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Category Archives: Competition
Law firms and the JetBlue guy
Even if former JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater didn’t plan his famous chute-deploying resignation in advance, he seems ready and willing to exploit the moment, perhaps to land a reality-TV hosting gig. If it does turn out that his Big Quit was staged (like that of Elyse Porterfield, the “Dry-Erase Girl” whose hoax didn’t even [...]
Also posted in New Lawyers, Talent 1 Comment
How to kill a law firm
There’s a story told about Jack Welch, former GE president — it might be from one of his books, or it might be apocryphal; quite possibly it’s both. The story goes that soon after he took over the company, he called in his vice-presidents and other senior people and advised them that countless [...]
Also posted in Innovation 9 Comments
How to compete on price
One of the oldest pieces of marketing advice in the legal profession is: “Don’t compete on price.” Wiser heads than mine constantly warn lawyers not to cut their prices to match what other sellers are providing, that engaging in a price war for legal services is as potentially ruinous as getting involved in a land [...]
Also posted in Marketing 9 Comments
The end of inevitability
If you want an example of how the legal profession likely will respond to new competitors and a future marketplace very different than today’s, take a look at how Canada’s real estate agents are coping with change in their market. (Short answer: not well). The Globe & Mail reports on a rising wave of sell-it-yourself [...]
Also posted in Clients 8 Comments
The blind side
My newest column has been posted at Canada’s best legal website, which regular readers will know is Slaw.ca. Even though the article is also posted here for posterity, take the opportunity to absorb all of Slaw’s great information by going to read it there.
Also posted in Big Firms, Innovation 3 Comments
The platform is changing
Seth Godin calls it the WordPerfect Axiom, and he’s exactly right: When the platform changes, the leaders change.
WordPerfect had a virtual monopoly on word processing in big firms that used DOS. Then Windows arrived and the folks at WordPerfect didn’t feel the need to hurry in porting themselves to the new platform. [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, Innovation 4 Comments
Free and the GP
Like Thomas Friedman and Malcolm Gladwell before him, Chris Anderson is becoming known for books that identify and name an evolving trend that connects business and society. You’ve probably read or head about his newest book Free: the Future of a Radical Price. It’s generating a tremendous amount of heat around the idea that the [...]
Also posted in Innovation, Solo & Small Firm 8 Comments
The UK crucible
North American lawyers have been fretting lately about the effects of this recession and what it means for their future. But the recession is only an amplifier or accelerator of change, not its source, and it doesn’t tell us much about the shape of things to come. If you really want to know what the [...]
Also posted in Governance, Innovation 2 Comments
Decoupling price from cost in legal services
Virtually all the talk these days in client circles is about the cost of legal services. It’s well established that institutional purchasers of these services are under great pressure to reduce costs by, for example, “taking bids, asking for discounts, shopping around for lower-cost options.” Patrick J. Lamb points out that many in-house lawyers don’t [...]
Also posted in Billing, Technology 5 Comments
Will-writing and the redefinition of “legal services”