsel after we participated on a panel discussion together.  We were both invited to speak at a law firm partner retreat, sharing anecdotes and best practices between in-house counsel and outside counsel.  She admitted some reluctance, because though she had recently concluded a successful and quite large transaction with the firm’s help, she was not delighted with the performance of one of the senior partners.  He and his team delivered excellent legal advice, she reported, but she was constantly chasing the partner for budget updates and she was regularly negotiating invoices that reflected much higher fees than she had agreed to.  Each conversation followed a predictable path:  the partner would patiently (and somewhat patronizingly, she added) explain why the nature and complexity of the transaction allowed little predictability, and the partner claimed that other clients happily paid his fees because he delivered the desired results.  The partner would then agree to write down a portion of the invoice and the cycle would repeat the following month.

But it was the other predictable conversation that troubled her more:  the divisional CFO would request a quarterly budget update for her transactions, the invoices on this matter would exceed budget every quarter, and even when she negotiated a write-down and added cushion she was left in the unfortunate position of explaining and justifying the budget exceptions.  Again and again.  To the person who signs her paycheck.  Not surprisingly, the CFO didn’t know the sterling reputation of the lawyer, didn’t have an appreciation for the complexity of the legal matter and accordingly at the conclusion of the transaction he strongly suggested that this lawyer not be re-hired for future work based on his “poor” performance.

While there are several learning opportunities here, a key takeaway is the lawyer’s misguided sense of importance in the client’s operation.  His lack of interest in providing budget predictability was, to the ultimate buyer of the lawyer’s services, an indication of poor performance.  The renowned reputation of the lawyer, the presumably high quality of legal work product and the successful conclusion of past engagements meant little.  Too often lawyers lose business without realizing it.  My friend the GC wasn’t planning to “fire” the lawyer but she would protect her integrity and her future legal budgets by simply not re-hiring this particular partner.  She was, she shared to little surprise, inundated with unsolicited approaches from other capable lawyers who might deliver the same result but with less surprise and stress.  It wasn’t the overall cost, she reiterated, it was the constant uncertainty and failure to adhere to a budget that troubled her.

At a recent conference held at the Opryland Hotel outside Nashville, I was dashing to a very early breakfast meeting when I passed a young man in a cowboy hat strumming a guitar while sitting alone in an empty side lobby.  “What a curious time and place for the hotel to arrange entertainment,” I thought as I sped by.  When I returned an hour later, this same young man was at the head of a long line, signing autographs and posing for photographs.  As it turns out, he was a well-known country music star who had just concluded an  interview on the Grand Ole Opry radio station conveniently located within the hotel (who knew?).  Several dozen fans came out to hail the star and he caused quite a commotion.  Don’t ask me who he was, because the sum total of what I know about country music and its talented stars could be written on a guitar pick.  But that’s the point.  I wasn’t this young man’s target audience so to me he was merely a curious diversion on the walk back to my hotel room.

Whether you’re a practicing lawyer who believes that you’re a star in your field, or a marketer asked to cater to the needs of one of these many stars, be sure to first ask some tough questions: Am I selling only a reputation or am I selling solutions to my client’s business challenges?  Have I confirmed what constitutes a quality work product for this client on this engagement?  Am I confident that my contact and the person who pays the legal bills share the same definition of quality work product?  Am I working as hard to keep this client satisfied as I worked to win this client in the first place?

It’s hard work to achieve the many accolades and laurels that accomplished lawyers are awarded.  But let’s be sure not to rest on those laurels, particularly if there are hungry rivals waiting to delight your clients.  Your reputation alone may not be sufficient to win, and keep, work from dissatisfied clients.  And it might might be humbling, but extraordinarily helpful, to acknowledge that your reputation might not mean all that much in the first place.

I have the good fortune to be a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management, a group of highly esteemed and accomplished professionals who have spent their lifetimes improving law practice in a myriad of ways.  My own humble efforts in this arena were recognized some years ago when I was nominated and inducted into this group.  For me, a high point of my year is attending the College’s annual conference where I can attend riveting discussions delivered by people I admire, and on occasion deliver some of my own remarks to the group on issues of the day.

