In Search of Perfect Client Service

Associate Pay Raises

I was just reading the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.  Seems that Mayer Brown, DLA Piper and Latham are joining the growing tide of firms raising the starting salaries of their first year associates to $135,000.  Mark Jungers of Major Lindsey & Africa, a prominent recruiting firm, predicted that Kirkland, Sidley, Winston and McDermott will quickly follow suit.  I would be surprised if any of the top 10 or so Chicago firms hold the line.  The expectation is that there will be $10,000 bumps (in some cases "only" $5,000) to the salaries (or at least annual compensation) of all associates in the firm.

What do these salary increases mean for firms and their clients?  Simple math will tell you that these "bumps" are multi-million dollar hits to the firms bottom lines.  There are, at the end of the day, only two choices.  Do the partners make less (while the associates are making more), or do clients pay more for the same work?  It does not require an advanced degree to know that the partners will not make less.

It is at times like this that the pressure to increase total hours is at its most intense.  Some firms may be forthright and acknowledge that hourly requirements will go up.  Others will do what what I have heard referred to a "manage hours up."  Other firms will increase rates.  But however it is accomplished, firms will capture this revenue from their clients.  All for the same work.

Has the value to the client increased?  Of course not. 

There has been so much negative buzz lately about value received, hourly rates, paying for associate training, and so forth.  This salary increase will do nothing but increase the economic pressures that drive wedges between clients and some of their lawyers.  Perhaps this will be the event that marks the death knell of the hourly rate.

Is Rainmaking A Learned Skill Or A Natural Trait?

Larry Bodine summarized Dr. Larry Richard's presentation at the 2006 Marketing Partner Forum here.  Dr. Richard is the head of Hildebrandt's  Leadership & Organization Development Practice Group, which helps law firms and legal departments on people issues.  Since the early 1980’s, he has pioneered the application of psychology and other behavioral sciences to the improvement of leadership and management practices in the legal profession. Based on studies of numerous personality traits in lawyers as well as the general population, Dr. Richard has concluded that only 20% of lawyers are natural rainmakers.  As Larry Bodines summarizes, " an additional 55% of lawyers can learn to be rainmakers.  'They will make efforts to do marketing; so your goal should be to reduce their discomforts,' [Richard] said.  The remaining 25% are hopeless at marketing and should be ignored.  'The trick is to figure out who they are and not to waste time on them,' [Richard] said."

Dan Hull picked up on Larry Bodine's post here.  Dan takes issue with Dr. Richard's conclusions, writing:

My own sense (not a Hildebrandt study, of course) is that less than 20% of us--10% at most--can really put it together to be rainmakers. But I think that the remaining 90% can be taught to be marketing-oriented in very effective ways for both repeat and new business. Each lawyer can help and no lawyer should be given a pass. The discipline of getting everyone in the firm to be part of your marketing culture and making it stick is the hard part. Very few professional firms I know of have a client-focused or marketing culture. Even when they want it, they won't do "the work".

 

I was at Dr. Richard's presentation, and I have heard him present his data previously.  I also have had a chance to speak with him about it.  I agree with Dan's sentiment about "the remaining 90%" but have to say, respectfully of course, that I believe that he and Dr. Richard are speaking about slightly different things.  I suspect that when Dan refers to teaching lawyers to be "marketing-oriented", I suspect he is speaking about activities that go beyond what Larry Richard considers to be marketing.   For example, see this post from Marketing Catalyst discussing the difference between sales and marketing.  Dan's comments strike me as a discussion of marketing while Larry Richards appears more focused on sales.   Moreover, while I agree with Dan that no lawyer should be given a pass in creating a "client-focused" culture, there is a difference between having a client-focused culture and marketing that culture to prospects.

 

I encourage Dan and everyone else to find a chance to listen to Larry Richard speak.  He presents a huge volume of data in a very humorous way, but at the same time in a way that is compelling.  I, for one, find the data persuasive. 

Emasculating Chief Marketing Officers Is Not A Good Thing

There seems to be a spate of examples of leadership failures and successes.  Having provided an example of bad leadership and one of good leadership, here is another example of bad leadership.  Thanks to Larry Bodine for this recent example in Larry Bodine's Legal Marketing Blog.  I left Larry a note--I would love to know which firm the story is about--we could start an over/under pool on how long the firm will survive before becoming merger fodder.  It continues to astound me that firms devote substantial resources to hiring top marketing officers and then do everything possible to emasculate them.  Michelle Golden kindly picked up on an earlier comment I had made and elaborated on it quite effectively in her Golden Practices.

Good Leadership Story

 

I've been writing more about leadership and execution lately because they are essential factors for success.  Bruce MacEwen at Adam Smith, Esq. has a good post about Clifford Chance's Peter Cornell that talks about these factors.

 

You have to work hard to get the "Eye-sparkle factor"

Tom Peters regularly speaks and writes about the importance of talent.  In his book Sixty, Tom writes in point 24 that "he/she who has the . . . best roster . . . rules."  A year ago, Tom told this story:

Some people's eyes have an engaging, infectious "sparkle." Some don't. Hire [only?] those who "have it"?

