The Apple iPad: Six Lessons for Lawyers
January 28, 2010 | Filed Under Law 2.0, Technology, New Services
Apple announced yesterday its new tablet Internet device, the iPad, creating a new category between a laptop and a smartphone.
Since I haven’t touched it, and it won’t be on sale for 60 days, here are a few early lessons for lawyers from 30,000 feet:
1. Fast is the new currency. From those who have used the iPad, its first and most enduring impression is quickly it works for the user. Once people see this, they will never want to go back to old and slow.
====>Lawyers will need speed as alternative billing gains traction.
2. You must control your strategic strengths. Apple designs (and wraps tightly into IP) everything that makes products different and better for the user. They may let others manufacture, but only a few trusted vendors to ensure quality (and competition).
====>Outsourcing and convergence are tactics, not strategies.
3. Focus on a few key things and hit them hard. As Apple’s COO Tim Cook said last year “We believe in the simple, not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution.”
====>Does “full service firm” sound distinctive or average?
4. You must present well. Steve Jobs and crew were in great form (full event here; you can get the essence by watching the first 10 mintues and then skipping ahead to the 1:29:00 mark, where there’s about 5 minutes left). One can only imagine how many hours of prep went into 90 minutes of presenting.
====>We are practicing law in a multimedia age.
5. Price matters. Mr. Jobs summed up the iPad: the “Most advanced technology, in a magical and revolutionary device, at an unbelievable price.” He isn’t just driving value from the features, his index also has cost at its core (and an iPad base price of $499).
====>Do you charge less than an iPad?
6. Liberal Arts was worth it. What caught my eye at the end of the presentation was the second-to-last-slide (below), accompanied by these words: “We’ve always tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts. To be able to get the best of both, to make extremely advanced products from a technology point of view, but also have them be intuitive, easy to use, fun to use… It’s the combination of these two things…that let us make great products like the iPad.”
====>Lawyers might just be due for a Renaissance.
Legal Secondments with a Twist
June 2, 2009 | Filed Under Law Firm Trends, New Services
Mayer Brown is providing attorneys to key clients, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Secondments, involving law firms tasking attorneys to key clients for a defined term, are not new.
One part of this one is, however:
Mayer Brown is paying some of its associates to work in-house at corporate clients such as United Airlines parent UAL Corp. and Kraft Foods Inc. But there is a catch: The associates’ pay is reduced to $60,000 plus benefits, from about $160,000, and the jobs last one year with no guarantee of further employment.
It’s clear why some may like it:
UAL was a willing participant, said Paul Lovejoy, its senior vice president and general counsel. Why not? The company gets people with top credentials and good training for free and are under no obligation to provide a permanent position.
[…]
“These are well-qualified people,” Lovejoy said. “If they stay with us, we have the advantage of a nice, long tryout.”
I applaud Mayer Brown for coming up with a creative way of packaging a severance that helps the former associate keep working and helps a client (obviously a long-standing, major client) by delivering clear added value.
Assuming this is a one-way ticket from Mayer, Brown, it seems there are three options:
1. Client likes the former associate, and has a position. Hired.
2. Things don’t work out with former associate, for whatever reason. Gone, but with valuable experience.
3. Client likes former associate, but no positions open. Associate rolls over to another term, or hangs out a virtual shingle with a key anchor client. Associate & Associates, LLP.
Not sure if Mayer, Brown has given any thought to #3, but if it happens, it’s likely with work that they wouldn’t be able to keep long-term anyway with their current cost and pricing structures.
As with other data points in the global service economy, you can hear some of the helium leaking from the associate salary balloon. When the Chi-Trib writer notes that some of the “associates were making as much as $200,000″ and that a “first-year associate at Mayer Brown makes $160,000,” you know that’s not how things work for in-house counsel with limited experience.
Unlike the #1 movie at the cineplex today, the BigLaw starting salary trend is no longer Up.
Do GCs Want Change? A Rejoinder
June 20, 2008 | Filed Under New Services, Managing
My friend Bruce MacEwen swung for the bleachers this week with a herculean post in his Adam Smith, Esq. weblog.
Bruce takes a discussion from Legal OnRamp and puts it out there for all to see (his mention of Paul here refers to Paul Lippe, Legal OnRamp’s CEO). The subject is whether GCs really want change in the legal industry, and Bruce bravely answers “no”:
But I actually have a more subversive suggestion, which falls under “E. Other” in Paul’s schema: I don’t believe GC’s really want things to change, for all their trashmouth game talk. GC’s want their backsides protected by the imprimatur of the Magic Circle, the New York Elite, or the Skadden/Latham brand name. GC’s don’t want “good enough” quality; they want top-drawer quality.
It sure beats your run-of-the-mill “recent developments in trover and replevin” blog post.
I actually agree with Bruce on one level. GCs don’t want things to change. Who does? Change is hard to face and harder still to make work.
Where we part ways is over the conclusion that many GCs use top-tier New York and London firms on major deals and litigation because they don’t want change. It could just be the right tool for the job. And I really disagree about saying this is an exercise in CYA. GCs I know don’t think that way. (Maybe I’m just a hayseed from the Heartland…)
For most GCs, major deals and litigation are a minor part of their budgets, smoothed out over X number of years. In the rest of the spending, I actually see more signs of change, and a desire to change, than ever before.
