How the iPhone will do in the legal market is, for some, an open question. Most law firms have a lot invested in the BlackBerry platform. A lot of lawyers can’t imagine trading in a mobile phone that has a keyboard for one that doesn’t. Some companies are starting the migration to the iPhone (Halliburton is one recently in the news).

Here are a few pros and cons. More of the former, so a fair warning: potential Apple fanboy rant ahead…

Pros:

1. The phone itself. In a word: awesome. The design and build of the iPhone 4 are unbelievable. It is almost a work of art. Check that, it is a work of art. It fits in the hand perfectly, not too big, not too small. I grudgingly use a Griffin silicone case, to protect the thing in case of a drop. And drop it I have. No problems.

2. The user interface. In a word: magical. To use the iPhone is to forget all others before it. I just flat out works, and installing new apps or updating the software is super-simple. This is, I bet, a selling point for using the iPhone in the enterprise. If it comes with a manual, I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never had the need. This is the real secret behind the iPhone, and something you don’t fully appreciate until you use it.

3. Call quality. OK, two words: super-dandy. I know I am am biased in favor of the Verizon network, but the voice sounds great coming and going. I think I read somewhere that the iPhone 4 had upgraded technology to improve voice quality and lessen background noise. One particular strength is using the hands-free mode. I do this all the time and have had people tell me it sounds like I am on a land-line.

4. Keyboard. This is a subset of the user interface comment, but Apple’s touchscreen keyboard is great. I don’t email a lot from the iPhone, but it works, whether using an email client, webmail, or Gmail. My typing is generally some texting and using a small universe of apps.

5. Apps. I am always amazed by the focus on apps as far as gross numbers are concerned. I use a few, balanced between those of the business and personal variety. They are all easy to use, and quick to get things done. I’m not a gamer, and have never tried Angry Birds. (Although if someone launches Rapacious Lawyers, I’m in.)

6. Travel. Can you use the iPhone instead of lugging along a laptop? Short answer: maybe. I have done it a few times, mostly on personal trips rather than pure business travel. And it worked; my world as I knew it didn’t fall apart. Since I recall lugging a monster Compaq laptop to Mexico back in the day, traveling with just an iPhone is bliss. It might not work for a transactional lawyer on a work trip, but that’s what a MacBook is for.

Cons

1. Keyboard (sorta). Some legal power-users may say it’s not enough, and gimme back my BlackBerry. Yes, a 5+ year BB user will probably chafe a bit, especially one with large fingers and low frustration tolerance. I came to the iPhone via the BlackBerry Pearl, so I was used to a predictive type environment. A touchscreen keyboard will never satisfy some users. I do find some of the auto-complete words suggested to be mildly irritating. But it learns as you go, and most of us lawyers are on a laptop or a desktop much of the time anyway.

2. Battery life. For the first few months, I felt the iPhone was using up the charge too fast for my taste. It would last a full day, but definitely needed a charge by nightfall. Then after about 6 months, the battery life seemed to improve. I searched out a few tips to extend battery life on the web. I also think one of the effortless software updates may have helped as well.

3. Legal apps. There are not a lot of legal apps for the iPhone yet. (Full disclosure: I have not done extensive research on this, and since I don’t have a real need right now, I don’t claim to be an expert.) Some of the apps I have seen are mostly of the special-purpose variety, an app version of desktop software. In many cases, it might be better off waiting to do that work when you are on a computer at work or at home.

So there you have it. Really strong pros and a few dutiful cons. On a scale of 100, I’d give the iPhone 4 on Verizon a 91. Light years ahead of anything else I have used, or have seen in the last year. In my humble opinion, Apple is at least 18 months ahead of other mobile phone manufacturers, and is accelerating. Put another way: almost everyone I know who has a choice in the matter opts for an iPhone when their BlackBerry contract is up.

Before I had an iPhone, I kept up with what the latest mobile offerings were from various manufacturers. In the last year, I have stopped looking.

On Friday, a few thoughts of what the emergence of iPhone on Verizon means to legal and client enterprises in the coming years.

Today we come full circle from where we started, which was positing that all things legal start with one lawyer. And in 2012 and beyond, what matters are results.

When a legal issue arises, here is how the process works:

1. Figure out “The Law.” We call it X.

2. Determine “The Facts.” That’s Y.

3. Someone takes X + Y and gets a business “Result.” That’s Z.

Successful lawyers and law firms will spend most of their quality time focused on getting to Z.

Increasingly X (The Law) is the province of search engines, digests, and FAQs. You don’t even need to be a lawyer to know the law. Heck, we learned in law school that ignorance of it is no excuse. On a standalone basis, it’s not just low value work, it’s trending toward free.

