Monthly Archives: November 2009

Beyond billing

Even a dyed-in-the-wool optimist like me didn’t think there’d be so much progress so fast on what’s increasingly referred to as “alternative fee arrangements” (AFAs). Fulbright & Jaworski’s 6th Annual Litigation Trends Survey says 45% of clients are using AFAs like fixed and outcome-based fees. Hildebrandt’s survey of 231 companies showed about half are or [...]
Posted in Billing | Leave a comment

Resolving the legal education disconnect

In conversation last week with a law school professor, the subject of law firms’ tunnel vision when recruiting law graduates came up. Firms focus relentlessly on the students with the highest grades, the professor lamented, even though these students can be one-dimensional performers with an affinity for the academic environment and no competing pressures outside [...]
Posted in Governance, Law School | 1 Comment

Lawyers, journalists and trust

My first post at Stem’s Law Firm Web Strategy Blog is up and running. The title is “Lawyers, journalists and trust,” and talks about the yawning trust gap between lawyers and the media and how to bridge it. My dozen years in legal journalism demonstrated to me how instinctively guarded lawyers can be even with [...]
Posted in Stem | Leave a comment

On the road

If you happen to be in Winnipeg or Toronto over the next few days, look me up. On Friday morning, I’ll be delivering the keynote address at the 2009 Isaac Pitblado Lectures, sponsored by the Law Society of Manitoba. The theme of the conference is the future of law; I’ll be sketching out the likely [...]
Posted in Law21 | Leave a comment

Targeting the variable fee

For as long as most lawyers can remember, the billable hour has defined, powered, and shaped their law firms. It determines how lawyers work, how they sell their work, how much they earn, and how they assess and reward their employees. It breeds inefficient, overworked lawyers and frustrated, resentful clients; but it has also [...]
Posted in Billing, Innovation, Talent | 4 Comments

Carnival of Trust – November 2009

Regular readers will be familiar with Blawg Review, which encapsulates the blawgosphere’s best posts over the previous week (and which I hosted earlier this year). In a similar vein is the Carnival of Trust, the brainchild of Charles Green of Trust Matters, which highlights the best posts about trust in the business and professional workspace [...]
Posted in Law21 | 2 Comments

Search the Archives