This year’s conference is shaping up to be an inspiring event, as the list of profound topics and worthy speakers is unparalleled.  Titled “2011 Futures Conference: Challenging the Law Practice Model” with a special symposium on “Defining Value in Value Billing,” I submit the following examples of the extraordinary content to be discussed:

What is the Future of Price: Defining Value in Value Billing with Ron Staudt, Toby Brown, Paul Lippe and Ellen Rosenthal

Disruptive Technologies/Innovative Thinking with Marc Lauritsen, Richard Granat, Maura Grossman and Kingsley Martin

Law Practice Without Borders with Jordan Furlong, Simon Chester, BieBie Que and Pam Woldow

Future View: Do You See What I See? with Sally Fiona King, Ross Fishman, Dave Hambourger, Chris Murray, Chris Petrini-Poll

Innovation, with Velocity with Tom Clay, Raymond Bayley

Finally, I will be presenting along with several esteemed colleagues.  Session moderator Ron Friedmann describes the session as follows:

Law Factories vs. “Bet the Farm” Firms
Will law firms of the future need to segment clients in new ways? Might some firms focus on “industrialized” practices: hyper-efficient work using automation and low cost resources? Might others focus on “bet the farm” cases using mainly top legal talent? Or do we need to focus on the “bread and butter legal work” middle ground? If the market segments, will it do so by practice, by firm, by matter type or along some other dimension?

Toby Brown, Vinson & Elkins; Timothy B. Corcoran, Hubbard One; and Mark Robertson, Robertson & Williams, join me to lead a highly interactive session. Each of us will kick-off the session with a maximum 2-minute intro. We will organize and facilitate break-out discussions around a series of questions, including:

• What does it mean to industrialize law practice
• Can a single firm play both ends of the spectrum (factory and farm)?
• How big is the middle “bread and butter” segment and can this be industrialized?
• What large firm practices have industrial elements
• What consumer practices have industrial elements
• If paradigm is true, what are the implications for marketing. For professional development? For ethical compliance?
• Should law school teach lean six sigma, process mapping, or industrial engineering?
• Alternative service providers – cause or effect?

If you don’t recognize the speaker names above, then you aren’t paying very close attention to the colossal systemic and sustainable changes being wrought in the global legal services marketplace today.  Google any one of the names and you’re bound to learn something.  Better yet, attend the conference and learn from all of them.  The conference is intended for law firm leaders, managing partners, executive directors, chief marketing officers, directors of professional development, law school deans and anyone else interested in the future of the business of law.

This year’s Legal Futures Conference will take place in Chicago on October 28th and 29th, and is presented by the College of Law Practice Management in conjunction with the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law.  For more details about the conference, click here.  To register, click here.

I hope to see you there!

It seems as if the entire Internet went wild when Casey Anthony was acquitted of the charge of killing her daughter, Caylee.  Anthony was found guilty of lying to police during the investigation but isn’t expected to serve additional time beyond the period of incarceration prior to her trial.  There was, and continues to be, great hue and cry over the outcome of the case, with nearly all pundits decrying the outcome as unjust, a miscarriage of justice, a travesty.

The defense lawyers are accused of introducing junk science and the jurors are deemed to be idiots.  After all, the evidence as presented in the press and trial broadcasts overwhelmingly portrayed Casey Anthony as white trash whose social life was hampered by her child, and once the child was gone she obstructed the police investigation while continuing her partying ways.  Clearly the judicial system broke down and justice was not served by letting her go free.

Or was it?

I have no particular insight into this case, and I watched and read substantially less about the case than the pundits and television lawyers who can readily rattle off evidence and timelines and motives.  Nevertheless, from my standpoint, the judicial system worked.  Whether the verdict was the right one I’m not qualified to say.  Was Casey Anthony an unfit mother?  Quite possibly.  Did Casey Anthony kill her own daughter and get away with it?  We may never know.  Should she go to jail because it sure seems like she’s guilty?

Our criminal justice system is based on the premise that the accused is innocent until proven guilty.  And our system requires that the government convince an impartial jury, based on lawfully obtained evidence, that the accused is guilty of the alleged crime beyond a reasonable doubt.  Failing to do so requires an acquittal.