I was lecturing on "talent selection"—and the use of unconventional measures for so doing. At a break I made the following comment to a youthful Participant: "Suppose you & I were opening the restaurant of our dreams. We'd both put in $75,000 ... effectively our life's savings. We were 'betting the farm.' We had a great idea, a very good location, a terrific chef. Now the time had come to hire waiters & waitresses. Numerous applicants had satisfactory+ 'restaurant experience,' but several didn't. One young woman [man] in particular was a rank amateur—but had the most compelling 'sparkle' in her/his eye. How would that 'sparkle' rank in your hire-no hire consideration?" No great surprise, we both agreed, despite a 30-year experience differential, that the "sparkle" pretty much ruled. (Or some like measures—e.g., hustle, enthusiasm.)

At the same time, I was reading Larry Bossidy's book Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done.  Bossidy spends considerable time talking about the investment in interviewing he made as CEO of Honeywell.  Bossidy, himself, would make many of the calls to the candidate's references.  He writes:

Many CEOs have told me that my reference calls were different from most because I focused so much on the candidate's energy, implementation and accomplishments.  I ask, "How does he set priorities?  What qualities is he known for?  Does he include people in decision making?  What is his work ethic and his energy level?"  Those types of questions get at the person's real potential.

One question that I determined to ask candidates that I am interviewing--what makes you a good hire for us?  Candidates that talk about themselves without talking about the firm are missing the boat.  Great people help make great teams.

The Value Of Vigorous Debate

I'll admit it:  I was a high school and college debater.  Those were formative years and many lessons I learned have stayed with me.  Perhaps the most important is the value of vigorous debate.  Looking for ways to defeat your colleagues' arguments.  We believed that if an argument could survive our practice, it had an excellent chance to survive in the tournaments when rounds were won and lost for real.  The arguments about arguments were loud, raucous and at times vicious.  But never personal.  After arguing like crazy, we were still best friends.

I was reminded of this lesson as I continue to read Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done.  Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan make the point that as a leader, "you're trying to promote the ability to intellectually debate important points.  It doesn't matter who wins and who loses.  The fact that the debate happened and resolution occurred is good in itself."

I think that is going too far.  Debate points by themselves don't count for anything in the real world.  But the ability of crisp intellectual critique of an idea is bound to expose weaknesses in the idea, lead to a better idea or generate confidence in the new idea.  Each of these is an inherently valuable outcome.

Blogging serves this purpose outside law firms.  But inside firms, I don't hear much about vigorous debate about firm matters.  Shouldn't there be?

Another example of lack of accountability hurting a firm

I read every post Gerry Riskin makes.  When I saw a post that began . . .

It's their funeral...

. . . I was truly worried that somebody close to Gerry had died.  But instead I read about the death of common sense at Dorsey & Whitney's London office.  Please read the story which is about "socially dysfunctional, destructive lawyers in their midst."   But focus on the comment made by Gerry's wife:  "Sometimes my wife Bethany really nails the point - her reaction was: Dysfunctional people with power are going to have to realize that their behaviour simply is not anonymous anymore."

My question is this:  what were the ramifications for this indefensible, destructive behavior?  Too often, firms see the green that comes from the adding up of those "7.5 hours" and simply turns its back.  If no price is demanded, none is paid.  That response is incredibly short-sighted, but incredibly common.  Firms need to remember that episodes like this are like biopsy results showing a treatable malignancy.  You need to operate fast, but he patient can be saved.  But if you wait and hope for a recovery, none is likely. 

The Importance Of Execution

On January 2nd, I wrote about the importance of execution, juxtaposing the notion against the many posts talking about New Year's resolutions.  In my post, I recommended reading Execution: The Discipline Of Getting Things Done, noting that Tom Peters had recommended the book on his blog.  Tom has now posted about his favorite "biz book" for 2005.  Here is what he had to say:

" My choice as my favorite Biz Book of 2005 is Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, by Larry Bossidy (& Ram Charan). Fact is, it's a 2002 book, but I just read it word-by-word this year as I prepared to do a gig with Bossidy. Amazingly it is, as I see it, the 1st & only book wholly devoted to "getting things done," and the 1st and only book that suggests the there is a describable, "systematic" "discipline" (and "culture") of getting things done. I'm doing a seminar on change in a few weeks, and when the Client asked me for a pre-reading assignment I bypassed my books and recommended Bossidy/Execution."

If you click now, you can be reading this book by Monday.  It's worth paying for expedited delivery.  All the great ideas in the world don't amount to a hill of beans if the rubber doesn't hit the road.  (I think we should have a contest to see who can mix the most metaphors in a single sentence.)  Seriously, if Tom Peters says its so, its at least worth reading.

Good discussions about Branding

Dan Hull has a good summary of some inter-linking discussions involving Michelle Golden  (a second post here) and Tom Kane, along with some comments of his own. This summary follows up on Dan's post here about the comments of a third year law student at the recent Renaissance Weekend in Charleston, South Carolina. Add to this, Larry Bodine (now enjoying the Tucson weather) just posted about the lack of differentiation among law firm web sites.

I love these discussions.  They reflect something so fundamental about the way lawyers think and view the world.  As a profession, we are conservative, change resistant, risk averse and incredibly unimaginative.  Sheep-like in terms of how we follow each other.  We're herded together, as a group, only there is no shepard leading us to safety.  Generally, when it comes to traits businessmen take for granted, lawyers are not gifted.

