Donald A. Downey, Executive Director of minisoft Worldwide, is interviewed by Ed Poll about collecting both WIP and AR. Don suggests that WIP (work in progress) that is not quickly converted into AR (accounts receivable) becomes sediment that needs to be cleared out.
Where the law firm uses the accrual method of accounting, there is an economic motivation to clear it out; where the law firm is a cash basis taxpayer, there is little motivation to do so … but the law firm merely fools itself into thinking that there is still value in the amount that isn’t quickly converted to an account receivable and then paid by the client.
Ed interviewed Norm Thomas, Director of Business Development for Microsoft Professional Services Solutions. Norm starts the discussion with Microsoft’s approach to developing solutions while using its platforms and applications.
He then continues to discuss specific applications to help improve the efficiency of lawyers, and concludes with a sneak preview of their presentations at the forthcoming LegalTech Show in New York.
Ed starts his interview by asking Norm to clarify his role with Microsoft.
This week, Ed interviews Rick Borstein, Business Development Manager for the Legal Community for Abobe Systems, Inc. Rick discusses The new version of Adobe Acrobat<sup>®</sup> and how new features are of special interest to lawyers.
Fee problems lie at the feet of lawyers, not clients. In this podcast, created by the Canadian Bar Association, Ed Poll discusses how lawyers can protect themselves and increase their realization rate for increased cash flow.
Ed takes a “Fresh Look at Fee Collection for Lawyers.”
Leading and Learning, Inc. provides consulting services to the corporate world by guiding organizational change management. Billie talks about succession planning — probably the single most important change that any organization can face.
Jeff Carr, General Counsel of FMC Technologies, in another interview, talks about the "DuPont Model" and compares this model to his own expectations when interacting with outside counsel for FMC. Jeff talks about how the law firm needs to partner with the Corporate Law Department, collaborating together, as contrasted to the traditional vendor-buyer relationship. Collaboration produces more effective representation at a lower cost to the company without discounting either the value or the per hour fee of the lawyer. Although alternative pricing is an important topic that will likely appear again in our podcasts, this is the last interview in our current series on the topic.
Hugh Q. Gottschalk, an attorney in Colorado, leads us in yet another perspective on alternative legal services pricing. He also discusses understanding the cost of your services, budgeting for litigation and structuring the actual fee agreement with a client.
These discussions should be considered in light of the “reasonableness” of legal fees… and most importantly, how the lawyer can deliver quality services at a price that will produce a reasonable profit for the lawyer at an acceptable price to the client.
Alternative fees continue to be a prominent topic among lawyers. Our next several podcasts will feature interviews that Ed has conducted over the last 18 months with prominent thinkers on this subject.
Jeff Carr, General Counsel of FMC Technologies, responds here in the first of two interviews with him.
In today’s world, the preeminent method of billing is still based on the hour. It’s not the way that lawyers have billed traditionally. It used to be that bills were given on a bottom line for value rendered services.
Changes resulted largely by corporate counsel and insurance counsel in the 1970s, or perhaps more so in the early 80s, when people were frustrated with that kind of billing system. We went to the billable hour as a way to impose some cost control and as a way to understand the way law firms were billing us. Now of course we’ve got a whole generation of lawyers who know nothing else at this point.
Jim Michalowicz, is the Litigation Program Manager for Tyco Corp. Formerly, he was with DuPont in a similar capacity for 13 years. Our interview with Jim also includes two other folks from the Tyco Legal Department who will also focus on development the best business practices for their legal department – developing the most effective and efficient approaches to handling the legal affairs of Tyco. Jim combines information management, relationship management and best business practices in his role as manager. Listen as Jim explains further about Tyco’s approaches and what he expects from outside counsel that work with and for Tyco.
There are four personality styles – What is yours? Why should you care? How does your style impact your client relationships? Gayle N. Carson, President of Carson Research Center tells us why we need to know and why we should care about this issue.