This means that sometimes bad guys go free, possibly because the prosecution performed poorly, or the police obtained unlawful evidence that could not be introduced into trial.  We’ve all read accounts where defendants confessed to a crime, yet the confession was not admissible in court and therefore the guilty party walks away.  Surely an exception can be made in these cases?

What about the many cases from yesteryear that have been re-opened once new evidence or new investigatory techniques are introduced?  How many residents of death row have been fully acquitted of the crime for which they have been imprisoned and scheduled to be executed — not just had doubt cast on their guilt, but absolutely ruled out as a possible suspect knowing today what we didn’t know at the time of trial?  In some of these cases there was also a confession, though as it turns out it was inaccurate.

Of course defense lawyers will seek every advantage, including venue shopping to find sympathetic  judges and retaining jury consultants to learn what techniques are more likely to nudge a jury toward an acquittal.  Defense lawyers will hone in on every mistake made in the investigation, cast doubt on the credibility and motives of honest civil servants, introduce theories that distract from damning evidence and foment doubt.  But this is what a fierce advocate is supposed to do.  If the system works, then by and large the government will prevail over these tactics and the accused will be found guilty if he or she is indeed guilty.

Sometimes these tactics lead to a guilty party walking away, but each instance serves as a learning opportunity for the police and prosecution and presumably they will improve their approach next time.  It breaks your heart to hear of a guilty criminal who escaped punishment only to commit another crime.  But it doesn’t mean the overall system is flawed.

On a macro level, this is how the judicial system is supposed to work.  Contrast that with the mob mentality exhibited recently in countless blogs, tweets, news articles, editorials and Facebook posts, in which so many people who are so certain of Anthony’s guilt believe that anything short of a guilty verdict means the system is broken.  Some have even hinted at taking matters into their own hands to deliver swift justice.  How can this possibly be deemed a better system than due process under the law?

Imagine someone accused of a heinous crime.  Imagine that through mere sloppiness or outright malfeasance the arresting and/or investigating officers took some shortcuts that helped cement the case.  Imagine that the prosecutor operates under the understandable assumption that anyone caught so deeply into the system must be guilty and therefore no leniency or plea deal is offered.  Imagine the defense lawyer who ponders the overwhelming evidence and decides that it’s not worth a robust defense since a finding of guilt is inevitable.  Imagine the jury and the judge are eager to get on with their busy lives so the proceedings aren’t given the proper respect but rushed through.  Any one of these could be enough to send an innocent person to prison.  Is it so hard to believe that on occasion, one or more could occur?

Who did you have in mind as you pondered this?  How does it change things if you consider it’s your mother, or sister, or nephew caught up in this farce and you know — not hope, not suspect, not desire, but really know — that she or he is innocent of the crime?  Do you see how a system rigged to presume guilt could steamroll an innocent party?

Now replace your kindly mother, beloved sister, or rascally nephew with a low-income, poorly-educated, inarticulate, slovenly stranger, the likes of which you’ve seen only from afar working at minimum wage jobs.  Given the same facts, why does this person deserve any less protection under the law?

I’m not nearly as eloquent on this topic as I’d like to be. There are many other opinions out there, some of which I agree with, some not so much, even when the conclusion is the same.  For me it boils down to cherishing a judicial system that makes it harder rather than easier to find someone guilty, else we become a society that allows mob rule or conventional wisdom or religious tradition or our leaders, elected or otherwise, to decide our fates.  And I’m just not ready to accept that.

One of the most popular destinations on this blog is my post about the utility of  an MBA for a modern law firm Chief Marketing Officer, and the healthy discussion that ensued.  You can re-read that post here.  In short, I suggest that the traditional path to prominence in a senior law firm marketing role — including knowing how law firms operate, working for several law firms to establish credibility, and focusing more on tactics than change management — is giving way to a more progressive role where business acumen and sometimes specifically no law firm experience is of greater importance (see the quote here by the law firm leader who specifically recruited a CMO with no legal industry experience).

