Law21 Twitter Updates- RT @Riskin Bento… would anyone who is familiar with Bento who is willing to speak with me for 5 mins please ping me - thx :-)
- New blog post at Stem Legal: Creating a Facebook fan club: http://bit.ly/bK7qkL
- Compete with alternative legal service providers through the marketplace, not UPL claims: http://bit.ly/94kFq9 (Carolyn Elefant)
- 10 tips for unbundling legal services: http://bit.ly/d4IFQ0
- Don't hide your lamp under a bushel: lawyer advertising in church bulletins: http://bit.ly/cKPld8
Category Archives: Competition
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
Core competence: 6 new skills now required of lawyers
Up till now, the necessary and sufficient skill set for lawyers has looked something like this (in alphabetical order):
Analytical ability
Attention to detail
Logical reasoning
Persuasiveness
Sound judgment
Writing ability (okay, that one’s apparently optional for some)
This list doesn’t include such characteristics as knowledge of the law, courtroom presence, or integrity — these aren’t “skills,” per se, so much as [...]
Also posted in Clients, Collaboration, Management, New Lawyers 11 Comments
Life after lawyers
We need to start thinking about what the post-lawyer justice system is going to look like.
I can see how this might be an absurd or even heretical notion to some people. But there’s reason to believe that lawyers won’t be an essential part of the legal system in the future — and if so, our [...]
Something’s actually happening
There’s a lot of buzz building about an article in today’s New York Times with the rather odd title “Who’s Cuddly Now? Law Firms.” It summarizes a recent rash of new business models in American law firms, from flextime for lawyers to flat-fee bills for clients to alternative billable-hour schemes and more. It’s the second [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, Billing, Clients, Innovation, Leadership, Management Leave a comment
What clients want
What do lawyers sell? To this day, you’ll hear a lot of lawyers say, “The only thing I have to sell is my time.” That’s the wrong answer, not only because it encourages our unhealthy fixation on hourly billing, but also because most clients prefer to pay for as little of our time as possible.
It’s [...]
Also posted in Clients, Innovation, Technology Leave a comment
Going to town
There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the numerous factors leading to the continuing contraction of the legal profession in smaller urban centers and in rural outposts. Here’s another one: competition for legal talent. Large-center practice is operating at unprecedented levels of profitability these days; even if small-center practices were still reasonably feasible, large-center [...]
Also posted in Careers, Generations, Small Centers Leave a comment
Law practice in the 21st century
This article was first posted at Slaw on September 29th, 2006.
Earlier this month, I visited San Francisco for the first time. I’d long been fascinated by the thought of a city built on a geological time bomb, and walking its streets was quite an experience.
Everyone knows there’ll be a massive seismic rupture underneath the city [...]
Also posted in Generations, Globalization, Small Centers Leave a comment
21st-century legal innovation
This article was first posted at Slaw on September 25, 2006.
I had the great fortune to attend the annual meeting of the College of Law Practice Management in San Francisco earlier this month. The topic of the day was at the heart of 21st-century lawyering: innovation. Specifically, why lawyers aren’t very good at it.
One of [...]
Also posted in Clients, Innovation Leave a comment
Free and the GP