One of my old jokes I used to use arose out of lawyer questions about “AFAs.” Lawyers would ask, How can you tell if an AFA will be successful? My answer: I have caller ID. The point being that success came with lawyers willing to focus on the numbers. And I already knew who those
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| Photo by Danielle MacInnes |
Of late, Casey has been posting some excellent material on the high BS factor of law firm marketing. This plus an event I participated in on Friday in NY spurred me on to write a post. However, don’t expect this post to be anywhere near as long as Casey’s. That
Years ago I got into the legal speaking circuit after presenting on the future of the legal profession to a group of bar leaders. I called the presentation “Staying Relevant.” I credit this moment with pushing me into the spotlight of change in the legal profession since it lead to a slew of speaking invites
The billable hour has been trashed repeatedly over how it motivates bad behavior in law firms. The reasoning goes that rewarding hours billed motivates lawyers (associates and partners) to spend more time on tasks than necessary, resulting in inefficiencies. My personal opinion is that rewarding hard work is not the problem, but instead poor management
Of all the adaptations law firms need to make to be successful, the biggest challenge going forward will be making changes to their partner compensation systems. Ben Weinberger of Prosperoware tackles the subject head-on in today’s guest post.
The earliest known written legal code, Ur-Nammu’s Code, has been attributed to have originated in 2050
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| Image [cc] evan p. cordes |
One of the biggest question marks in the legal industry is around driving change in law firms. We all know change is needed, but it tends to come very slowly for law firms [insert shocked exclamation here, soaked in sarcasm]. There are a number of classic law firm change methods
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| Image [cc] Xtreme Xhibits |
Whenever I try to explain to my friends and family what my job is as a pricing guy, they usually give me a blank stare. My kids have even comment they think I might actually work for the CIA since I can’t seem to explain it well. The reason is is
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| Image [cc] slworking2 |
Recently I participated on a panel on the future of the profession for the National Conference of Bar Presidents and walked away thoroughly convinced the profession is doomed.
For those of you unfamiliar with how bar associations make decisions, I offer the following story:
If someone asked for permission to go to
A few recent news posts have changed my thinking about the future of mega firms. This thinking was also influenced by knowledge from colleagues working with some of the big ones. Which mean this is one of my usual puzzle-piece ideas, but I think I may be on to something here.
Previously I have ranted
Ryan has previously waxed poetic about how some mandatory bars are imposing odd and counterproductive ethics rules and opinions.
This topic resurfaced for me recently as I have been asked to present to a futures committee of a mandatory bar in November. They are wanting me to give them a picture of all that is