In my view, an MBA can be very helpful in providing the critical thinking, vocabulary and out-of-industry references to help a law firm CMO.  Not all agreed with me, as the comments appended to the post attest.  The reality is that some law firms will take years to adapt to the new normal.  Herewith I offer two relevant updates to that discussion.

The law firm marketer demographic is skewed toward females, for whatever reasons.  However, business schools pose challenges for working mothers who try to squeeze in higher education.  Notably, Wharton, the prestigious business school at the University of Pennsylvania, has enjoyed two consecutive years of dramatically increased female student enrollment, and the administration is working to continue this trend.  This is a welcome trend, and we can only hope it’s both sustainable and mirrored at other schools of all tiers.  Diversity of thought, gender, culture and beliefs is critical to the growth and adaptability of a modern enterprise, and as it turns out not all business decisions made by middle-aged white males are as informed as they could be!

Unrelated to this, but no less newsworthy, is a recent poll of corporate CEOs which indicates that executive management questions the relevance of CMOs in the corporate sector.  To whit: “CEOs say that marketers lack business credibility.”  Oh, the horror!  The fact is, there’s a bell curve of competence and productivity in every discipline and it’s not at all surprising that as we emerge from a global economic crisis our business leaders question the effectiveness of their marketing professionals, in the same way that they are questioning the ability of their manufacturing operations to operate leaner, their sales teams to sell more, their legal departments to improve predictability (more here)… and we the stockholders question whether the business leaders themselves are effective stewards of our capital investments.  Marketers should be held accountable, whether in law firms or corporations, and those who aren’t getting it done will need to move on.  Such is life.

To a casual reader it may appear as if I long for law firms to operate like big corporations.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I have long experience in publicly-traded multinational corporations, and I have a good dose of experience in privately-held enterprises.  Most businesses have huge operating inefficiencies, many are rife with internal politics that pose greater obstacles than any competitor, and sadly more than a few have leaders at the helm focused more on their next bonus than on the long-term health of the business.

That said, there are a number of business practices which, if adopted and adapted by law firm leaders, would hugely improve the efficiency, client focus and profitability of a modern law firm.  And that, in a nutshell, is the point of this blog.

I recently attended a luncheon seminar in Washington, DC, hosted by the Capital Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association.  The subject of the day was “Law Firm Chairmen Panel: Moving the Needle” and the central topics were strategy, innovation and leadership.

The panelists were John B. Frisch, chairman and CEO of Miles & Stockbridge, a mid-Atlantic law firm of 212 lawyers; Thomas R. Frantz, President & CEO of Williams Mullen, a mid-Atlantic law firm of approximately 300 lawyers; and Jeffrey K. Haidet, Chairman of McKenna Long & Aldridge, an international law firm with 475 lawyers and public policy advisors.  Notably each maintains an active legal practice.  The panel discussion was adeptly moderated by Kim Perret, Director of Marketing & Business Development at Hunton & Williams, an international firm of more than 900 lawyers.  Kim is also the past-President of the International Legal Marketing Association.

Kim asked each law firm leader to offer introductory remarks about the changes in their respective firms in recent years, and how economic conditions and client demands have influenced strategy.  She then guided the panelists through a discussion of leadership, innovation, client service, measuring return on investment and internal communications.

The law firm leaders were refreshingly candid, open-minded, progressive and mindful that their roles have changed significantly in recent years.  A recent poll concluded that 93% of law firm leaders find their roles more challenging than five years ago, which is, frankly, as it should be.  The legal profession enjoyed a generation of near unlimited demand for legal services until the global economic crisis brought growth to a crashing halt.  Historically, and with a few notable exceptions, law firm leaders have been consensus builders, politicians, and gentle guiders of subtle change.  The modern law firm leader is becoming a true business executive expected to have training in leadership and management skill and to be adept with finance, operations, human resources, communications and even technology and marketing.

I captured a number of quotes from the panelists’ remarks, which I then shared live via Twitter.  I’ve repeated them here, along with a bit of my own color commentary.

“We started a business strategies dept, reviewing cross-disciplinary ideas, trying to generate new practices. Very successful to date.”

“We have a director of innovation, a lawyer, who leads a 40-lawyer committee to develop new ideas for the firm to implement.”

