Leadership for Lawyers

"We're Not Going to Take It" - Association of Corporate Counsel

You could almost hear Twisted Sister "singing" "We're not going to take it...anymore" at the Legal Marketing Association's national conference last month when Susan Hackett, General Counsel of the the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and Laura Stein, Chairperson of ACC, along with two other ACC members met with hundreds of law firm marketers to explain their approach to escalating rates of outside counsel. 

In a ninety minute presentation and discussion, Hackett outlined the pressures and realities facing in-house counsel, specifically, increased pressure to contain and predict legal costs and their frustration with double-digit rate increases, off-the-scale associate salaries (and corresponding hourly rates), a perceived unwillingness by law firms to discuss alternative fee arrangements and create lower-cost methods to provide lower-value (commodity) legal services.

To paraphrase, they said, "we're not going to take it anymore".  Hackett and Stein have created an initiative within ACC to explore ways to re-define the relationship in-house GC's have with out-house firms.  This new committee will develop a set of best practices to recommend to ACC members. ACC will sponsor seminars to teach GC's how to reduce outside attorneys costs, manage matters to budget, consolidate (or 'converge') the myriad of law firms some companies use to a small 'core counsel' cadre of firms, and stratify legal work so that only the high-end/high-value work goes to high-cost firms and commodity work is handled on a lower cost basis.   

Details were short at the meeting, but emotions were high.  The panel of in-house counsel differed on exactly what they wanted from their lawyers, but the agreed that lawyers and firms should work harder to understand what their clients wanted and they should create a relationship custom to those requirements.

What will come from this rebellion (and that's the word used in the LMA Conference brochure, btw)?  Hard to say, but I was impressed that four big-wigs from ACC spent a day at the LMA conference, not including travel time, to clearly articulate their frustration with the community of outside counsel and fire the warning blows over the bow of the $1,000/hour battleship created by our largest law firms.

Implications for biglaw?  Figure out - fast - what your clients want, including how to be billed, what work they consider high-value, what behavior they are tolerant of (and not, including associates billing $450/hour or more) and their plans their plans for convergence and changing how they manage outside counsel.  And after you listen, design a new way of serving them. 

For those of you who have conveniently forgot about Twisted Sister, here's a refresher:

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Naked Conversation Interview

Richard Levick interviews Shel Israel, co-author of Naked Conversations, a book about blogging and social media.  Why is social media important?

"When we wrote the book, blogging was social media. But now, if you’re a business, or an institution, or an individual, you can blog, you can create video, you can Twitter, or you can do combinations of them all. You need to identify and utilize the tools that are right for you.

But, what’s important isn’t the tools. What’s important is the ability to have two-way conversations with your customers rather than sit around and devise marketing methods filled with adjectives and legal disclaimers and shovel them into the foreheads of people who just don’t want them."

Read the interview here.

Why is this important to law firms?  Lawyers and their firms need to listen to thier clients, or their clients will find lawyers that listen.  Client interviews and surveys are a good start, but firms need to find multiple channels to receive client feedback and to listen to their preferences. 

BTW, Shel Israel is now moderating a video blog on Fast Company TV called Global Neighborhoods.  Check it out.

While you are reading the article, check out Levick's new book, "Stop the Presses" and their prescient blog, by the same name.  The book is a must-have reference about litigation public relations for the C-suite, lawyers, and marketing folks. 

ABA LPM Magazine Focuses on Tech and Competitive Intelligence

The recent issue of Law Practice Management Magazine (available online) has some great articles, including 45 Tips for Competitive Intelligence by Ann Lee Gibson, Keeping Up with Marketing -Speak, by Sally Schmidt and a Roundtable on Competitive Intelligence Tools, by a variety of panelists including David Bowerman, Cynthia Cheng Correia, Ann Lee Gibson, Mark Greene, Sabrina Pacifici, Meredith Williams and me. 

Green to Speak at LMA Event

Charles Green, co-author (with David Maister) will speak at LMA's Senior Roundtable in Washington DC in June.  This is from the LMA website:

"We are excited about this year’s program. Charles Green, co-author of The Trusted Advisor and Trust-Based Selling, will kick off our meeting. Richard Friedman will share proven metrics and tactics to measure and track ROI — ripe with examples from outside the legal industry. Matt Homann, popular blogger of thenonbillablehour.typepad.com, will lead discussions on strategic issues facing the legal market, group problem solving, and more. Take advantage of the great networking opportunity provided by this powerful event for you and your peers."

More information here.  Bummed I can't make it.  Sounds like a great program.   

Jim Collins to Speak in Denver, May 14th

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, will make a rare speaking appearance in Denver on May 14th.   The Community First Foundation is sponsoring his talk.   I hear Collins speak last Fall, where he discussed new research on great companies.  The mystery that puzzled him that day?  Innovation seemed irrelevant to long term success of a great company.  I'll ask him about it in May.   

Go to http://www.communityfirstfoundation.org/goodtogreat.cfm for more information.

