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.
Bankruptcy will be an important practice area for the legal profession, obviously, in 2009 and 2010, as we continue to move through the major upheaval in our economy. And our law firms will benefit. Many are now seeking to bolster their bankruptcy practice groups.
However, one aspect I did not expect was that lawyers and law firms will likewise face economic hardships … And I’m not addressing the obvious issues coming from the collapse (for other reasons of the large firms such as Heller, et al.).
I’m addressing the more mundane, the traditional, average lawyer, the lawyers that make up the bulk of our profession. When these lawyers are in trouble, the entire profession needs to wake up and pay attention.
I was just contacted by an attorney asking me to value a law firm for purposes of the lawyer’s personal bankruptcy. His law practice is an asset of his personal estate. Times are hard when the helpers need help themselves.
Clients seek to control the costs of their legal challenges. According to a study by the Association of Corporate Counsel, as noted by Larry Bodine, corporate general counsel do so in the following ways:
"The most common methods to control outside legal spending during the past year were: case/matter budgets (52.9%), discounted/alternative fees (52.9%), re-allocation of work to firms with lower rates (43.7%), billing guidelines/ spending rules (43.7%), and electronic bill reviewing and auditing (34.6%)."0
While reallocation of work seems to be an obvious choice, I’ve always wondered why more law firms don’t do this. If you have several choices among quality law firms, why wouldn’t you go with the less expensive? Perhaps because business is often based on relationships, and if there is a good relationship between client and counsel, the legal work may not go into play to find out whether there is a less expensive option available. This is often called "loyalty," the most desired state of affairs for vendor-partners.
I like Seth Godin’s response to this question:
"We spend so much time smoothing things out, we lose the opportunity for change, or for texture or creativity. Instead of working so hard to make everything okay, perhaps it is more helpful to work hard at living with a world that rarely is."
When things are out of sync, that is the time to seek change for improvement … what a concept!
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never really been taught how to live with tumult and "not o.k." Another term for this is conflict avoidance, a phenomenon that most people understand and seek to emulate. How do we live in a world with conflict and still be o.k.?
What is the normal state of affairs in your law office? Piled on top of the anxiety of your clients and the pressures of seeking the best results possible for your clients, how does your team fare? Do you have a peaceful place of work where everyone likes and respects one another, treats one another as a healthy family? Or is there something missing from this picture? And, if yes, what can you do to change the picture? That might be a good project for 2009!
Failure can be experienced by small firms as well as large firms. In the case of Dreier, the real shame is not that Dreier failed – he committed fraud and there is nothing new about fraudulent conduct causing failure … and even jail. The sad part of this tale is what happens to other lawyers working in the Dreier firm.
Forty years after the Pueblo was captured by North Korea, the sailors received judgment for damages. This merely gives the sailors a piece of paper. Go collect! Not, that’s the rub. And ask the Goldman family how much of their 33 million dollar judgment they’ve received from the assets of O.J. Simpson.
In the beginning of 2009, we need to hearken back to the words of Rodney King, "Can’t we all just get along?" The obvious answer is "no." But, litigation may not be the best answer either; it’s certainly not the only answer.
Law firms, even the major law firms (like Heller used to be), whose litigation work makes up more than 50% of their revenue, will need to focus on greater diversity in their offerings if they want to protect their future. More than 10% in any one area always puts a business at risk. Sometimes the risk pays well; sometimes it doesn’t. Just ask the lawyers who were at Heller about the high times and then the implosion.
AmLaw Daily, in an article by Susan Beck, writes about a recent conference on innovation and the law. Here is an excerpt from that article, the third in a series of three:
Several professors complained that the American Bar Association–and its outdated accreditation standards–is the main bulwark against innovation.
Carlolyn Elefant has created yet another e-book, available for free, and worth reading.
Bill padding is the perfect crime, according to William Ross. There are many examples lawyers can point to in their own firms. However, there may be an element that some are overlooking. That is the obligation to “snitch” on one’s peers if they suspect the practice is being committed by a colleague.
Obviously, such practices are difficult to detect by clients. The question is whether such practices can be detected by a colleague and then, if suspicion exists, what needs to be done about it. Must the lawyer report the suspected practice to the firm? Must the lawyer report the suspected practice to the client? Must the lawyer report the suspected practice to the State Bar disciplinary board?