“We realized we can’t legislate innovation, so we focus on fostering innovation at the local level. One size doesn’t fit all.”

Each firm has established a very specific process to incubate new ideas, including the discovery of new practices, new service offerings and new ways of delivering legal services.  Jeff Haidet shared that not all efforts have been financially successful, but the PR benefits gained from launching new initiatives have been outstanding so the net effect of nearly all the efforts is positive.

“All three law firm CEOs embrace ROI analysis on all innovation and incubation efforts. Have to prove to partnership it’s worth it.”

Each realized that innovation requires a change of culture, an adaptation by the lawyers that trying new approaches is not something for others to do, but a responsibility that each partner shares.  One critical ingredient for success was measuring the outcomes for each new initiative.  Partners who are by default skeptics (and there are still many) of new ideas often offer generalized objections, which are more easily addressed when presented with specific financial outcomes of various initiatives.  It’s a lot harder for a partner who benefits personally from a successful venture to complain about it, but absent this sort of analysis it’s easy to talk of opportunity costs and distractions.

“A critical tool to drive cultural change is internal communication. We added staff for this sole purpose and take it seriously.”

The leaders discussed their efforts to drive cultural change.  Most require that executive committee members, office leaders and new practice group leaders attend leadership training.  One firm sends partners on the leadership track to a Harvard Business School program designed specifically for leaders of professional services firms.  (See here for more information; this is an excellent program!  Another is the degree  program offered by George Washington University’s College of Professional Studies in conjunction with the Hildebrandt Institute.)  Others bring in university professors to offer mini-MBAs.  One leader discussed the critical necessity of hiring MBAs to help the partners better understand and adopt modern business practices.

But all spoke of the importance of communication.  Each leader spends a lot of time now, and spent even more time during the heart of the economic downturn, traveling and spending time with colleagues from senior partners to junior staffers.  One commented that he’s learned to leave his BlackBerry on his desk when he walks around to drop in on people, because it otherwise distracts him from his central mission of improving communication.

One leader commented on the need to break away from the traditional consensus-building approach and adopt a more top-down and corporate-oriented management style, but nevertheless he built consensus among the partners before adopting the new approach!  Each discussed the importance of sharing, often pre-selling, important changes throughout the firm, and their increased emphasis on internal communications.  This was a luncheon attended primarily by legal marketers, after all, so there were some kind words directed at the marketers who assist in these efforts.  That said, it’s not uncommon for law firm leaders to have dedicated communications support separate from the marketing function.  This has evolved from primarily speech writing to more of a strategic communications adviser role.

“Investment in culture keeps partners happy and home, when a lateral move might earn them more money.”

“Our comp committee is proposing a new plan rewarding teamwork, cross-selling. It’s about balance, because big hitters tend not to share.”

As the law firm leaders’ business acumen has evolved, so has their understanding of the impact of laterals, both incoming and outgoing, on the health of the firm.  On one hand, incoming laterals with a portable book of business are as appealing now as they’ve ever been.  On the other hand, if that book of business presents conflicts that net out to be dilutive to the firm, as measured by the loss of clients with greater potential, then it’s not so wise to chase just any top line revenue.  Strategically targeting laterals whose book of business is compatible is akin to targeting high potential clients and requires similar analysis – another area of potential contribution by marketers.

But law firm cultures that have rewarded rainmakers, particularly when their contribution is isolated and doesn’t generate cross-selling, are not healthy for the long run.  But moving to a fully collaborative culture tends to push heavy hitters away, as they reasonably don’t like to share more than they must.  This is where leaders have to embrace and act on the firm’s priorities.  Do we want to be a collection of independent businesses sharing overhead, or are we solving for a more collegial culture where each partner shares in the successes or failures.  The law firm leaders on the panel recognize that a key ingredient of recent law firm dissolutions is a lack of a cohesive culture that generates partner loyalty rather than erodes it.

“We’re re-thinking our approach to M&A, based on serial client’s frustrations with us. Process and technology improving our approach”

“How can you possibly offer alternative fees profitably without embracing Project Management?”

