If you’re a golf fan, you’ve just witnessed an outstanding competition. Whether you support Tiger Woods or are turned off by his personal challenges, you have to admit that he causes the sport of golf to be viewed by many more people than when he’s not playing.
I just read an article about a study that suggests that other golfers do not play to their potential when Tiger plays because they think he will win the tournament. Rather than the competition bringing out the best of everyone, others seem to do worse, giving up before they begin.
And, the same is true in law firms … when associates "give up," believing the "star associate" will get the prime assignment. This is counter-intuitive to me. What has been your experience?
PTinMotion is the magazine for the American Physical Therapy Association, my daughter’s professional association. While reviewing its contents, waiting for her to receive her specialization certification, I read an article entitled “Make-or-Break Strategies for Tough Economic Times.” Perhaps the author read an advance copy of my new book, Growing Your Law Practice in Tough Times.
Here are some of the salient points made by the author:
• Bill Gates started Microsoft in a recession
• Risk is defined as the probability of a financial loss.
• Managing the bottom line or minimizing risk is essential in tough times
• Care for the bottom line: It’s the difference between closing, surviving & thriving
• Perform an internal audit and look at your billing and collection practices
• Identify potential for cost savings
• Risk management is about protecting a company’s assets
• Manage risk in terms of the type of clients accepted
• Lower one’s profit margin in order to attain larger volume
• Review your books twice a month to review your revenue and expenses
• Talk with your staff – they are on the front-line and can suggest improvements
• We have great untapped intellectual and creative capacity. The sky is the limit.
In the recent California Lawyer’s Annual Professional Liability Insurance Report, the writer quotes the ABA. Their study shows that 44,000 claims were lodged against insured lawyers nationally within the study’s three year period. Of this group, “…(s)olos and smaller firms were sued the most: 70 percent of all insurance claims were brought against lawyers in firms with one to five attorneys.”
I suppose this was the basis for arguing that lawyers either need malpractice insurance or should disclose to their clients that they don’t have such insurance. Yet, if 70% of the legal community works in the small firm environment, wouldn’t it make sense that 70% of the claims would be filed against this goup?
Despite these statistics, there is no study ever cited that shows how many claims, IF ANY, were filed against the approximately 30,000 (20%) attorneys in California who do not carry malpractice insurance. There is no study to conclude they have claims filed against them; there is no study to conclude they have been unable to negotiate settlements with their aggrieved clients, if any; there is no study to conclude these are “bad” or negligent attorneys from whom the public needs protection.
Despite this, the Bar (now about 23 states) has moved forward in lock-step to punish this group of attorneys by increasing their already marginal cost of operation and forcing them to become adversarial with their prospective clients by having this discussion.
Clever lawyers who may seek to avoid the negative consequences of this new rule can take a number of alternative paths to side-step the issue. They can obtain the most minimal policy, the true net effect of which will leave nothing for the client at the end of any malpractice litigation. They can bury the required disclosure language in a long written engagement agreement, seldom read by clients, thus avoiding the necessity of raising the issue with the client. Among other tactics.
As in other instances, the Bar fails to protect its members who pay their salaries and fails to protect the public by availing attorneys with affordable negligence insurance.
I actually saw it! It was shown on NBC television. I was young (not THAT young) and actually believed it for several years.
The BBC reported on April 1, 1957 that Swiss farmers were harvesting a huge spaghetti crop due to the near-elimination of the spaghetti weevil. Coverage showed peasants picking spaghetti from trees!
I’ll be in Chicago and would like to get together with my clients and colleagues for breakfast on Friday, April 9th, from 7:30 to 9:15 a.m. If you’re near the downtown/Loop area, let me know.
Breakfast will be on me! And we can chit chat about the challenges your practice faces in today’s environment. Send me an e-mail r.s.v.p. (edpoll@lawbiz.com) and I’ll designate the location by return email. I look forward to seeing y’all.
Today’s Los Angeles Times discusses the high cost of its corporate parent’s bankruptcy proceeding, again mentioning the specter of $1,000 per hour fees for some lawyers and the average of $500 per hour for all the lawyers. Why should lawyers be paid so much?
At the outset, it’s easy to understand the emotional reaction to lawyers getting so much money. Society, and the media, love to hate lawyers. Just read Shakespeare. Why is it that such visceral reaction is not visited on entertainers or ball players? Why is it that we don’t ring our hands at the low compensation when talking about teachers who mold our next generation of thinkers and leaders? Ah, but that is a different subject, right?
Let’s remain with the lawyers, for now. First, we’ve allowed industry to get huge. In this case, one person, Sam Zell, was able to borrow over $8 billion!!!!! He acquired the Tribune, with all its subsidiaries including the L.A. Times, Chicago Cubs, and others. This alone would make the task one of great complexity.
Then, add to this the federal Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978, new enough to still be uncertain in some of its applications and broad enough to enable debtors to have a larger hand in the restructuring of their own organization. Next, add the increasing complexity and sophistication of the financial markets, and you have a cauldron that requires very sophisticated counsel and other professional skills. All of this increases the cost of legal services. It’s the opposite end of the spectrum of work … it certainly is not commodity work. In effect, this type of work may be in the category of “bet the company” work … and this always is expensive.
Ed Flitton, 67, formerly the managing partner of Holland & Hart in Colorado and the Finance chair of the ABA’s Law Practice Management Section, died suddenly while at the ABA’s LegalTech Show. I was there and just saw Ed on Friday, the day before he died. While I remember thinking he looked a bit more tired and a bit older than his usual self, there was no indication of illness. Wow! What a shocker!
This gives more meaning to two guiding principles that I do my best to live by, sometimes more successfully than others: i) Do what you enjoy doing; life is not split into work and personal lives. Life is one and enjoy what you do or go do something else. ii) Take care of yourself, no one else will. Eat well (healthy), exercise and get up every morning with a smile.
No one knows what tomorrow (heck, the balance of today) will bring. If you’re doing what you enjoy, then when the time comes, you’ll at least be in a good place. My condolences go out to the Flitton family.
