Law Firm Management
Save the date! The Midwestern Law Firm Management Conference will be held in Chicago on September 21st and sponsored by West … Save the date! And plan to attend at the Chicago Bar offices.
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Tag Archive: Management
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John Wooden & Leadership
With John Wooden’s passing, we have lost a true friend. While countless accolades have been heaped on him for his basketball genius, Coach Wooden was, in essence, a teacher, revered for his refreshingly pure and simple principles. These values guided everything he did, from developing young players into contributing and principled adults, to motivating executive teams to work together toward a higher purpose.
Coach’s Pyramid of Success is a foundation for a balanced and generous life in full, and his passion in later life was to help educate people in these principles. We are blessed that Coach Wooden’s commitment to developing and nurturing the next generation of leaders continues through the John Wooden Global Leadership Program, which he chose to locate at UCLA Anderson. A hallmark of the program is the annual John Wooden Global Leadership Award bestowed on an inspiring CEO who embodies Coach’s values.
The UCLA Anderson website now features a compilation of videos of Coach’s discussions on leadership at the John Wooden Global Leadership Awards, and with students and alumni, as well as an opportunity to express your thoughts about Coach Wooden and his leadership teachings. UCLA has also created a website in tribute to Coach Wooden, with an extensive collection of video and commentaries from players and many others who knew him.
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Lawyer v. Lawyer: A New Litigation Specialty
A Texas law firm lost its defense against a lawyer whom it hired. The plaintiff worked for another law firm and was lured away based on alleged representations of the future of the firm and the collegiality of its founding partners.
In today’s economic turmoil with an increase in lateral movement, does this mean there will be an increase in litigation from dissatisfied lawyers claiming negligent misrepresentation when their compensation is less than desired?
As my mother used to say, be careful what you sow – it impacts what you reap. If you encourage a lateral move and it produces less than outstanding results for all concerned, can you expect to be sued? And, depending on how you do entice the move, are you at risk of being sued by the first law firm for interference with contractual relations?
We may be encouraging a new specialty in the law … lawyers who sue law firms for something other than legal malpractice!
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Knowledge – Who Owns It?
I had the pleasure of keynoting a recent conference sponsored by LexisNexis. During a panel discussion among practitioners, technology consultant and myself, the topic of the cost of new technology was discussed. One of the suggestions I made was that the successful law firm of the future will use technology to create and enhance its effort at knowledge management. The firm that is able to retrieve its pre-existing knowledge and use it again will be more efficient, reduce its costs and therefore provide excellent results for clients at a lower price.
Then, the question arises: Who owns the knowledge, who owns the forms, the precedent knowledge? Does the client who paid for it own it? Does the law firm own it? Or does the lawyer who created it own it? This becomes more important in an age of greater lateral movement.
Some clients have as a condition of engagement that they (the client) own the intellectual property … and that the law firm must share it with other law firms who handle the client’s affairs (e.g., product liability litigation) in other parts of the country.
Do you have a firm policy on this? What do you do concerning your intellectual property when a lawyer leaves your firm? Is your policy different when the lawyer is a partner as contrasted to when the lawyer is an associate?
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Law School Education
Join us on LawBiz Forum in the discussion about legal education and the current reexamination of its efficacy for teaching management skills for success. Will the law school tumble into the morass of being a trade school (heaven forbib!) by including such skills in its curriculum? Let us know what you think …
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Law practice and golf
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?
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Growing Your Law Practice in Tough Times
West Pub. Co. has announced the pre-release offering for my new book, Growing Your Law Practice in Tough Times.
I’m very excited about the new book … and encourage you to take advantage of West’s offer. You can also see the new offering at LawBiz.
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Doctors do it, why don’t lawyers?
Doctors, like lawyers, have little or no business education in medical/law school. Today’s Wall Street Journal (Education for Executives) discusses doctors journey back to school (business) in order to learn skills that were omitted from their medical education. They need these skills in order to run their medical practices, medical groups and hospitals.
Doctors outreach for management training demonstrates a recent shift in thinking: "…we are much more similar to other businesses that we are different." Taking the business side of medicine more seriously can benefit not only doctors, but also patients, a fact slowly being understood in the medical profession.