These statements reflect the growing understanding of both Finance and Operations disciplines in law firm management.  One panelist described a longtime client’s growing dissatisfaction that the fees for repeat matters never trended downward, even though many M&A deals were modeled on prior deals.  The client was at risk of defection until the firm looked at its processes and found ways to streamline the service delivery, particularly reducing the costs – internally and to the client – of the more routine tasks that make up a good portion of even the most creative and innovative matter.

Similarly, another discussed the project management training that eventually all partners must have in order to lower the costs of the tasks that clients won’t pay for.  This is particularly critical when clients are not paying hourly rates, as with alternative fee arrangements, where the exposure to delays, inefficiencies and overruns is borne by the firm, not the client.  This is Business 101, embracing the learning curve as a means to lower costs of goods sold to improve profitability, and this math works even when prices (rates) are flat or declining.

“We have a robust client satisfaction program. I (the law firm CEO) and our CMO visit and interview key clients. We focus on their culture.”

“We look to our clients and ACC to teach us what clients want. But we also try to see where they’re headed and get there first.”

Not surprisingly, all three law firm leaders spoke of the importance of client focus in driving internal change.  One mentioned that the firm’s written mission statement and strategic plan has the word “client” on every line, reflecting the supreme importance they place on client needs.  Of course, it’s unfair to suggest that other successful law firms take an anti-client stance, but to hear the clients tell it they’d sure like to see more proactive improvements from their outside counsel rather than having to force the issue.

I found the second comment to be particularly compelling.  In this space and others we pundits have documented the lengths to which successful partners will go to resist change, but the notion that leading law firms have now accelerated the pace of change to not just keep up with but to overtake and anticipate evolving client needs is pleasing.  This is, in essence, how successful businesses continue to thrive amidst a tumultuous world.

“In our experience, when we are as or more diverse than our GC clients, it always works out better for us.”

“A diverse workforce is critical to our success. If we’re all the same then we won’t be challenged and advance our thinking.”

There was quite a bit of robust discussion about the need for diversity.  Some years ago diversity was a box to check indicating some effort in the direction of adding more female and minority partners, and this eventually included diversity of religious beliefs and sexual orientation.  But many law firms didn’t take this seriously, believing not too far below the surface that quality law firms would still be in demand even without a compelling diversity scorecard.  Clients, in fact, reinforced this belief by asking for diversity information in RFPs yet often not providing that factor sufficient weight to make a material difference in the outside counsel selection process.

Times have changed.  Now corporate legal departments are held to higher standards of diversity, and due not merely to altruism and social conscience, but because leaders of global businesses have long known that diversity of thought, orientation and culture are critical ingredients to the success of multinational enterprises.  The increasing importance of diversity in the law firm selection process is mirrored by the increasing emphasis the law firm leader panelists place on this initiative within their own firms.  Of course, we all understand that it takes time.  It was not lost on the audience that the three law firm leader panelists are all middle-aged white males.

“Marketers should be ambassadors to & of the leadership team. You (marketers) talk to more people than we can. Tell us the way it is.”

“Where possible, marketing efforts should be measurable. RFP win rates? Sure! Branding impact? Not as much.”

Each leader touched on how the marketing professionals in the audience can contribute to the mission of change.  Haidet referred to the critical importance of the Chief Strategy Officer, Alina Gorokhovky, who leads an independent business unit within the firm, and who helps shepherd good ideas into sustainable competitive advantages.  Frantz extolled the virtues of his new Chief Marketing Officer, Kristin Patterson, who had no prior law firm experience but has impressive credentials in digital marketing and product marketing.  Franz shared that the firm leadership specifically sought someone who can teach lawyers about effective growth practices from other business verticals.  Frisch weighed in with praise for Miles & Stockbridge CMO Tara Weintritt who is, along with Gorokhovksy and session moderator Perret, a legal marketing veteran who has been afforded great latitude as an agent of change.