Here's one way these characteristics manifest themselves.  Hire a gifted marketing director, and then try to substitute the lawyer's judgment for the marketing director's.  Because we lawyers know so much.

The Essence of Leadership

I write from time to time on issues of leadership. Some might wonder what leadership has to do with client service.  In my view, the answer is "everything."  I was struck some time ago by a slide provided by Tom Peters.  The quote he uses is this:  "Management has a lot to do with answers.  Leadership is a function of questions. And the first question for a leader always is "what do we intend to be?'  Not what are we going to do, but what do we intend to be."  If the answer to that question does not somehow involve a fanatical commitment to client service, your firm will never have what it takes to provide great client service. For this reason, leadership is central to the issue addressed in this blog.

If you are interested in leadership, read this article from Harvard Business School on-line publication Working Knowledge.  There is a great definition of a leader: "Leaders are "people who leave their footprints in their areas of passion." The other critical lesson is the explanation of what leaders do:

In a sense, great leaders have to be ambidextrous. On the one hand, they have to be able to execute capably within the current business paradigm, "the way we do business." On the other hand, they must be able to reflect on the current paradigm, find ways to fundamentally improve it, and manage the large-scale change to a successful conclusion. You need two hands, and a lot of commitment, to change the propeller on the airplane in mid-flight, but that capability is the essence of successful leadership.

 

Think of it this way: Someday your current job will be a line entry on your resume. Under the entry, you'll have two or three bullets to describe your major accomplishments. "Did a good job of doing what always was done" can't be one of them.

"Doing a good job of doing what always was done" is the ante; it's what you have to do to keep the job. The bullets, your major accomplishments, come on top. They are your successes at changing the current paradigm, and this is how you showcase your leadership.

By the way, there is a lot of power in reflecting at the beginning of a new job on what you want the two or three bullets to be, and deliberately setting about building them over the course of your job tenure. Otherwise, you run the risk of having them simply be the incidental byproduct of what opportunities happened to come your way.

  The result of quality leadership is success.  The failure of leadership generally leads to failure on a broader scale.  The article explains:

Some companies have a culture of relentless, almost compulsive, improvement. No matter how good the company is, it should be doing better. It reminds me of a Smithsonian exhibit on American ingenuity, "If We're So Good, Why Aren't We Better?"

By contrast, other companies are smugly stuck in the past. I remember one vice president telling me that his company was doing everything right because "if there were a better way, we would have found it, and we'd be doing it."

The lesson: When you have the lead, step on the gas. After all, that's how you got there.

Law firms are not usually places where great leaders are found.  They are structured in an "anti-leadership" form, creating a "herding cats" problem.  I'll write more on the structure issue later, but the importance of developing a leader should be evident from the HBS story.

The Geography of Great Client Service

Eschewing the time-honored maxim of "location, location, location," The Wired GC continues his analysis of the importance (or lack thereof) of office location in a world where most client interaction occurs in the client's office, or at least somewhere other than the lawyer's office.  The post, bearing the sublime title "What Face Means For Place," addresses the question "why do most firms in large cities persist in putting all their people in pricey high-rise space under long-term leases?"  None of the common answers survive The Wired GC's pithy commentary.  The post goes on to suggest some alternatives that no doubt will be the subject of much conversation. 

Here's a statement in the post that every managing partner should memorize:

I’m sure I don’t understand all the intricacies of space selection and design of the modern law firm. But when I see firms jockeying for a new “signature” building, and later submitting their interior design to magazines for their annual awards, I know one thing: I’ve never retained a firm on the basis of its offices. And I have to think that the overhead costs inherent in the current space model are a big driver of higher rates and higher billable hour quotas. And I have decided against retaining more than one firm because of these factors.

Perhaps the driving factors on space should be minimizing cost, maximizing operating efficiency and teamwork and creating a desire to leave the office and go visit clients.

I want to relate one true observation.  The most effective office design I every saw was an open room, where the CEO and Chief Acquisition Officer had the desks in the center of the room, facing each other.  Other desks encircled this power center, with the most junior people being the ones closest to the windows but farthest away from the CEO.  There wasn't much time spent on personal calls or mindlessly surfing the internet.  There was, by contrast, a lot of time spent bouncing ideas off colleagues.  And when meetings needed to be in private, the many conference rooms were utilized.

But to get back to the topic at hand, The Wired GC's point that the price of the law firm's office (location, location, location) becomes a substantial factor in high hourly rates is a truth that cannot be escaped.  I ask this of discerning inside counsel:  Do you ever hold a firm's toney location and expensive offices against them?

And to underscore the point I made yesterday, the right place for meeting your client is your client's office.  Her convenience, not yours.  Your nickel, not his.  Your investment in the relationship.  Your chance to learn more about her business and the demands on her time.  Your chance to figure out more ways to help.  Its all about the client, not your trendy offices with the expensive artwork.

Driving Change: Chicken or Egg, Client or Law Firm?

