One Year; Two Bucks
December 31, 2009 | Filed Under Nice Work if You Can Get It
Happy New Year to all readers of the Wired GC; I appreciate your time and interest.
These visitors wandered by a Lexvista satellite facility earlier this year. They didn’t request an RFP or ask for a discount:
(photo copyright 2009, John Wallbillich)
Legal Terms for Exile
December 30, 2009 | Filed Under Exile on Law Street
Sometimes certain words or phrases get under a lawyer’s skin. Following the lead of Lake Superior State University’s banished words list, I propose voting one off Law Island. (Maybe next year we’ll even have a vote).
First, a quick note on methodology. There wasn’t any. I just kept a list for about three months. It hovered around 10. These three kept coming into focus:
1. Alternative Billing. When talking about the billable hour gets outside counsel thrown out of a GC’s conference room, there has to be a different way to put a new shade of lipstick on that shopworn pig. That just might be alternative billing. It sounds a bit like leasing instead of buying an automobile. There’s still the question: how much does it really cost? Do I need a BMW M3 or a Chevy Malibu for this trip?
2. Jumped the Shark. This is one that you see in mainstream media, but it has a certain panache when talking about lawyers. I think it means reaching acceptance, or wide adoption. (But it really started with Fonzie of Happy Days; yes, we have the video).
3. Thought Leader.This one isn’t entirely legal, and you heard it first in the business press. In Wikipedia, it sounds almost benign. However, it has over 51 million hits in Google, and the phrase “legal thought leadership” has over 2.4 million entries. With that many leaders, who is left to follow?
But these three didn’t quite make the cut (but I will appropriate one of them). Therefore, the Wired GC 2009 “Jumped the Shark” Legal Term for Exile is:
Rainmaker. Oh, this one just rolls off the tongue so easily. To be known as one of the lead rainmakers for a large firm back in the day was to have your partners be envious, the associates lobby for assignments, and clients return your calls promptly. But in the last few years GCs realized where the rain was coming from.
To be clear: the legal industry needs to find new ways to price services, and someone could jump the shark and provide thought leadership. But action is ultimately the litmus test.
And if you still want to be a rainmaker in 2010, you better keep it to a tight circle of friends. “Making it rain” has an entirely different meaning to the up-and-coming general counsel set. Trust me, or Google it yourself.
Or as Fonzie would say the next time you try to call yourself a rainmaker:
Wired GC Big 3 - #1: Value is a Starting Point
December 29, 2009 | Filed Under Pricing, Change
Rather than follow the popular Top 10 format, I thought I’d streamline. Face it, in any Top 10 list, numbers 7-9 tend to flag a bit.
So I’ve done the Wired GC Big 3 for 2010. Here is #1, the other two will be rolled out in the first full week of 2010.
You know value is everywhere: in today’s Chicago Tribune, and a key point from ACC’s Fred Krebs throughout his look at in-house trends for 2010.
A vital premise I operate under: the focus on value has very little to do with the current economic downturn. It just happened to coincide and it made things move faster. But it was not the cause, and so an uptick in GNP will not solve the issue for law firms or make clients less demanding. (If you don’t agree with this, you can probably stop reading now).
The problem with looking at value as a standalone concept is that it makes it sound like a communication problem, not a cost issue. If only law firms show clients more clearly how much service X is worth, they can keep charging those historical effective rates with associated profit margins. The marching orders to key client partners and legal marketers become: sell better!
That would work in a time when (a) general counsel weren’t under ongoing cost pressure, (b) they really didn’t know what firms Y and Z would charge for X, and (c) there wasn’t new service providers beyond large corporate law firms for many legal matters.
Once GCs show progress in reducing legal costs, it isn’t the end. CEOs, boards and CFOs say something like “great, how about another 10-20% next year.”
The focus on value has been essential to reframe the debate and get clients and law firms talking. I think where GCs were at the end of 2008, most managing partners have arrived as we close out 2009.
My History of the Billable Hour 101 becomes: what was the cost-plus model is now moving through value-minus on the way to something else (I covered phases I and II in February 2009 at the 1:30 min point of the video).
While value is a starting point, I am about done fleshing out a more robust way of looking at legal costs. I’ll save that for the second week of 2010, as this is (hopefully) a week of some reflection, resetting, and renewal. (And college football.)
I want to end the year on a lighter note, and will offer up tomorrow one phrase I would like to ban in 2010.
Five Years Gone: Time for Change at Wired GC
December 21, 2009 | Filed Under law river, Change
Five years ago I started this weblog.
Here was the first sentence:
CNN reports that firms are expanding to meet demand for outsourced attorney and legal support services:…
And I ended with a question:
The start of the long-expected disintermediation of legal services?
So now I’ll answer after five years:
I think we are at least at the start of the start.
It the spirit of creative destruction, we’ve reached a fork in the road at the Wired GC, or perhaps a bend in the river.
Law river, that is…
Some of the news and views detailing change in the legal industry really doesn’t fit the format here. So rather than let some timely links languish, we give you lawriver.
It’s about as simple as we could make it. Less to distract and an easier fit when you are working off a small screen.
And five years hence…who knows?
Legal Change - There’s Always Another Wave
December 18, 2009 | Filed Under Change
As I was watching the footage below of recent extreme surf off the coast of Maui, I thought about change. Just when you think you’ve met the latest challenge, another one comes along. Sometimes you react well, sometimes not. Once in a great while you actually take some proactive steps. After all, it’s risky, and the risk appears larger the bigger the organization you’re working in.
But enough of that for now, let’s hang ten. Perhaps brew some organic green tea first, and turn up your speakers.
The video is less than 3 minutes long; the surfer at the 2 minute mark looks like he rode the winner, until someone else rides the next bigger wave (which were between 25 and 50 feet high):
The last 18 months have seen a lot of change in the legal industry. Much of it was needed, but a lot of it incremental stuff. Sort of the drip drip drip of water on a rock that eventually leaves its mark. After a few thousand years (or hours…).
Change is also coming here to the Wired GC; not so much a big wave as a smaller current. Details on Monday.
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