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 »
Posts Categorized: Clients
Time out: Removing time from pricing and compensation
In honour of Star Trek‘s 46th anniversary (corrected!), 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… 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 »
The stratified legal market and its implications
An extraordinary conversation has emerged among multiple authors in the blawgosphere over the past few days. It revolves around a pressing question: in light of the huge changes in the marketplace, what will become of law firms? More specifically, given the increasing segmentation and stratification of the universe of legal work, how can law firms… Read more »
The new price wars
Their World Series victory last fall wasn’t the only surprise the San Francisco Giants sprang on the baseball establishment. Throughout the 2010 season, the team engaged in “dynamic pricing,” changing the price of single-game tickets according to demand. The same seat for a Monday night yawnfest in May against the Washington Nationals, for example, would… Read more »
The new battlefield: convenience
Whatever happened to Napster? Depending on your age, you might remember it either as a piracy-enabling nuisance, a groundbreaking music-swapping service, or the dusty antecedent of iTunes. Time magazine caught up with Napster’s founder, Shawn Fanning, and three other pioneering hackers in a recent article that describes them as “The Men Who Changed The World.”… Read more »