3 Geeks and a Law Blog

Earlier in February, I sat in on a webinar provided by Altman Weil on Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFA). I had planned on getting a bunch of work done while I listened to the same ideas I’ve heard numerous times before. Fortunately, I didn’t get much work done since the program had some excellent content.

Two Stats

A recent review of large firm web sites (the AmLaw 100 per my notes) noted that only 23% mentioned AFAs. Compare that to 87% of the program attendees reporting that clients have asked about AFA options in the last 6 months. (Personally I was quite surprised this number wasn’t 100%.) The moral of this story is clear: Let clients know you are willing and (hopefully) able to address their requests for alternative fees on your web site.

One of the anecdotal stories shared was of a client asking one of their panel firms to share their AFA options with them. The firm dutifully provided an extensive list of options they would be willing and able to provide. Contrary to what you might predict, the client was not happy. She wanted to know why the firm, if it had all these abilities, had not offered them up sooner. I suppose this takes us back to our prior moral: Don’t wait for clients to ask. Instead proactively offer them AFAs.

The “Painful” Stat

A November 2009 survey shows that in-house counsel were being directed to reduce their budgets by 11.5% - on average. The presenters commented this number is probably higher now. 60% of these budgets go to pay law firms. The impact here is also obvious. However, the smart firms will see the opportunity here.

First – you need to know the pain. Imagine you are the GC and your job is dependent on you cutting the budget. Your choices are, 1) cut law firm fees, or 2) fire someone who has worked with you for 12 years. So this is real pain. The GC can only squeeze so much out of outside counsel and still protect the company. And the GC does not want to look a friend and colleague in the eyes and terminate them. This high level of pain presents an opportunity. The GC needs help and a law firm is in the best position to help them. So become a trusted-advisor in a whole new way. In partnership with the GC, help them respond to the needs and demands of the client - the company. Of course AFAs will play a prominent role in this effort.

The economic downturn presents numerous opportunities. Firms and in-house counsel are now willing to embrace ideas and approaches they would have never considered in the past. Law firms and their clients both want and need AFAs and are apparently ready to embrace them (per our stats above).

So as Ron Baker says, it’s time we “Just do it.”

I know this fellow who is so cheap (everyone: "How Cheap Is He??") -- he is so cheap that he hasn't had a real home phone (AKA "land line") for almost 8 years now.  Okay... it's really me, but, anyone that knows me, knows I'm cheap.

Bubble Graph:

A web site is not to be read. It is to be scanned.

Studies show that visitors spend less than 4 seconds on a web page.

With that in mind, search engine optimization is vital. Putting your most important words at the front and at the top of pages, paragraphs, sentences, and lines should be a part of any good web design.

Because, in the end, what is your site's purpose: attract the right visitors and generate business.

SEO is a combination of art and science, images and text, algorithms and keywords. SEO relies upon word usage, word placement and formatting.

And, as an SEO expert, if you are really good at your craft, no one should be able to tell what your doing.

In other words, if you are an SEO craftsman, your work should be invisible.

So. Here I am: an invisible artist at the mercy of verbose lawyers intent upon displaying their masterful grasp of the English language.

I face a daunting task.

In 1996 I was asked to speak for the Great Lakes Organization of Bar Executives (GLOBE). The group was meeting in Park City and I was a convenient geek to present to them (living in Salt Lake at the time). I was tasked with talking about the future of legal technology and how it might impact the legal profession. This was a fun challenge and my presentation was titled, “Staying Relevant.”

The bottom line for that presentation, which I ended up giving again to numerous bar associations present at the meeting, was:

1. Self-help is (and continues to be) a strong trend.
2. Clients are able to find the legal information they need online (forms, checklists, even advice)
3. Interactive systems will help clients build their own legal documents (document assembly)
4. E-signatures and electronic documents will enable clients to directly file with government agencies (e.g. tax returns, corporate filings, court filings, etc.)
5. If lawyers want to stay relevant, they will need to fit into this new approach, otherwise the river will flow around them.

Oh … and I added at the end of the program, “If all this technology and trends threaten to make lawyers irrelevant, what will that make a bar association?” Needless to say, I got their attention.

Fast forward to the present and these ideas are coming to roost. They may be best captured in Richard Susskind’s new book, The End of Lawyers?.

Mr. Susskind goes in to some detail about how these trends are playing out. Disruptive technologies, evolving dispute resolution paradigms, pressures on in-house lawyers and other factors are finally driving change in the profession. Even BigLaw is feeling the commoditization effect, driving business to smaller firms with lower price points. My recent posts on Alternative Billing are one example of how this is all playing out.

If you want a more direct view of Mr. Susskind’s prognostications, you should check out ABA TECHSHOW 2009 as he is the feature keynote. TECHSHOW has a lot of other benefits and value to offer beyond this great speaker and topic. I recommend you check out the program and consider a spring trip to Chicago to catch all the sessions and exhibits.

As to what the future holds, I agree with Mr. Susskind. Lawyers, if they chose to, can play an exciting and frankly more interesting role in this evolving market. It will require change, which is likely the biggest sticking point for the industry. In my 1996 presentation I referred to the problem as the “Paradigm of Precedence.” Lawyers drive the boat by watching the wake. Apparently we have reached that point in time where they better turn and look out over the bow.

Otherwise …

On Friday the 13th at at 23:31:30 GMT, Unix computers using ten-digit clocks displayed 1234567890.

Computer geeks around the world saluted that night. Twitterers tweeted the party rally: "1234567890".

But apparently the party of geeks ushering in this new era must now turn their programming prowess into another type of number crunching: switching for 32-bit integer counting system to a 64-bit integer system.

Now I'm no programmer and I barely understand what I'm talking about, but the gist of it is that a number of our current programs used in air traffic control and the like are programmed using Unix timers that are based on 32-bit integer systems and, as a result, running on a limited clock.

The Unix clock counts up to only a finite number of seconds: 4,294,967,296, to be exact.

Taking into account "leap seconds"--yes, just like leap years--that's about 136 years. So we are looking at the Unix clocks running out of time around the year 2038.

Remember the millenium bug (Y2K) everyone was panicked about when the clocks struck 2000? I had friends that had pulled out wallets full of cash and hid it behind paintings . . . (no, it wasn't me, I swear. It was a friend!).

So now our dear programming friends are frantically--ok, maybe not so frantically--making the switch to 64-bit integers that can count up to 293 billion years into the future.

Bear in mind that these are all only displayed in binary codes so the non-programmers among us are for the most part completely unaware of this problem.

So for us commoners, we must proceed with caution and ask our IT staff the delicately framed question, "so, tell me, IT God, what integer system are our servers running on?"

(When approaching the inner sanctum of IT, it is always best to go bearing gifts. Cookies work for me.)

I swear, with all the economic doom and gloom going on, I'm just waiting for the Mayan calendar to run out. Maybe we just won't have to deal with any of this anymore. **heavy sigh**

Last week, DLA Piper announced that they were laying off 80 attorneys and 100 staffers.  Over the past week, we've tracked DLA Piper to see which attorneys have been coming and going, and we've found some interesting trends that we thought we'd share with you.