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Legal Commentary

In Search of Perfect Client Service

Why Lawyers Seem To Stumble. Blawg from attorney Patrick Lamb

Post Frequency: 1.8/day

Last Entry: March 17, 2011 at 16:14:07

Do Clients Want Value Fees? It May Depend On What's Offered.

Posted on October 12, 2010
This is my inaugural foray in video blogging! A shout out to Gini Dietrich of Spin Sucks for her inspiration. Let me know what you think (and I already know I have no career ahead of me as a television personality!)

Nice "pub" for Nicole and Valorem!

Posted on September 22, 2010
Crain's Chicago Business just did a wonderful feature on Valorem and our partner, Nicole Auerbach. The article refers to me as 54. Ha! Not until next May. But despite that error, it's still nice to be recognized by Crain's.

WSJ Blog Picks Up On Continuing Rate Increases

Posted on September 15, 2010
I recently noted that law firms were continuing to increase rates even though their clients were experiencing difficult times. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog picked up on the story. I love Nathan Koppel's concluding line: "color us surprised...

The Gender Gap Among Partners

Posted on September 14, 2010
Fascinating study by researchers from Temple University and the University of Texas that concludes that the pay gap between men and women partners is not due to productivity. Here is the money quote: Our statistical analysis concludes that women partners are compensated less than men on average at the AMLAW 200 law firms regardless of whether they are equity partners or non-equity partners...

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Two + Two = Return To The Old Ways?

Posted on September 10, 2010
What should be made of these two stories? 1. Associate salaries in a holding pattern. Salaries have stagnated. Good news for clients, who have been critical of the ever increasing salary structures employed by their firms...

The Billable Hour, The Supreme Court and a Dog's Tail

Posted on September 03, 2010
We now know who to blame for the billable hour. Or at least who to blame for its perpetuation. According to former Kirkland partner Steve Harper in The Belly of the Beast: Yet it survives because it has powerful defenders, including the Supreme Court's conservative five-man majority...

Pam Woldow Joins Edge International

Posted on September 01, 2010
I am delighted to be able share the news that Pam Woldow has joined Edge International. Those who have read my blog before know that I make no secret of the extraordinary regard I have for Edge, and my friends Gerry Riskin, Rob Millard and Jordan Furlong...

Value Tip Of The Day No. 8 -- Project Management? Do Something Now.

Posted on July 19, 2010
Have you ever had one of those days where you planned things out, worked off a checklist and really accomplished a lot? Congratulations, you've just provided evidence of how project management works and why it is so important. In the value world, project management is as important a tool as a hammer is to a carpenter...

BigLaw Gaming Their Clients?

Posted on July 16, 2010
This story from a friend who recently started as General Counsel at a Bank. Previously, this person had been GC at a different bank that was acquired and then took some time off after the acquisition. The GC relayed a story about a recent conversation with one of the Bank's outside lawyers...

Change You Can Believe In. Maybe Not So Much.

Posted on July 16, 2010
In the past couple of weeks, several top law firms have announced that they are changing the salaries they will pay starting associates back to $160,000. Similar changes are expected, because all law firms are committed "to the market." It seems like only yesterday that the elite of BigLaw were falling over themselves to tell their clients that they were changing structurally, that they had heard their clients' loud messages that they were not getting value from entry level lawyers and so on...

Value Tip Of The Day No. 7 -- Learn From Businesses And Make Sure Your Law Firms Do Too.

Posted on July 09, 2010
I can't explain why any better than by my friend Anthony Kearns in this article.

Value Tip Of The Day No. 6 -- How Does Your Legal Spend Effect EPS?

Posted on July 07, 2010
Jeff Carr, the General Counsel of FMC Technologies, recently discussed the relationship between his department's legal spend and his company's earnings per share. In days when even a penny or two of increased EPS can positively influence share value, thinking about legal spend in the light of EPS really changes the focus...

Value Tip Of The Day No. 5 -- Experience Matters. A Lot.

Posted on July 06, 2010
In hospitals, they call it the "July effect." A recent study, described on NPR, shows that more people die of medical mistakes in July than any other month in hospitals. Not all hospitals, just teaching hospitals where a new crop of residents begin to learn how to be a real doctor every July...

Value Tip Of The Day: No. 3 -- Learn from John Wooden

Posted on July 01, 2010
Much has been said about John Wooden since his recent death. But two things John Wooden said have really stuck with me since I first heard them many years ago, and they are cornerstones of a value practice. "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail...

Value Tip Of The Day No. 4 -- Think Like Private Equity

Posted on July 01, 2010
Read Lessons From Private Equity Any Company Can Use (Memo to the CEO) by Orit Gadiesh and Hugh Macarthur. Gadiesh is the Chair of Bain and Company and Macarthur is a partner with the firm. They know private equity, and in this book they explain the simple rules that must be followed to extract maximum value from any operation, including a law department or a law firm...

