That’s a question I sometimes like to ask when visiting a law firm or speaking to an audience of lawyers: “Who is your biggest competitor?” I usually let the respondent decide what “biggest” means — sometimes they interpret it to mean the competitor who poses the greatest threat to their book of business, or who… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Clients
The incidental lawyer
The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled this week that LegalZoom’s services do not constitute the unauthorized practice of law. As reported by Greg Lambert at 3 Geeks, LegalZoom’s press release celebrates the news, while also taking pains to note that the company’s documents have been reviewed by the state Supreme Court and that it frequently refers its customers… Read more »
What do lawyers sell?
The first time I heard Richard Susskind speak was at a Canadian Bar Association conference in Montreal in 2007. That was also the first time I heard one of the best parables about professional services ever told. I’ll try to paraphrase Richard’s delivery from memory: “Black & Decker, the power tool company, had just hired… Read more »
Walking away from a losing game
And suddenly, everyone’s talking about Procurement. Not that long ago, warning lawyers about the rise of the corporate purchasing function was a little like a medieval parent telling their children about the goblin who lived under the floorboards: you’d better behave, or he’ll come and eat you up. Now the goblin is loose: Procurement’s importance… Read more »
Time out: Removing time from pricing and compensation
In honour of Star Trek‘s 46th anniversary, let’s write a little sci-fi story. Suppose you woke up one day and found that for some reason — maybe a tear in the fabric of the space-time continuum, who knows — it had become impossible to docket time at your firm anymore. No device for tracking time… Read more »
Losing the confidence game
Here are six observations about the legal marketplace for you to consider, each supported by a news report filed just in the last few days. 1. Fewer people want to be lawyers. Number of law school applicants continues to slide: “[US law school] applications submitted are down 13.6%…. That translates to about 66,696 applicants and… Read more »
Pricing to the client experience
Many lawyers, gnawed by doubt, regularly ask themselves, “What should I charge?” It’s the question with a million right answers — which is to say, with no right answer at all. Whatever number you finally settle on, however, is less important than the process by which you arrived at it. As far as I can… Read more »
The imaginary normal
The joke goes like this: “The optimist says the glass is half-full. The pessimist says it’s half-empty. The engineer says it’s twice the required capacity.” So what does the lawyer say when looking at the glass? In many cases, it’s: “Why hasn’t anyone refilled my drink yet?” I speak to more lawyers and legal professionals… Read more »
Goodbye to all that
Last week, having written about the rise of online disruptors and the emergence of super-boutiques, I promised that the final entry in this de facto trilogy would identify how lawyers and law firms can ensure their profitability in this new environment. But then I spent three days at ILTA’s Rev-elation, the 2011 annual meeting of… Read more »
Losing the quality wars
There are days when I feel optimistic that lawyers can rise to the challenges before us and take the lead in the new legal marketplace now emerging worldwide. And then there are days like today. Three data points for you. The first from a friend who sent along this item from the 2010 ACC/Serengeti Managing… Read more »