Why is it that doctors are ahead of lawyers in this understanding? Why is it that medical schools are incorporating management principles into their teaching and few, if any, law schools do? Why is it that lawyers continue to be reactive, rather than be proactive? Worse still, why is it that lawyers fail to react to their clients wishes? Bar disciplinary proceedings continue to show that more than 50% of clients’ complaints relate to poor management practices. Why?
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Credit lines dry up – Law firms impacted
It’s reported in today’s Los Angeles Business Journal that SBA loans have evaporated. “Banks really are stingy…” is the headline. Small Business Administration guaranteed loans, funded by banks, have fallen by 53% from the 2008 level, a year in which the number of loans also decreased from the preceding year. This is further evidence that banks’ credit for business and for real estate ventures has been dried up. With TAARP money going to make financial institutions healthier rather than a stated purpose of loosening credit strings to jump start employment and business activity, the financial executives just don’t get it. They wonder why Main Street is upset with them as they sit back and take large bonuses; if they also were to spend the funds to help as intended, I suspect the American people would not be so upset. Also, in U.K. where there will be a 50% tax on bonuses. Wow. Wake up Wall Street and bankers before we tumble backward …
Law firms seeking either an extension or increase in their lines of credit are walking in this same environment. It’s tricky, at best, and possibly disastrous. Creating and enhancing a good working relationship with your banker is even more critical in these times. That’s the point I make in my book, The Successful Lawyer Client Relationship: A LawBiz Special Report. Just as lawyers are being told to create a “partnership” with clients, so, too, they should create a “partnership” with their banker. This will pay dividends.
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LawBiz® Legal Education Survey
Regular readers may recall my strong belief that young lawyers do not learn in law school the fundamentals of what they should know to practice law. In contrast to doctors (who put in years of residency, hospital and clinic work, and other apprenticeship before they begin their own practices), young lawyers begin their professional careers with little hands-on experience in “The Business of Law”® or practical client service. The result far too often is unhappy lawyers, unhappy law firms and unhappy clients as the young lawyers try to learn in “the school of hard knocks” what law schools did not teach them.
I’ve written about many possible models to provide this training – articling programs in Canada and the U.K., pro bono internships, law firm training apprenticeships, CLE specialist education, and more. Recently I surveyed the readers of LawBiz® Blog and asked whether they thought on-the-job training of new lawyers before they enter practice was a good idea. The unanimous answer was “yes.” As to what form this training should take from a variety of options presented, nearly 60% of respondents said that law firms over a certain size (revenue or head count), as well as public interest law firms, should be required to engage a pro rata number of graduates, whether they end up working for those firms or not. An even higher percentage of respondents, nearly 85% suggested that the courts (both trial and appellate) should make available clerkships for the graduates, or that law schools should create seminars and practicum programs to teach the skills lacking in the normal curriculum.
Especially interesting were a number of other ideas that the survey participants suggested. These practicing lawyers had some excellent thoughts on the type of training that would benefit those entering the profession:
Work at a company under the direction of an in-house lawyer (admitted to practice in the state where the work is done) with management responsibility within the legal affairs department.
Externships at government agencies such as the SEC, state securities commissioners, the Patent and Trademark Office, state corporations departments, state revenue departments, state legislatures and accounting/audit firms of a certain size.
Law school placement of third year students in extern programs, with the success and extent of the placement becoming a major criterion in evaluation of the school’s performance by U.S. News & World Report, Barron’s and others that evaluate law schools.
Requiring that all law school graduates who pass the bar exam serve an apprenticeship program under the direct supervision of a member in good standing of the bar who shall, at the conclusion of the apprenticeship, attest to the legal proficiencies of the new lawyer and recommend to the state bar that the apprenticeship be considered successfully concluded
Turning the third year of instruction in law school into an apprenticeship program, replacing the courses that are taken in the final year just to fill out the time
If you have other ideas, I’d welcome hearing them. Perhaps together we can begin a groundswell of opinion in which real lawyers, rather than just law school professors, have a say in legal education.
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