Any one general counsel can turn a back on change. It may work for awhile, but over the long run, there’s a name for the person who will force the issue. Your CEO? Perhaps. Your CFO? More likely.
Most likely: Your successor.
You really owe it to yourself to pour a glass of cabernet and read through Bruce’s entire post. It’s excellent.
How general counsel can navigate change is a subject that I have been spending a lot of time on recently. I’ve mentioned two projects it in my Wired GC — Select newsletter in the last few months, and I’ll touch on both here shortly.
One thing we can agree on: for the legal market, change makes glaciers look fast. You better stand back at the right moment, however…
Tyco and Eversheds: in Depth (Part II)
May 29, 2008 | Filed Under Law 2.0, New Services
Today, some of my perspectives on the revised Tyco/Eversheds legal services agreement, arising out of a discussion with some of the firms’ principals. Part I is here.
Here we go:
– if firms want to wait until a proposal like this is perfect before doing it, it is never going to happen.
– there clearly is an importance of trust between firm and client before venturing off like this. No agreement, however well conceived and drafted, can foresee all issues that will come up.
– the advantage a first mover like Eversheds gets from this is that after they the sign up Tyco to version 2.0, they are already working on 3.0. Other firms are probably still discussing alternative billing in the abstract. How do you ever catch up?
– if a firm like Eversheds can integrate other smaller and more geographically focused firms on a project basis with technology and consistency, does the law firm of the future need to be in all places at all times? Do mergers or expansions therefore become more targeted and strategic? Note that Eversheds has no offices in North America.
– An arrangement with some of the key attributes of Tyco/Eversheds provides a level of commercial understanding for firm lawyers that is difficult to duplicate otherwise. It also provides these same lawyers with closer client contact that other firms either don’t get or are unwilling to share deep into the service team.
– There is a consistency and quality of service that is an essential part of the DNA of an arrangement like this.
– More firms may have to consider incentives related to preventing disputes if they want to be entrusted with ongoing litigation assignments.
I appreciate the time taken by Stephen Hopkins, Diana Newcombe and Martin Hopkins of Eversheds to talk about the evolving Tyco relationship. I expect more corporate clients to try out some parts of this approach if they want to improve legal services delivery in a way that can be quantified and incentivized.
Tyco and Eversheds: in Depth (Part I)
May 27, 2008 | Filed Under Law 2.0, New Services
I talked with Stephen Hopkins and Diana Newcombe of Eversheds last week; they are two leaders for the firm on the Tyco legal services team (the new agreement’s details are here). Also participating was Martin Hopkins, who oversees Eversheds’ relationship management strategy and deployment for US-based clients.
Some of the major points follow here, I’ll give some of my perspectives Thusday.
Two things impressed me from the outset:
– The Big Picture: This process has been a real learning experience for the firm, and consistently drives home the importance of closely linking legal services and a client’s corporate goals. This is often talked about by law firms in the abstract, but is hard to quantify in practice.
– The Building Blocks: Tyco is certainly a custom-built arrangement, but components of it are finding favor with other clients. Indeed, the approach and the technology involved make it more “modular” than initially thought. A client can pick a few features to start with, and go from there.
A few other items of note:
– The Need for Speed: Getting the right technology in place, FAST, is key, one that facilitates client needs and the control of the arrangement. You can’t always know what it’s going to be like to get matters formerly handled by 250 + firms into a process now being overseen by one until you do it. Indeed, it seems without Eversheds’ Global Accounts Management System, this type of service model simply can’t work. And it’s not something you can go out and buy off the shelf.
– What Quality Really Is: Legal work is about many things: not just the product itself, but when it is delivered, how useful it is for the client, and of course, the cost. The system that tracks such things also gives the ability to measure. These can then be analyzed, forming the basis for an upgraded agreement, which refines the allocation of risks and rewards.
– Innovation Forces Change: The Tyco services agreement is changing how Eversheds is organized and presents itself to the market. The firm can’t help but re-evaluate how matters are staffed and work is sought, sourced, and serviced.
– Alignment is a Motivator: The Tyco experience has pushed people inside the firm (at all levels) to do something new that tangibly (and measurably) helps a client. Having a challenge that requires teamwork and has the interests of the firm and client aligned is invigorating for Eversheds’ lawyers and staff. It also helps extend and enhance diversity initiatives already under way.
– One Firm of Many: since Eversheds will retain other firms to help on matters in certain countries, it has forced a level of consistency and cost control across the EMEA region that is rare when such matters are traditionally “referred out.” Indeed, not all firms want to (or are able to) work with Eversheds this way. They payoff for some firms that agree to work with Eversheds on Tyco matters is a chance to work for a high-visibility international client that they might not have been able to land before.
– Less Work Can Lead to More Work: things like preventative law and litigation avoidance are clearly new opportunities for legal services that are often seen by many firms as putting sources of future work at risk. When incentives for these are combined with more traditional work, you are getting closer to win-win. From this newer perspective, the traditional billable hour model is more like pay-pay.
Part II comes your way on Thursday.
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