The Greatest American Lawyer contains a very thoughtful post on the issue of whether law firms will ever lead change in the manner services are provided to clients. The GAL posits that  "[i]t has been suggested that until clients demand that law firms deliver lower cost and higher quality services, law firms will not be motivated to act. While there may be something to this notion, I am not buying it."  The GAL concludes with this:

So, what needs to change in the legal market in order to for innovation to ensue? Does the change have to come from the client side? It is my belief that law firms and lawyers will have to employ traditional marketing and sales people who can go out into the market without the demands and pressures of having to bill time or work for clients on important matters and evangelize what they are doing. Without a marketing and sales force, the reach of any particular law firm to distinguish themselves in the market and reach new clients is extremely limited. The market must be educated as to how and why the flattening of the world and the availability of technology can revolutionize the way law is practiced. Without this important piece of the puzzle, the legal market will continue to be the caboose of the global train of innovation and technology adoption. 

I'm not sure I can agree.  The implication of GAL's post is that there really isn't competition now for business.  That certainly isn't true.  In my view, the problem remains one of economic incentive.  Law firms have no reason to embrace technology or the efficiencies it creates more than is minimally necessary because technology costs them money and doesn't generate revenue. Clients make the hiring decision and law firms offer what they think the client needs from them, and no more.  If clients demanded the types of efficiencies GAL discusses ("do this or you are fired") and followed through by hiring only those who provided the innovation, the level of innovation would increase dramatically because it would be the price to play.  Now it isn't.  I leave with this thought:  if clients don't insist on change now, why will they hire based on that differentiator if the pitch is made by a professional seller?

Building A Client Service Culture

I am certain that there is no single formula for success, but a recent post by Tom Peters sums up the key ingredients as well as anyone.  The post is linked here, but I've taken the liberty of quoting it for convenience:

Chip Bell to Tom Peters (12.20.2005): "If you were asked to be the keynote speaking coach to a new company CEO eager to do a great job, what is the one thing you would advise the CEO
to do (or not do)?"

TP: (A) Read 2 books. (1) Bossidy (& Charan) on execution ... Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. Main takeaway: Bedrock #1 for corporate success is a "culture of execution." (FYI, Bob Nardelli did this brilliantly at Home Depot, despite pressure to do sexier stuff first.) (2) Read Lou Gerstner's book ... Who Says Elephants Can't Dance: Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround. Main takeaways: Listen first, then do vision no matter how high the pressure for a "scintillating vision." Also, you must tackle head-on the extant culture head; Gerstner reluctantly did this and did it well, but Carly Fiorina didn't at HP (she led with "vision").

(B) And: LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN! (The answers are already out there, typically among the most exercised and disenchanted.)

(C) And: COMMUNICATE! COMMUNICATE! COMMUNICATE! (Esp: Keep the board informed of everything, especially hiccups!)

(D) And: Work proactively in every "little" which way, each and every day to "live" and "ooze" INTEGRITY! (Integrity begets trust which begets a good place to work which begets performance.)

(E) And: Remove or marginalize ASAP the career "career corporate politicians."

(F) And: "Do a GE": Elevate HR to the head table on the Right Hand of God, with great HR talent and an HR seat with equal power to that of the CFO. (Again, Nardelli did this spectacularly at Home Depot!)

Chip: "One thing" is cute ... but the above SIX are musts! Use all six of 'em, but do NOT feel free to choose "the best one"—SIX or naught!

 Those who have read my prior posts know that I am a big fan of Tom Peters.  While not every point is directly applicable to a professional service firm (like keeping the board informed), the points apply more broadly (i.e., keep your partners informed). 

Clients--Is this the kind of team you want on your matter?

My December American Lawyer arrived today.  As I always do, I turned to Aric Press' column.  Aric is the Editor-in-Chief of American Lawyer.  If there is anyone more attuned to the state of the profession, I would be surprised.  Aric's column is about the results the survey of the Am Law 200.  One of the questions asked this year was about the number of firms that lamented their loss of associates.  Aric writes:

The days when associates would hang around confident that they would snare a partnership are long gone -- and are not coming back.  Now may who linger stay only until their student loans are under control, and then they map a quick exit.  Firms complain bitterly that these young lawyers are leaving before the firms can fully recoup their investments in them.  They have no one to blame but themselves.  The profitability model is built on churn, and even the cream resent getting battered into butter.

Great prose (a hallmark of Aric's column) but very insightful as well (another hallmark).  Large firms losing associates need to look in a mirror.  Otherwise, its like the rancher opening the barn door and then complaining that the horses are running out the door. 

But my mission here is not to tell large firms how to run themselves--its to talk about client service.  There is no mistaking the significant role associates play on most matters.  Clients need to ask themselves whether they want to create teams where integral players are looking for the exit.  At what cost to the client is the associate's departure?

And Increasing Associate To Partner Leverage Benefits Clients Exactly How?

Was flying home from New York this afternoon catching up on some reading.  The November 28 issue of The National Law Journal had an article entitled "A hot topic: associate to partner leverage."  The article focused on several Los Angeles firms who are consciously seeking to increase the number of associates in order to increase the partner's profits.  I started laughing to myself as I was reading.