Value Tip Of The Day: No. 2--Avoid Litigation By Outlook Syndrome

Posted on June 30, 2010
You start a new matter and the emails fly in. So you open a folder in Outlook for the ABC Matter. Eventually, you get around to creating some sub-folders. Six months later, an issue arises and you have this nagging thought in the back of your mind that you have seen something about that issue before...

Value Tip Of The Day: No. 1

Posted on June 30, 2010
At the request of Paul Lippe, I have begun posting periodic "Value Tips of the Day" on Legal OnRamp. These Value Tips of the Day (TOD) are directed to inside counsel, but sometimes to outside counsel too. I thought they might of some interest to those who read my blog but aren't LOR members, so I am re-posting these Value Tips here...

"Law Firms Say Alternative Billing Won't Dent Profits." More Evidence Firms Just Don't Get It

Posted on June 23, 2010
Law360 today reports in an article Law Firms Say Alternative Billing Won't Dent Profits (sub req.). Hmmm. So let's see. We know the virtually no firm has restructured its business model. We know that few firms have made a real commitment to project management...

Kodak: Worst Customer Service In History

Posted on June 22, 2010
All I wanted to do was order a Kodak zi8 video camera. How hard can that be, right? I went to the Kodak website and ordered it. At the end, I didn't get an order confirmation. I got a cryptic statement that my order was "under review...

More on Kodak--Worst Service in History

Posted on June 22, 2010
If you're not familiar with my Kodak saga, you might want to read about it first. Kodak sent me an email. Here is the pertinent part, along with my comments: I am sorry to hear that your order confirmation email was delayed. Please be informed that all orders over $100 are automatically being reviewed by the system and once approved, a notification will be sent within 72 hours...

Blended Rates Are "On Their Way Out." Shocking.

Posted on June 18, 2010
In a headline I saw this morning, Law360 reports that blended rates "may be on their way out." Finally. One of two things is true about blended rates. Either people do not understand how blended rates help prove the truth of P.T...

The Stages of Change, courtesy of Richard Susskind

Posted on June 16, 2010
One of the things that makes a great speaker great is his or her ability to communicate memorably. A simple statement can either be quickly forgotten or can be communicated in a way that makes it stick in your memory. Richard Susskind is just such a "sticky" speaker...

Adding value by deconstructing

Posted on June 10, 2010
I was talking about how Valorem works, saying that we do things where we add value and try to avoid things where we don't. I was pressed for an example, and here is one that jumped to mind. We needed to analyze a mitigation issue under California law...

"But what if he's right?"

Posted on June 10, 2010
Yesterday, I was honored to serve as a facilitator at DataCert's Generals of the Revolution program in Houston. This series of programs features Professor Richard Susskind, author of the brilliant book, The End of Lawyers? I have worked with Richard on panels and have heard him speak many times...

McCormick and Schmick's: Example of Poor Service

Posted on June 03, 2010
My partner loves to eat lunch at McCormick and Schmick's on East Wacker in Chicago. At least she did. M and S is in our building, so it's convenient. And the food is usually good. But the last half dozen times she has joined them for lunch, they have screwed up her order...

Thoughts on "Risk Sharing"

Posted on June 03, 2010
Someone sent me this slide from a presentation by Hildebrandt, and it got me thinking about risk sharing. The conventional wisdom is that under the billable hour model, the client bears all the risk. The conventional wisdom, reflected in this slide, is that law firms bear a substantial amount of risk when using fixed fees...

My Book Is Here! Lamb On Alternative Fees

Posted on June 03, 2010
I am thrilled to announce the publication of my book, Alternative Fee Arrangements: Value Fees and the Changing Legal Market. While Shakespeare has nothing to worry about, I do think I have managed to add to the relevant knowledge on value fees...

ACC To Provide Executive Education In Use of Value Fees

Posted on June 03, 2010
One of the hardest things about Value Fees is getting beyond the theory and into practice. How do price a case? No inside counsel wants to be taken advantage of. The Association of Corporate Counsel has recognized the problem and is offering a two day Executive Education program that will be limited to in-house lawyers looking to fully utilize value fees in their matters...

Congratulations to Legal OnRamp and Cisco

Posted on June 02, 2010
Terrific article in the ABA Journal about ORX, Cisco's OnRamp Exchange, a collaborative tool designed and hosted by Legal OnRamp, a web 2.0 tool for in-house law departments and lawyers who collaborate well. The article addresses the tension between law departments and outside counsel over the concept of "efficiency...

The Science of Change

Posted on June 02, 2010
The difference between a successful firm in the Old Normal Era and a successful firm in the New Normal era is huge. How to get from one to the other? Big changes. So how to get to the New Normal? Watch this video by Dan Heath who, with his brother Chip, authored Why Change is So Hard...

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