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I am the co-founder and chief strategy officer at LexFusion, the go-to-market collective of legal innovation companies (tech and services). I am also the co-founder of Procertas (competency-based tech training). I was a BigLaw litigator and then in-house counsel who went into legal operations consulting before one of my BigLaw consulting clients hired me full-time to help them build the biggest and best legal project management team in world. A Lean Six Sigma black belt, I tend to think in terms of scalable systems that properly leverage people through process and technology. I am deeply experienced in legal operations, legal tech, strategic sourcing, process improvement, systems re-engineering, and value storytelling, in addition to spending over a decade in the legal trenches as a practitioner. I've long served  as a mesh point between law departments and law firms to promote structured dialogue that fosters deep supplier relationships (read about that here). I am a regular writer and speaker on practical legal innovation.

First, an unqualified endorsement:

Ken Adams’s A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting, Fourth Edition is essential for every professional involved in the contracting process from negotiation and drafting to interpretation and litigation. MSCD has no peer in explaining what contracts do and how they should be constructed. The breadth, depth, and clarity are astounding. As is the usability. This is a well-organized reference containing pinpoint guidance on clause types, word usage, and formatting.

If we truly believe that we should do the best we can until we know better, then do better, we have a professional obligation to grapple with, and then make use of, the expert guidance MSCD provides. When light is offered, complacency is no excuse to continue in the dark. MSCD shines a bright light on how to best solve for complexities of contracting in pursuit of business objectives.

Anyone interested in contracts should also read Ken’s blog.

Had to get that out of the way because it is deserved and standard book reviews are not my MO.

“An unqualified endorsement” in both the sense that it is without reservation and that the person making it (me) lacks the appropriate qualifications. Reading Ken triggers my almost debilitating impostor syndrome. I’ve battled the affliction since I commenced my legal career with the observation: Clients are paying how much per hour for me? To do this? Really? Something is very wrong here.Continue Reading How much of lawyering is being a copy-and-paste monkey?

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.

Richard Feynman

We deal in deception here. What we do not deal with is self-deception.”

— Captain Oliver Queenan

Change is happening. It is good.

I am not really one for New Year’s resolutions.

My friend John Grant made a mistake.

Many moons ago he was consulting on process improvement for a large law department. He surveyed in-house counsel on their biggest complaints about outside counsel. The response was that outside counsel:

  • Don’t understand my business
  • Can’t tell me how long anything will take
  • Overwork a problem/introduce complexity
  • Don’t

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do. It is not practicable to be all things to all clients. Last post, I expressed admiration for law firms that exhibit discipline and restraint.

I frequently test the limits of law firm self-control by presenting them with the ultimate temptation: BLANK SPACE

I write

Bullshit begets bullshit.

There was an overwhelming response to my last post on law firm marketing bullshit. So here I am writing an entire series. That’s how it works.

If you reward bullshit, you get more bullshit

Which also happens to be my rejoinder to my sole (known) critic. While most commentary was positive, a

First, the obligatory nod to On Bullshit. For the academically inclined, there is subversive fun in being able to deploy “bullshit” as a term of art. The custom is “bullshit” does not constitute profanity if you dutifully cite Harry Frankfurt. To summarize Frankfurt:

The liar aims to deceive. The bullshitter aims to persuade. The

Self-reflection can easily become self-delusion. I’m either about to write something that runs counter to my own vested interests, or I’m preemptively defending those interests from unfriendly empirical evidence. I don’t know myself well enough to tell you which. Regardless, I’ve long believed most convergence initiatives waste considerable time for limited benefit despite the fact