A piece of free advice.  If you are going to add associates (which does not automatically translate to more work), don't advertise that fact to your clients.  They already don't think they need the headcount they have on their matters.  And certainly don't brag about your brilliant strategy.  That is like throwing cold water at your clients.

It is clear the firms that continue to focus on leverage on stuck in the old way--looking at hours and hourly rates and not figuring out new ways to enhance profitability.  The slower big firms move, the better as far as I am concerned.

After Hours Training?

Tom Peters just made an interesting post on leadership.  His piece includes this most interesting observation:

Can leadership be "taught"? Oh yes. But as the USMA, USNA, Sandhurst and Parris Island demonstrate, not as a sideline. Effective leadership in the private sector or the military is an occupation, a preoccupation, a trade, a craft, an obsession ... and must be studied and practiced accordingly. For God's sake, it takes six long years to train a halfway decent graduate engineer in formulaic technical skills. Why should we expect to "pick up" leadership skills "on the side" at a B.School or corporate "university"? Fat damned chance.

I’ve made this observation before in the context of budgeting and client service.  Training people in things that are important, be it to the operation of your business or dealing with your clients, cannot be a mere afterthought.  Few, if any, law firms provide real education and effective training in these areas.  They should. Failing to make things that are important to your business an “occupation, a preoccupation, a trade, a craft, an obsession” is a big failing. 

Six Sigma A Tool To Serve

I have long been intrigued by the concept of Six Sigma.  Ever since reading “Jack Welch and the GE Way,” I’ve wondered how law firms could use the concept to improve their service. In this vein, I’ve also spent time with Lean Six Sigma For Service.  I’ve always thought myself somewhat the loner in my thinking on this, however.  For that reason, I was delighted to see this post in More Partner Income. Some of the wisdom of the post:

Can Six Sigma work in a law firm? The answer is, of course.  But a Six Sigma vision can only come from the firm’s recognized “leader”.  It can only thrive in an environment of constant change—recognition that excellence can only be achieved through change. It must place the client’s wants and desires first. It must believe to its very core that when the firm improves the success of their customer, it improves the law firm’s success as well. It must be willing to honestly determine what its clients want and be prepared to deliver it. Those wants may be at odds with the law firm’s traditions but if you break those traditions in favor of the client—you will have a superior competitive advantage.  If you do so while eliminating deviations from client expectations, your competitive position will be unassailable.

Why Not Listening Training?

I’ve written about listening before. But it is of fundamental importance that every good post on the topic needs to be highlighted.  Tom Kane over The Legal Marketing Blog has just such a post.  Some great thoughts on how to handle face to face client meetings:

• Tell your staff person to hold all calls (if there are exceptions, let client know up front),
• Let client know they have your full, uninterrupted attention (except as noted),
• Look at the client while they talk,
• Take notes, and frequently summarize your understanding of what client said, and
• At the conclusion of meeting, ask client if there is anything they want to say or ask – then pause for a period of time to give them a chance to respond.

I especially liked this advice, about something said by Jay Foonberg:  “As his father told him, with two ears and one mouth, you should listen twice as much as you speak. Good advice.”

My question for law firms is this:  When a skill is so demonstrably important to your business, why do you fail to provide training on how to do it better?

The Value Of Speaking To A Person

I just read an interesting post on Michelle Golden’s Golden Practices weblog about voicemail message content.  It made me wonder, however, about the best use of voicemail.   In an age where secretaries are become scarcer or are working for 73 professionals at the same time, it is pretty common that you bypass humans when you call someone and get that person’s voicemail.  Almost all voicemail messages tell you how to escape, but odds are when you try, you only end up with someone else’s voicemail.  Sometimes it drives me crazy.

One form of message is that “let me tell you where I am and what I am doing each and every day” kind of message.  Other’s don’t even bother with a message.  You get the annoying system message interrupted by the person saying their own name, sounding like they are stretched out on a torture rack just about to have their entrails ripped from their body.  Or there is the general “I am away from my desk” message that frequently adds options like “or I am out of the office doing really important stuff for somebody else so that I don’t have time to talk to you.”

My own thought on voicemail is this.  I make sure my secretary answer my phone.  A lot of times, its a client calling while I am discussing nothing of moment with a colleague.  I want the client’s call to trump, and only a person answering the phone can do that.  If I am busy, I want my secretary to find out when the best time for me to call back is.  Or if its an emergency, I want her to interrupt me or find someone else to handle the emergency right then.  MY THESIS:  GOOD CLIENT SERVICE MANDATES THAT THE CHOICE TO LEAVE A VOICEMAIL MESSAGE BE THE CLIENT’S CHOICE, NOT A DEFAULT RESULT BECAUSE NO ONE EVER PICKS UP THE PHONE!

It takes a Village

With due regard to the author of a book by the same name, I believe that in today’s corporate environment, one person cannot service a client alone.  It takes a team.  For example, while I am away on trial, my colleagues are doing yeoman work for “my” (really, our) clients and I am lucky to be working with people who are so willing to jump into help out.  With this as framework, I read with great interest Gerry Riskin’s post Witmer thinks some lawyers just fertilize the queen.  Gerry read Larry Bodine’s post on comments by Neil Wittmer, Ph. D. and takes considerable umbrage with Dr. Wittmer’s thoughts.