As previously discussed, measuring performance is increasing in importance, and marketing efforts receive quite a bit of scrutiny.  Efforts that were believed to be successful in years past are now viewed with a dose of skepticism, as high demand for legal services assuredly masked the ineffectiveness of some partners’ preferred marketing tactics (glossy capabilities brochures, anyone?).  Now there is a thirst for ROI (return on investment) analysis and while not all marketing tactics lend themselves easily to such scrutiny, quite a few business development efforts are quite readily measurable.  For example, measuring the win rate of RFPs and analyzing the relative impact of speed of responsiveness, flexibility of response, depth of pre-response client Q&A, client risk scoring, and other factors, are becoming regular tools to filter the good opportunities from the poor.

Marketers work closely with partners and associates and other business professionals throughout the firm and each leader in his own way expressed a desire for the marketers themselves, and not merely through their formal communications tactics, to be agents of change and carriers of communication to and from the leadership team.  Just as marketers can become essential in their roles as the voice of the client, they can improve their standing by sharing information that informs decision making.

The underlying thesis of the panel is that the modern law firm leader has to become more like Collins’ Level 5 Leader, as well as embracing the values of Greenleaf’s Servant-Leader philosophy.  This firm-first, client-first and change-embracing mindset is unusual in the traditional law firm leader, but essential for present and future leaders.  And while this panel consisted of Biglaw leaders, the challenge is no less acute for small law firm leaders (see here).

My compliments to the speakers, to the moderator and to LMA’s Capital Chapter for an excellent event!

In the most recent edition of In-House Legal presented by Lex Mundi, I explore what In-House Counsel should know about Off-Shore Outsourcing of Document Reviews.  Special guests on the broadcast included Cindy Courtney, with Day Pitney LLP (Lex Mundi member firm for New Jersey), and Kate Bertini, Assistant General Counsel with United Technologies Corporation in Hartford, Connecticut.  We discussed the nuances of eDiscovery, factors to consider when deciding to use off-shore reviewers and helpful tips and safeguards for In-House Counsel.

This is a fascinating topic about which I‘ve written previously.  Outsourcing continues to strike fear in the hearts of outside counsel, even as In-House Counsel consider the use of LPOs and other offshore service providers to be standard procedure.  As a Biglaw partner said to me recently, presumably operating under the belief that he alone was capable of identifying the potential risks:  “You just can’t trust the quality of these offshore providers.”  Contrast that with the opinions offered by In-House Counsel on the broadcast, in which the underlying motivations for perpetuating the Biglaw model are deemed to be  revenue protection, lack of transparency and lack of process.  Not surprisingly, outside counsel who embrace outsourcing and off-shoring as just another approach often find that quality is improved, costs are lower, efficiencies increase productivity… and clients are very happy.

There’s no right or wrong answer on this topic, but law firms who fail to explore these options do a disservice to their clients.  As the old television commercial goes, “Try it, you might like it.”

A short time ago, the whip-smart and impeccably-dressed law firm marketing director Jonathan Fitzgarrald launched a new blog, Bad for the Brand, in which he explores the nature of brands both corporate and personal.  This isn’t a tour of logos and taglines, but rather a discussion of reputation management.  What makes a good brand?  What actions can harm a brand?  How are sustainable brands built?  How do they wither?  And so on.

I’m humbled to report that Jonathan recently interviewed me for one of his Best of the Brands profiles and found my comments lucid enough to publish!  Our discussion centered on personal branding and what I have done in my career to build and maintain my own brand, such as it is.  Click here for the full interview.  Jonathan does a good job of capturing my personal branding philosophy as follows:

• Be authentic; what you see is what you get
• Be passionate about what you do
• Have a long-term perspective on relationship building
• Don’t “sell out” or give up in the face of adversity, such as during an economic downturn
• Strive to live a well-balanced life

As I have relayed many times through anecdotes on this blog, I have learned so much from others, and I’ve made many mistakes while learning my craft.  Like anyone, who I have become is some alchemic blend of upbringing, experience, mistakes made and observed, aspirations and pure luck.  Knowing that others place some value on this combination is both surprising and humbling, though I haven’t ever really considered it a brand.  But knowing that Jonathan and others have certain expectations of my “brand promise” is a good motivator!

Many thanks to Jonathan for the kind gesture.  I hope his law firm employers recognize how well his efforts support their own brand message of excellence.