When we talk about Y (The Facts), that is increasingly the province of data. Data mining, databases, and data rooms. Software munches data with almost no incremental cost. Legal software will eat some lawyers and law firms for lunch in the coming years. So unless you are a software company or a bleeding-edge legal process outsourcer, you don’t want to be exclusively there, either.

Which brings us to Z (Results). The more time you spend delivering results, the better the air and the view of the legal landscape. If you deliver the final regulatory approval that triggers closing of a billion-dollar merger, you get to charge more than fixing a CEO’s traffic ticket. (But if it allows her to drive to the closing, it’s value-bill-city).

Over the last few decades, law firms have made billions splashing around in the X and Y ponds. We may not be past that stage of enterprise legal, but we are at least closer to its end. And in-house lawyers who are narrow subject-matter-experts better hope they can draw a line to Z more often.

A good many enterprise legal clients don’t know that they should expect clear results from lawyers, since they still think The Law is mysterious and The Facts are hard to come by. But that will change as they compare notes and realize that much of what they’ve been paying for is not worth much without Results.

Results make the value of legal costs clear, and offer the chance to compare lawyers, firms, and third-party options on other metrics as well. (Sharp-eyed readers may think this sounds similar to day four, which examined why close counts with clients. The difference is that focused on client proximity, and today examines the bottom line particularly.)

I can hear some readers groaning a bit, and I know that this sounds like baseball, hot dogs and apple pie. But when you talk with enterprise legal clients, they remark about and refer lawyers who get great results. And they bemoan lawyers who are all about long memos and longer invoices.

So that’s the State of Legal 2012. It started with a lawyer, and it ends by getting to Z.

I will have one bonus item next Tuesday, and it will attempt to draw some of the 7 stages of the State of Legal 2012 into a bigger picture.

Today we examine why many lawyers think “selling” is a dirty word and why, in the real enterprise legal world, we are all solos when it comes to selling.

You remember the first time you heard about sales. If it wasn’t before college, you recall the time in your junior or senior year when everyone starting making plans for post-graduation. The wannabe lawyers and doctors knew grad school was required, as did the MBAs. The engineers were sifting through multiple job offers.

And then there were the outgoing types who got through college by force of personality as much as by dint of hard work. The comment then was “he’s going into Sales.” For the early years after college, a mention of his name might produce the response “On, he’s in Sales.” It was not explicitly intended as an insult, but those words just sort of hung there in the smoky haze of the local watering hole.

Flash forward and where is everyone now? Well the doctors have too much business; selling is typically turning the phones on at 9:00 am, and sometimes losing money on each patient. The lawyers are wondering what the hell happened (as are many engineers). The MBAs are either toiling away in the bowels of Finance or Procurement, or, if they are lucky enough to have a senior position, wish they were better at sales.

And then there is that “Sales Guy” from college. He is gainfully employed. He’s worked for a number of companies, and upgraded his base, bonus and stock options each time. He never had to look for a job, as the offers come looking for him.

And you don’t see him much in the summer, as he is at his house on the lake.

One reason we may have gone to law school is precisely because we didn’t want to sell (second only to not tolerating the sight of blood).

How is that working out for us now?

Let’s look at the three major lawyer categories in enterprise legal, and how they are positioned, sales-wise:

1. Lawyers at large firms. The good news: they often have marketing personnel inside the firm. The bad news: they are typically building the firm name, not the names of 500 individual lawyers. When it comes to networking, some of that (maybe) can be outsourced or automated. But when it comes to selling bit-ticket legal services to billion-dollar companies, it takes selling. As in face-to-face meetings, and many of them. Sometimes over months or years. Can you take a lot of rejection, but not take it personally? If so, you have part of what it takes.

2. Lawyers at smaller firms or solos. The bad news: you are likely the marketing department. The good news: your name may be the brand mark. Your challenge is how to define and describe a niche that can put you on equal footing with large firm lawyers. Our friend Joe B. above is not going to cut it.

3. In-house lawyers. Ah, you’re in luck, right? One reason you went inside was to do away with timesheets and endless marketing efforts. You have a captive client, you don’t need to sell. Really? If you’re not selling the fact that the legal department is advancing business objectives, then you are falling behind. If you’re not selling yourself as about 5x better than outside counsel in cost, speed, and outcomes, then you may be falling out.

Clients buy the lawyer, and justify the purchase with the firm. On the in-house front, internal clients should use “legal” because they want to, not just because they have to.

There is so much room for improvement in the selling of legal services. For those who are so inclined, take heart. If you do anything somewhat regularly, you are going to be better than the other 99%, who typically do nothing ever.