The issue boils down to this:

“According to Witmer, the grinders and drones lack the essential personality elements to develop new business. You cannot change their personalities, and they may be unable to change themselves.”

Witmer’s theory is that the “drones” (I agree with Gerry that it is a most unfortunate choice of terms) should be left in their offices to “do the work” that other lawyers bring in.  Gerry’s view is that

It is not personality that drives the client attraction process, but a combination of what the lawyer does and the skill to convey it — skill that almost every lawyer has or is quite capable of acquiring. If you look closely at a law firm’s top rainmakers, you will notice a wide diversity of personalities.

While there is a lot of team-oriented work in a law firm, in many cases the client is choosing the surgeon for the operation — the more specialized the work, the less relevant the personality. If heaven forbid, a dear one needed brain surgery, the doctor's personality is probably the last factor for consideration. (I will yield that in an undifferentiated commodity market personality is far more important but most top firms keep that work to a minimum in favor of specialty work.)

My view is decidely closer to Gerry’s, but not as extreme.  As I said above, I believe it takes a village to serve a client.  That said, I don’t see room on the team for people who cannot develop a relationship with a client and instill confidence.  Talent and personality are minimum traits for everyone in law firm.

Beyond the client service issue, there is room for everyone to market.  Marketing is not just sales, and it is not necessarily face to face.  But someone needs to generate articles that the rainmaker can bring to a prospect’s attention.  Someone needs to put content on the web site.  And so forth.  We have not yet arrived at the place in life where law firms are nothing more than groups of individual silos.  It takes a village (but not a metropolis!).

Can I introduce you to my partner (pssst--what's your name?)?

Visiting recently with a former colleague, I was reminded of a scenario that plays out all too frequently in multi-office firms.  Relationship lawyers, faced with pressure from above to “cross sell,” try to introduce their clients to partners in the firm’s new office in (pick a city) or the latest lateral hire in (pick a city).  In most cases, and as was the case in the story being told, the referring partner had no relationship with his new partner and no understanding of how good a lawyer the new partner was.  I wonder how the client felt in these circumstances.  Perhaps she felt the way people do when confronted the notorious used car salesman— “buy this car.  I don’t anything about who drove it or how it was driven, but its a great car.”   Then the tires fall off on the way home.  Makes me wonder whether cross-selling a new office, new partner or new practice group is ever good for the client and whether any success stories are only a matter of chance.

Another Endorsement For Passion

I spend a lot of time at O’Hare Airport.  So I spend a lot of time at the bookstore in Terminal 3.  And I happened to run across Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Selling.  It was nicely packaged.  It looked small enough to read on my short flight, so I bought it.  I have to admit that I don’t know who Jeffrey Gitomer is.  He may be huge in the marketing or selling field, but I don’t know who he is.  I bought the book on a lark.  I am glad I did.

There’s not a lot of what I would call “new material” in the book.  But he packages good messages better than most, and reinforces some important lessons.  Since I just posted on passion a week ago (less than a week before I bought the book), I found these statements particularly compelling:

Passion is the fulcrum point of selling.  No passion.  No sales.

And this one:

If you’re not on fire, you’ll lose to someone who is.

Passion is not everything, but there is nothing without it.

McDonald's, Soda Cups, Cisco And The Use of Technology

    I read somewhere that McDonald’s does not deal directly with companies that manufacture its cups.  Instead, it has a “cup company” handle all of its cup issues, including purchases.  The reason, as I recall the article, is that McDonald’s is not a cup company and dealing with cup issues, prices, etc. is not a core competency.  It deals with a company for which such issues are a core competency.

    “Fascinating, Pat,” I can hear some of you saying, “but what the heck does this have to do with the practice of law in general and client service in particular.”  A lot, actually.

    First, check on "The Cisco Way" in this month’s ABA Journal.com.  It is a story, on one hand, about a client driving change in the way its outside counsel work.  I’ve long believed (and written) that major changes in the profession occur on a widespread basis only because clients demand the changes.  But beyond that issue, think about opportunities created by this change.  Mark Chandler, the GC of Cisco, states in the article: “In the past you would say, ‘I hope there’s one firm big enough to do it all for me.  Not anymore. Now technology lets you pick and choose and bring together the best in each area.” There’s a focus on being best in an area. 

   If you want to play with the big dogs, you’re going to have become a “cup company.”  That is, a firm so good at something the big dogs need that they are better off turning to you to do it.  But I believe it goes beyond just the big dogs.  Mid-size and even smaller companies will have to access themselves whether the return on their legal service dollar is as high as it should be.  Is it cost-effective for an inside lawyer to do everything, even if he or she doesn’t have the background, experience or training for certain things?  Or will the company be better off if the inside lawyer focuses on the areas where he or she can provide maximum return and outsource the rest of the legal department function?  The McDonald’s “cup company” concept has a place at the table for a lot of businesses.

 

Deposition Skills Hindering Effective Law Firm Leadership?

