Category: Marketing

Life’s Lessons from the Superbowl

Mimi Donaldson is a football fan (who knew?), but a major fan!  She was glued to the television and, while the game was on, came up with the following life’s lessons from the game:

Immediate need:
What do we do for money right now?
Here are 3 tips we can learn from last Sunday’s Super Bowl to help us manage in these troubled times.

#1: FOCUS
Ben Roethlisberger, the winning quarterback, extended many plays with tremendous focus and presence of mind. Larry Fitzgerald, a brilliant wide receiver, turned the game around with a long touchdown run because he looked for an opening and never looked back.

Lesson – We need to focus on the value of our product and service, stay calm in the face of doubters, and look for an opening for success — and never look back!

#2: INTERCEPTION
At the end of the first half, James Harrison intercepted the ball and returned it 100 yards (the length of the field) for a touchdown with the longest run in Super Bowl history. The interception changed the context of the game and shifted the momentum.

Lesson – This is not in the traditional job description of a linebacker (he needed oxygen afterwards). In our businesses, we need to do something different now; attend a meeting you’ve never attended; look for an opportunity in a non-traditional place.

#3 – WHEN THE WHISTLE BLOWS, THE PLAY IS OVER!
Santonio Holmes caught the winning touchdown. But he had dropped a sure touchdown pass just moments before. He begged his quarterback for one more chance – telling him, “Please let me get this game for you.” Each man respected the finality of the play before. They did not allow it to affect the next play.

Lesson – We need to shake off our past mistakes and the alarming economic forecast, and recognize that each moment is a new moment of now.


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Billable hours – again

Friday’s New York Times has brought light to a steamy debate in the legal community: Is billing clients by the hour the most effective and profitable way for a lawyer to collect his or her fees? In these recessionary times, this norm has become more unpopular. Clients are asking more questions and wondering if law firms are prolonging their problems instead of resolving them.

 

According to the American Bar Association’s Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5,  “a lawyer shall not make an agreement for, charge, or collect an unreasonable fee.” Reasonableness is further defined by several criteria. Ultimately, though, what lawyers charge must be commensurate with the value their clients receive.

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Expense reduction or investment advance

One of my law firm clients has a lawyer who is what I would call a "reluctant marketer."  This lawyer is a great lawyer, a "worker-bee," but not a great rainmaker. The managing partner considered engaging a coach to help the lawyer improve his skills within his comfort zone. Why is this important? Because the amount of work for this lawyer that is being internally generated is lessening. In other words, this lawyer has to begin helping himself a bit.

Parenthetically, I saw a recent survey that shows the amount of hours being worked by lawyers, generally, is coming down. But more on that later.

But, the management committee has come back and said that "costs" are frozen. No more spending. Is this a backward way to look at the situation?  What about looking at expenditures from the ROI perspective?  If you buy a new piece of equipment and it pays for itself in a couple of months, wouldn’t you move forward? I think you should.  If a coach or marketing director can help the lawyer increase his/her revenue because of improved rainmaking efforts, shouldn’t you invest in the process?

And what would this mean to the other lawyers?  A reduction in their take home pay? When you’re already earning hundreds of thousands of dollars, a collective reduction by only a few dollars in sdthe short run for an ROI building expenditure may be worthwhile.


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A carriage builder in an automobile world!

“A carriage builder in an automobile world.”

That’s how one staff person described his boss, an attorney not willing to become an effective marketer, but yet believes he’s entitled to receive the same level of business that he has for years. He doesn’t understand that the world is changing, that practice areas once popular are no more and that he has to adapt or be swept out of the practice. 


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Corporate Counsel Want Value

Association of Corporate Counsel is workingon a "Value Challenge Index." Susan Hacktt, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for ACC, talked about the Index before the Los Angeles chapter of Legal Marketing Association today.

Susan made several significant points. One concerned the traditional allocation of revenue: 1/3 for overhead, 1/3 for associate compensation and 1/3 for partner income. The net result is that 2/3 of the revenue received by law firms is funneled toward attorney compensation.

Susan suggested that General Counsel, as lawyers, understand this formula and are therefore more resistant to outside counsel increasing billing rates. Lawyers wanting to earn more to move up in the AmLaw PPP (profit per partner) ranking isn’t sufficient reason for the corporate client to pay more.  And the rationale that expenses have increased is also not well received … 1/3 of the firm’s expenses may have increased somewhat, but the more sophisticated clients believe that the primary factor for increased expenses is increased associates’ compensation.  Since associates’ contribution to the law firms’ delivered value is suspect, clients are reluctant to pay increased rates. In fact, some clients refuse to pay for any first year associates’ work on their matters.

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Unemployment Insurance Not Applicable to Lawyers

I came from an immigrant family as many people in my generation did, and still do. Growing up, my parents were involved in the labor movement and unemployment insurance was a big deal. In today’s context, unemployment insurance s hardly significant. But, don’t tell that to the many who are seeking this benefit and can’t crash through the long lines and busy telephone lines.

NPR did a piece today on what unemployment insurance is today and what it means.

Here are some statistics that I find fascinating, and which I did not previously appreciate.  There are about 10 million unemployed workers, about half of them being in only eight states including California, Florida, Michigan and New York. There are millions more who don’t even qualify because they were self-employed or have been out of work too long … they sort of get lost in the system.

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There are seasons for lawyers

Some time ago, I wrote that lawyers have seasons in their practices. Today, I received a note from Lawyers Weekly USA in which they confirm that family law lawyers are saying that January is proving to be a boon month.  While spouses didn’t file for divorce in December because of the children and holidays, January is a different story … and the stresses caused by the holidays are just too much to handle any longer. So, they file for divorce.

Bankruptcy lawyers may be facing a bonanza that goes beyond a month, or even a year, if our current crises are not resolved soon.

And on down the list. Each practice area has its own time of year. You’ve got to be sensitive to it and plan accordingly, both for your financial stability as well as your marketing efforts.

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The Question

The Edge Annual Question Center asks the question for 2009:  What will change everything?

Profound question, indeed. And the answers are equally profound. Scroll down the pages and see the responses from the brightest minds of our time … my head was swimming just reading the titles of the responses.

Thank you Matt Homann for bringing this to my attention.


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