LAW FIRM MANAGEMENT EXPERT TO RELEASE NEW YOUTUBE SERIES
Ed Poll Uses Technology to Reach Out
VENICE, CA. February 4, 2009 – Nationally recognized law firm management expert Ed Poll, JD, MBA, CMC, announced today the launch of his brand new YouTube Channel, LawBizGuide. Beginning next Tuesday, February 10, a new video about important and challenging topics surrounding the business of law will premiere each week. Next Tuesday, for example, Poll will discuss lessons we can learn from the recent collapse of law firm giant Heller Ehrman.
“These new videos are an exciting new platform for me,” says Poll, “I hope this opportunity will allow me to broaden my audience so that I can provide insightful information to a whole new group of people.”
In addition to his new YouTube Channel, Poll has also started to use Twitter as a way to reach out to the cybersphere. “I must admit – so much exposure over the Internet is a bit scary, but I really think these media are important tools that will let me provide more value to more people,” he commented. You can follow Poll at twitter.com/lawbiz.
Interview contact info
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Ed Poll, J.D., M.B.A., CMC, is a nationally recognized expert in law practice management. He helps attorneys and law firms increase their profitability consulting with them on issues of internal operations, business development, and financial matters. Poll brings his clients a solid background in both law and business. He has 25 years experience as a practicing attorney and has also served as CEO and COO for several manufacturing businesses. In 1990, he founded LawBiz®Management Company and is now focused on coaching, speaking, and training law firms.
While in San Francisco, I was given “The Printed Blog.” Literally, hard copy publication taken from the electronic world. If blogs can report on the hard copy world, I suppose “turn-around is fair play.”
And, there must be some substance behind the group. It is published in Chicago and distributed in San Francisco. Who knows where else?
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.
Maridee F. Edwards is an attorney and mediator in the area of professional licensing and ethics matters in Jefferson City, Missouri. She is former Bar counsel for the Missouri Bar and speaks with Ed about civility in the profession.
There has been a recent fervor about teaching lawyers “civility” when dealing with other counsel and adverse parties. Aren’t these the principles we should have learned at our mother’s (and father’s) knees, but somehow seem not to have learned? Are more influenced by “everything is fair in love and war,” believing that the adversary system, by definition, is akin to war?
Therefore, everything the lawyer does is “fair” as long as not prohibited by some code. With the fallout in the economy and corresponding pressure on the legal community, is this becoming more acute?
Is the legal profession guilty of misconduct or rather merely reflective of what is happening in the rest of our society?
Maridee and Ed elaborate on this issue and what lawyers need to do in order to both effectively represent clients and stay away from violating rules of professional conduct.
Insurance rates are based on three elements:
1. Losses. Carriers normally allow 5% to 10% for claims payouts, or losses.
2. Reinsurance. The cost of reinsurance, where the primary carrier passes some of the risk of their policies to other insurance companies, called reinsurers.
3. Investment income. Carriers normally invest their cash reserves in stocks, bonds and other income producing products to increase their own net profit or return for the benefit of shareholders.
In the State Bar meeting referred to in a recent post, I was the one who raised the issue … who are we talking about when we ask questions like "affordability" and "availability" of malpractice insurance? These folks were not mentioned by name … it’s the approximately 18% of the California Bar, 30,000, who have no malpractice insurance. If we don’t mention them specifically, we can draw all kinds of conclusions … they’re not good lawyers, they’re marginal folks, they are the ones clogging the disciplinary system, etc. Yet, there is no empirical data to this effect.
The Bar wants to survey lawyers to determine why they don’t have insurance (they’ll never send surveys to these people, I’ll bet!). They want to find out what lawyers think is affordable malpractice insurance … how much are you willing to pay to be covered against claims against you from clients. Response to this question should be interesting, though I’m not sure how illuminating, since the market place will govern anyway. And there seems to be no political will to create a mandatory State-wide program.
I was invited to join this group because of my original vocal opposition to the concept of forcing lawyers (these very same 30,000) to affirmatively tell their prospective clients (the word used is "disclose," as though it otherwise were a deep, hidden secret) that they have no malpractice insurance.
Someone referred to this group, after a bit of discussion, as "Ed’s People." I was flattered to be their representative. But, throughout the conversation, I think it was intended as a pejorative, as though these 30,000 lawyers were not successful … and perhaps didn’t deserve the same protection and service as other lawyers in the Bar. Rather, it is the "public" that deserves the protection of the Bar. Who will preserve the rights of these 30,000, "Ed’s People?"
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.
I’m currently involved in a meeting at the State Bar offices in San Francisco. The focus of the meeting is to understand the availability and affordability of malpractice insurance.
Interesting that there is no consensus on the definition of affordability. The professionals in the room suggest that some lawyers will say that no amount of premium is affordable. My contention is that a 1 or 1.5% of gross receipts would be affordable. But 5, 6, or 10% of gross revenues is outlandish.
The discussion is also framed in the context that the malpractice insurance market today is "soft," that there are almost 30 carriers in the market … But, insurance rates will rise in the not too distant future. Premiums are based on loss experience, reinsurance availability and investment income. With the current financial crisis, investment income will decrease and this will dramatically impact insurance companies and their financial health … and then increase the premiums! No such decision should be based solely on this fact. The Bar needs a longer term perspective.
The Board of Governors has adopted the Rule of Professional Conduct requiring disclosure if the lawyer has no malpractice insurance coverage; thus, the focus of this group is how to help lawyers comply … that is, how the Bar can ferret out insurance premiums that are as small a percentage as possible of gross revenues (affordability).
The net result of the meeting is a mandate to do a survey to find out what lawyers think is "affordable." Hopefuly, the survey will produce meaningful information.