Gerry Riskin, author of the Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices blog picked up on a recent Wall Street Journal article about how depositions require a skill set that leaders don’t use in their normal job.  The post is worth your reading.  Gerry takes the issue from one of deposition training and makes an interesting observation about how the skill sets lawyers rely on to succeed in their profession really hurt the management of the business of the law firm.  According to Gerry:

Lawyers must be highly critical and analytical when creating or improving documents or winding their way through the strategy of litigation. These are essential behaviors for lawyering but lousy for managing or being managed. Therefore, unless attorneys become aware of their propensities, they will bring this mode of behavior into all they do, including how they react to management, whether firm-wide or at the practice-group, industry-group or client-team level. Support professionals like Chief Marketing Officers walk away from encounters bewildered and frustrated by these strange (to them) lawyering behaviors that people outside the profession rarely exhibit (especially in corporate settings).

My friends have heard me make this same point, albeit less effectively than Gerry.  I’ve tried to draw on the lawyer’s propensity for doing things only after every possible risk has been analyzed and planned out of the matter under consideration.  Of course, dealing with every possible issue in this manner usually leaves reading the Sunday paper as the only non-contentious course.  Businesses take risks, lawyers avoid them.  Its not a comfortable mix.  Add in the out-dated legal structure of most firms, and you have the “herding cats” problem that has been discussed elsewhere.  Gerry puts it this way:

Leadership requires "followership" which means that the more an internal meeting resembles a deposition ("examination for discovery" in many jurisdictions) the less productive the business meeting will be.

“Followership” is not a normal attribute of many lawyers.  In the business world, it is the norm.  Even people with leadership skills know how to follow.  The chain-of-command is not a notion limited the military.  Presidents are higher up the ladder than Vice Presidents.  Organizational charts and reporting structures can take on too much importance, but they do have value.  The help identify the ultimate leader. 

Law firms should consider hierarchy: it could actually help improve performance.  Hierarchy would help lawyers focus on what they ought to be focusing on—providing great service to the firm’s clients.  The business people should be doing the business and calling on the practicing lawyers when appropriate and needed.  This avoids the “too many cooks in the kitchen/herding cats” problem.

If you read Gerry’s post, you know he believes it can be done.  I am not that sanguine about the problem.  I look forward to being able to talk to Gerry about his experiences that lead him to his viewpoint.

 

Yours, Mine and Ours: Why Clients Benefit From Deep Relationships With Their Law Firms

Ed Poll, who writes LawBiz Blog, makes some interesting points about succession planning in his July 20 post, Keeping Clients After A Lawyer Retires.  Among the many valuable points Ed raises are:

- Have the rainmakers introduce younger partners to their client contacts
- Build teams around the top 20 clients, and to let the client know they have a team.
- Actively start cross-selling the top 20 clients. For more info see Larry Bodine's webinar: Best Practices Of Cross Marketing and Selling New Services To Clients.

I would add to this list.  First, merely introducing younger partners to clients is not enough.  Younger partners need to be featured, given opportunities to excel for the client and then “bragged on” by the senior partner.  If the senior partner doesn’t show respect, trust and admiration for the younger partner, why should the client?  Second, I believe the client should be involved in the discussion.  Many of the rainmakers don’t want to suggest to the client that they won’t be there to service the client.  But the fact is that the clients themselves think about how deep a firm’s bench is, what would happen if the senior partner became unavailable, etc.  They view the issue as a business problem and I think it benefits the relationship to let clients know you are thinking about their needs beyond any specific case.  Finally, I think everyone in the firm needs to know who the “successor” is for any given client. Some choices might be difficult ones, but any issues regarding the choice are better addressed when the rainmaker is still around to resolve them.

Its clear how this approach benefits the law firm: the loss of a major client cuts deep, particularly for smaller firms.  But why is this important from the client's perspective?  How much institutional knowledge has the client already paid for?  What would the cost be to replace that knowledge?  In some niche practices, there may not be a real alternative.  It is as much in the client's interest as it is in the law firm's interest to have a plan to cover anticipated departures as well as unanticipated ones.  McDonald's lost two CEO's to sudden death or illness in one year.  It happens, and there is no excuse to be caught short.

 

Summer Associates and Client Service

Its that time of the year.  Young adults (for the most part), most with no experience in the business world and none practicing law, arrive at their chosen law firms to begin several weeks of fun, merriment, and just enough work to get an offer.  Ahh, heck, I don’t want to overstate it.  Some law firms make their summer associates really work.  For the law firms, its a time to shine and really impress these potential future partners.  Each firm wants the cream of the law school crop to choose them.

But what does the client see?  To start with, they know that summer associates don’t have experience and can’t work unsupervised.  They know that only the highest quality work product will suffice.  If they’ve worked inside big firms, they know there is a scramble right before the summer associates arrive to come up with enough assignments.  They know that some significant portion of the assignments are make-work.  That is, assignments that would not be done if the summer associate was not there to do it.  They see an unconscionable billing rate assigned to this person.  And often times, they see a bill for the work performed by this the inexperienced, untrained, not-yet-a-lawyer student.

Several years ago, Butler Rubin did away with our summer program.  Economics and client service were not the only reasons, but they were important ones.  The issue goes obviously beyond one firm, and really requires a systemic change.

Isn’t it time to start thinking about apprenticeships?