Diversity Call to Action Summit

This sounds cool.   Several years ago, General Counsel from several hundred companies drafted and signed the Diversity Call to Action - a statement of principals and tasks to improve diversity in law firms and legal departments.  Not a lot has changed, so Rick Palmore of General Mills has called a meeting in Scottsdale on April 25 - 26 to get law firm Managing Partners and in-house GC's to come up with a plan to make a difference.  According to a law.com article,

"The goal is to have a collaborative discussion between the general counsels and the managing partners about what we can do to move the needle on this issue," said Roderick Palmore, executive vice president, general counsel and chief compliance and risk management officer at General Mills Inc., who wrote Call To Action in 2004.

Call To Action outlines goals for corporations to follow in order to improve diversity in their own offices and in the law firms they hire, focusing on gender, race and sexual orientation. About 90 general counsels have signed Call To Action, including those from The Boeing Co.; Prudential Financial Inc.; Microsoft Corp.; Johnson & Johnson; Tyson Foods Inc.; The Coca-Cola Co.; and Bank of America Corp.

In moving more aggressively toward specific goals, Call To Action is attempting to address a growing problem. Last year, for example, women made up less than 33 percent of lawyers employed in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Blacks made up less than 5 percent, Asians 2.6 percent and Hispanics 4.3 percent.

"The statistics speak for themselves," Palmore said. "They say our progress in the profession has been disappointing." Call To Action is the second major nationwide effort at improving diversity in the legal profession. About a decade ago, the American Bar Association worked with Charles Morgan, then-general counsel of BellSouth Corp., to come up with another initiative called, "Diversity in the Workplace: A Statement of Principle," which was signed by hundreds of general counsel executives. "

Interested?  There is still time to sign up.  Here is the

Download Summit_Agenda.doc

and the

Download Call_to_Action_Summit_FAQ.doc

Keynote speakers include former Secretary of State Warren Christopher and former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Contact: Richard Tom, 626-302-4430.

Ballard hires Client Interviewer

Did you see this article in The Legal Intelligencer (also on law.com) about how Ballard Spahr hired a "non-lawyer" to interview clients with the sub-title, "Could this new form of communicating with clients lead to the end of law firm marketing?"

A few thoughts:

• Interviewing clients for fun and profit isn't new, but it is hard to do consistently.  Instituting firm-wide standards and practices to gain feedback on client satisfaction and opportunity identification is contrary to most silo-based law firm cultures. 
• The managing partner of Ballard claims that they will focus on interviewing the top 300 of the firm's clients in the first year.  Good luck.  Most firms are happy to do quality interviews of a dozen or twenty clients in a year.  Still, they get points for hiring someone to do interviews and orchestrate a client service initiative.
• The article interviews a consultant from Altman Weil, who I truly believe was misquoted, indicating that if firms listen to their clients through feedback programs such as this AND they have a strong sales functions, then law firm marketing as we know it will not be necessary.   While I agree that firms need to listen to their clients in order to provide a custom experience, and that firms need to develop a refined sales process, we will still need law firm marketers for many reasons, if only to support and direct these efforts.

Client service interviews are becoming big business.  Many firms are quietly conducting top client satisfaction surveys in one form or another.  In fact, a new generation of consultants - outsourced interviewers - are emerging and growing.  You can now hire experienced, professional and insightful interviewer from firms such as Wicker Park Group, Zeughauser Group, as well as multi-disciplinary consultancies such as Altman Weil and Hildebrandt.

Speaking Gigs: Regional Marketing and CI

I'll be speaking at the following events:

Regional Marketing and Business Development Strategies
Webinar sponsored by Hildebrandt
May 28, 2008  Noon EST
Click here for more information

Competitive Intelligence in the Modern Law Firm
Sponsored by Managing Partner Magazine
June 10, 2008 New York City USA
Click here for more information.

Ukila nanasi, tunda lingine basi

Ukila nanasi, tunda lingine basi.

In Swahili, it means, "Once you taste a pineapple, you''ll never go for any other fruit"

Wouldn't it be nice for your clients to say this about your firm?

What would it take for your clients taste pineapple at your firm?

Lessons from Terminal Five

London's Heathrow Airport opened Terminal 5 this week, reminding me of the troubled opening of Denver's International Airport more than ten years ago.  Terminal 5 was slated to solve much of Heathrow's problems, including long security lines.  The terminal was supposed to be the pride of London, the entry point for athletes and visitors worldwide for the 2012 Summer Olympics, and the peak of airport efficiency.  Instead, thousands of pieces of luggage have been lost, the terminal opened unfinished, dirty and with poorly trained staff. 

The website ContinuityCentral has an interesting post on four lessons learned from the T5:

1.  Don't let it ever happen in the first place.

2.  Take responsibility for your actions

3.  Take radical steps to show that you are in control.

4.  Buy goodwill.

What?  You don't plan on opening an airport in the near future?  How about opening a new office, merger with another firm, acquiring a practice from a competitor, or launching a client service program.  Read the article here.