I want to close this essay by recounting recent personal experience. There is a well known lawyer in town who started in a very large firm, and then left to build his own, which is quite successful. I saw him twice in the last few months. Over the holidays, I saw him at a nearby Starbucks, early on a Saturday morning. He was talking to a current or future client, as far as I could tell over the din of the espresso machine.

That’s not the best part. I saw him a few months earlier, at a local restaurant. Again, one-on-one with someone, talking business as I walked in, and talking about civic matters when I went back out to my car to retrieve a legal pad. Now why was I there? I was at a luncheon sponsored by the State Bar of Michigan. The agenda: legal marketing. The attendees? A bunch of lawyers. As I sat there listening to a speaker talking about how to stalk potential clients through Linked In, I couldn’t help but think about the name partner just outside. He has been “linked in” to marketing and selling for years. (Yes, he’s on Linked In; I just checked. I’d wager $100 that he doesn’t know his password.)

Does this all come easy to him? Maybe. But he is consistently out there, talking one-on-one to people who hire lawyers. Sounds somewhat like Legal Sales 101.

Neither of these episodes may involve some exotic social media infused, SEO-enhanced, lead-gen strategy, utilizing cloud-based CRM.

Works for him, though. And did I mention that the once and future client at Starbucks bought the coffee? What a concept!

Today we examine why a CLE (continuing legal education) mindset about training can operate as a CLM (career-limiting move). More to the point: does the notion that lawyer training has to be mostly about the law and exclusively for credit hold many lawyers back from improving skills as well as knowledge?

First, let me say I understand that many states have mandatory CLE requirements (here’s a map courtesy of the ABA). This was intended to have the public interest in mind. Fair enough. It is clear, though, that most of CLE offerings tend to be focused on lawyers in private practice, designed in the day of the generalist solo who is increasingly a rare breed. Further, in many states it is all about just taking courses and logging hours, not even testing knowledge gained. Finally, there are the well-intended CLE gatekeepers, who are deputized by the state bars to approve certain courses (for a fee) and sometimes offer them outright (for an additional fee).

My prediction for 2012 and beyond is this: lawyers who counsel the enterprise need courses that teach more than just “the law.” As we saw yesterday, if you want to get closer to clients (and stay there) you need to be more than a fount of legal knowledge. You need business process skills and techniques to master interpersonal dynamics.

Let’s be clear about one thing: the status quo isn’t the fault of CLE regulators or purveyors. It’s us lawyers, too. Note earlier I defined CLM as career-limiting move. But the “M” can stand for mindset, too. It’s the notion that lawyers dispense the law, like a juridical pharmacist. Some people (often outside counsel) I have met take this mindset to the Nth degree, and, when pushed by a client to explain an overly-legal answer, respond:

“That’s a business decision.”

Going forward, answers like that won’t get you invited back to the party.

The best enterprise lawyers package legal concepts with a layer of business reality and put an economic bow (with a strong ROI) on top.

Legal education for this market will start to serve this need, CLE credits be damned. It will have to be delivered expertly, crisply, and on-demand. It will move beyond “the law” and provide tools for “the lawyering.”

And it will happen sooner than some may think.

Today we look at what separates good lawyers from great ones. Increasingly, its how close you can get to clients, and what you do when you get there.

One of the main lessons you learn when you practice in-house is how much you do that is “legal” as opposed to dispensing “the law.” This is particularly so as General Counsel, when you are called upon to take on a senior management role. It’s definitely the case if you are GC in a company that views the law department as a strategic asset and not an occupying force.

When you are this close to clients, there is no excuse in not having an impact. In particular, you are in an optimum position to advance the corporate agenda, and control costs and risks in the process.

This wasn’t always the case. Let’s look at the alternatives.

The first is the historical role of outside counsel. You are called in when something happens, and you work at it with the meter running until it is done or someone yells “STOP!”

This was good work if you could get it. You were, however, playing a role in a three act play, but typically called in just before the intermission.

Contrast that with this. It’s what in-house counsel do day-in, day-out:

When you do this, you have to be close to clients. You are really working with them, not for them. You are free to solve a problem quickly and cheaply, indeed you are expected to.

The ability to create the best facts as you dispense legal advice is one key difference in the nature of the outside vs. inside practice. It’s why there are fewer memos and more meetings.

In 2012 and beyond, the better outside counsel want to get closer. If they do it effectively and efficiently, they just might be asked back. If inside counsel do not have consistent access to people they need to practice at a high level, they need to change the culture, upgrade their skills, or perhaps change jobs.

Clients like someone who jumps in and works alongside them. You get the picture.