The Importance of Leadership

I know for a fact that there are lawyers in many firms who “get it” when it comes to client service, but whose firms don’t.  In my experience and and from discussions with many in-house counsel, there aren’t many firms that “get it” on an institutional level.  From where I sit, the difference is one of leadership.  If a leader is thoroughly committed to client service, it is more likely that the firm will show evidence of “getting it” as well.

Why the focus on leadership?  Some lawyers may focus on client service as a means of enhancing relationships that generate revenue for the firm and compensation for them.  But others not similarly motivated or invested may not.  Leaders can provide examples for everyone and set the tone by rewarding client service focus at all levels.  The powerful message is hard for others to miss.

Equally important, however, is the leader’s direction to teaching, training and mentoring.  Client service can be taught, and it is the leader’s obligation to make sure the firm devotes the necessary resources to a quality education program.  From teaching receptionists how to answer phones, to effective use of phone mail, email, blackberries and other internal features, to eliciting input from the firm’s clients on their personal preferences, it is the leader who provides the impetus for such actions.

The other key aspect of quality leadership is his or her attitude toward mistakes.  Law is a human endeavor, so mistakes will be made.  It is the leader who sets the attitude toward mistakes.  Viewing mistakes negatively drives mistakes underground, hidden from discovery (an punishment).  Instead, mistakes must be welcomed as a chance to improve relationships.  This isn’t to say that there should never be negative consequences from mistakes, but good faith errors will be made and need to be recognized, pointed out to clients and turned into learning opportunities for everyone.  Its obvious to see how a weak or ineffective leader could fail to set the right tone on the issue of mistakes.

 

The Importance Of Time

No, not billable hour kind of time.  Rather, the importance of time to think.

Changing how you do business, or changing with whom you do business are not easy decisions.  The decisions have to be justified, sometimes to people who have become your friends, to your CFO or even the CEO.  In other words, the decisions have to be thoughtful and deliberate.  Those characteristics more often than not demand time.  But what is one thing most striking in its scarcity in the lives of most in-house counsel?  Time.

So what does this mean?  For one thing, it means that movement to alternative fees and replacement of lawyers will be a slow process.  Second, it means that a succinct, compelling case for change needs to be made when marketing your interest in alternative fees.  And finally, it means that inside counsel will have to decide the real priority associated with obtaining the advantages of alternative fees.

Running A Law Firm Like Southwest Airlines

Forgive me for interrupting my report on the Corporate Counsel cruise, but “breaking news” sometimes takes precedence.

Larry Bodine ran an item today in his blog entitled “If a Law Firm Were Run Like Southwest Airlines.”  The piece was based on a description provided by Deborah Ackerman, the GC of Southwest. The dream Southwest firm has these characteristics:

• Would be the low-cost producer
• Focus on clients as customers and not as a legal matter
• Have no layoffs
• Have an annual chili cook-off
• Have a tradition of fun. Halloween is a major holiday at the headquarters, and everyone comes to work in a costume, including the CEO.
• Relax the dress code.
• Be family-oriented. There is no expensive artwork on the walls of SWA. Instead there are pictures of employees with their families, pets and hobbies.
• Display "brag boards" everywhere where employees can put up notes about their own and their kids' accomplishments. Have many employee recognition programs.
• Establish an Employee Catastrophic Fund to help employees in cases of an uninsured loss or serious illness.
• Communicate in a timely fashion to employees.
• Senior partners give hugs and praise from to staff as a daily occurrence.

It seems like Southwest has ignored the distinction between the things it takes to have happy employees and the things employees do to make their customers happy.  I believe in having happy, motivated employees.  But that is not an end.  The end is to have happy, well-served customers.  Larry writes about his great experience flying Southwest to Las Vegas and how fun the flight was.  In other words, the customer’s experience was good.  Law firms, like every other service provider, need to keep their eyes on the prize—customer satisfaction.  Without that, nothing else really matters.  At least not over the long haul.

Accountability

I am a big fan a accountability.  There is a lot that doesn’t happen when no one is accountable.  Create a committee and there will be a bunch of meetings.  Tell someone they are responsible and will be rewarded (“carrot”), punished (“stick”) or both (“carrot and stick”), and something will get done. In my experience, the busier someone is, the more likely the carrot alone will not work.  Why, you might ask, is this relevant to client service.

So often, no one at law firms is accountable for key issues such as diversity, client service, using technology for the client’s benefit or restructuring billing arrangements to reflect the value of the service to the client.  I’ve seen this firsthand and talked about it with a number of people inside law firms and inside corporate legal departments. In this vein, I thought Robin Sparkman’s Editor’s Note in the May issue of Corporate Counsel was so very interesting.  She notes that its rare for law firms to be fired because of poor track records in diversity, technology offerings or use of alternative fee arrangements.  She mused that too often corporate counsel’s complaints in these areas are mere “window-dressing” and that “if in-house lawyers continue to huff and puff without really meaning it, its hard for law firms to take them seriously ….”

Maybe in-house lawyers have used the carrot (“more business”) when they should be using the stick (“no business”).  Growing up, I was taught that “money talks and bullshit walks—in more polite language, the stick works and the carrot doesn’t.  Unless my life experience is radically at odds with the way the world really works, broad, industry-wide change will occur when business moves to those who walk the walk instead of jaw boning.