Timelessly - Building Professional Firms Without Timesheets

The spirit of giving … and marketing

I just finished rereading Hugh MacLeod's terrific short book, Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination. If you need some inspiration on following your dreams, this book is a great starting point.

Toward the end of the book, Hugh talks about his approach to marketing. If you're not familiar with his work, I can tell you that he is the worldwide leader in cartoons drawn on the backs of business cards. (It's entirely possible that he's also the only cartoonist who works in that medium, but whatever.) From this fairly obscure position, Hugh has published two bestselling books, has a very successful blog (gapingvoid.com), and sells his artwork all over the world.

Yet he gives much of his work away for free. In fact, every weekday morning, he sends out an original cartoon — his "gift to the world," as he calls it:

If enough peo­ple like the gift, it’ll build up good­will, they’ll tell their friends, and the list will grow. The more the list grows, the more peo­ple dis­co­ver the trail of breadc­rumbs that leads back to the work I actually get paid for.

He does this in a way that doesn't seem like marketing, and it has proven very successful for him. Some of his followers simply enjoy his gift and do nothing more. But enough of them enjoy these gifts so much that they eventually return the favor by buying his artwork, books, or services.

You can read more about his giftlike approach to marketing in a blog post — "The three keys to social media marketing" — that tracks what he wrote in his book.

Since tonight is Christmas Eve and the fifth night of Hanukkah, many of us are thinking about gift giving. What gifts can you give to the people who might become interested in what you have to offer? Start looking at your marketing as gift giving instead of "selling."

Happy holidays!

Not thinking of you this holiday season

So it's that time of year again, where lawyers and law firms fall over themselves to remind people that they exist. It used to be that every firm paid for expensive, customized holiday cards. (My firm used to.) But it's very time-consuming to print out contact lists, stick labels on envelopes, and run them through the postage meter. It's also not very environmentally friendly. And although it can look nice when you have dozens of cards taped to your conference room's glass walls or arrayed around lobby, they're up for a couple of weeks and then they get tossed in the trash.

Increasingly, law firms — especially larger firms — are turning to email-based holiday cards. There's this industry of e-card vendors who have convinced lawyers that Flash-based cards are exactly what clients, prospects, and other contacts love to receive. Unlike the paper-based analog greetings, these digital wonders afford the opportunity to use motion graphics (essentially, animated words and pictures) and public-domain holiday music to send a stronger message.

So I should have been happy when I received an email from a big-firm lawyer I know, taking the time to wish me season's greetings. I know that she took the time because she told me: "I just wanted to take this time ...." The only problem is that she didn't actually take any time. I know this because the email didn't come from her.

It came from her secretary.

There it was in the email header: from [her secretary's name], to "undisclosed recipients." I guess I should be honored to be one of the undisclosed recipients, but for some reason I'm not.

The email itself had two generic lines about wishing me holiday greetings, followed by the lawyer's name. Then a big "Click Here" icon. I'm not generally interested in clicking anywhere on these things, but I decided to click there this one time. Solely for research purposes, you understand.

This took me to a browser window with a cartoon of a weirdly deciduous tree. Some generic, unidentifiable piano music starts in — not too Christmas-y, mind you — and then the cartoon tree starts to grow leaves, then lose them in a strong breeze, then grow some more, then lose them again, then grow some fruit, then again with the wind, and so on. While this is happening, words appear wishing me more season's greetings (I guess the tree thing has to do with seasons in general), an expression of gratitude (not sure for what; I'm not a client), and then a pronouncement that the firm has donated funds to unspecified charities. Which is nice, I guess.

The music then continues endlessly. Literally. I turned off the sound on my Mac after a couple of minutes. It's on a Flash loop, with no way to stop it short of closing the page or driving your shoe through your computer. I actually ended up forgetting about it, came back hour later, turned my sound back on, and the piano was still going.

And that's not even my favorite part.

My favorite part is that the law firm's name appears on the page (not including the URL) ten times. (And seven more times in the covering email, not including the return address.) Really, guys? Did you think I'd forget whom to thank for this display of genericness? It's always about you, isn't it?

Lawyers, law firms, other professionals: don't do foolish holiday things like this. No one nowhere wants your motion-graphics holiday card. No one thinks for a second that the purported sender did anything more than tell her secretary to hit "send" to the undisclosed recipients. I certainly didn't think that the lawyer whose secretary sent mine spent a millisecond thinking about me.

If you want to tell people that you were thinking about them, do it in a way that shows that you actually were. A handwritten card or note. A small thank-you gift. Even just a phone call or a personalized email (it's better than nothing). But please don't spam people.

Or have your secretary spam people.

Lawyers, music, and emotional connections

I have two daughters, ten and seven. Like most girls their age, they're becoming more interested in pop music. So I find myself listening to a lot more pop than I have in recent years. It gives me another way of connecting with my daughters, and some of the music's just fine. It also gives me a smidge of credibility with people half my age.

(Case in point: Yesterday at our local diner, I asked my eldest if the song playing was the new Far East Movement single. Our twenty-year-old waitress just about fell over, then told my daughter that she was lucky to have a "not-lame dad." The very accolade.)

Today we were in the car and had "American Top 40" on. My daughters were asking questions about how record charts work. (Such as, "Dad, what's a record?") I was trying to explain how it is that some songs go to number one, and some stay on the charts for half a year, while others flame out in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, Ryan Seacrest was interviewing Ke$ha (am I really typing this sentence?), and asking her what she attributed her success to. Kind of a silly question, and one that most singers would have trouble with. But she actually answered it quite well. She said that she's trying to make an emotional connection with people. She wasn't trying to be deep; the emotion she was trying to connect with was of the partying and having-fun variety. Makes sense. And that's why she's had five straight top-ten hits.

This got me thinking. It's not just about chart-toppers. I'd take it a step further: Every single song that someone chooses to play or buy or download or steal has made an emotional connection with at least that one listener. Whether the emotion is fun, melancholy, angry, sentimental, schmaltz, crazy, bittersweet, lonely, gregarious, or emo. Without the emotional connection, no one would bother. That's what music is all about. That's why people share their favorite songs and music videos on Facebook.

But it's also what lawyers are all about. ("Wait, what?" you ask. Well, you knew this was coming, right?) At first glance, lawyers have about as much in common with Lady Gaga or Springsteen as they do with office ferns. (Well, actually …) No, really. Think about it. People talk to lawyers because they want to feel something: secure, safe, protected, comfortable, aware, smart. Yet nowhere in law schools or law-firm training or CLEs do they ever talk about making an emotional connection with your client.

Clients: How often have you felt like your lawyer was making an emotional connection with you?

And lawyers: How many times have you thought about the emotional connection you were trying to make with your clients?

When it does happen, it's like … music.

What do you think? Is lawyering so different from music? Should lawyers be paying attention to emotions, instead of just laws? And why does Ke$ha have a dollar sign in her name? Does she use a ¥ when she's in Japan? Sound off in the comments below.

In the meantime, here's a law-related music video for you. I believe the emotional response it strikes is "Gak!"

 

"Don't take this the wrong way …"

We just finished up a case for some clients: guys wrongly accused of taking trade secrets from their employer in a bid to set up a new competing business. We ended up with a terrific result, getting the lawsuit dismissed and allowing them to continue their careers with no money changing hands. We did it effectively for what turned out to be a very reasonable fixed price.

After it was over, the clients were very appreciative. They thanked us for our work and our results. In an email, one of them expressed more gratitude, and then added this:

Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope I never have to speak to you again professionally.

Huh. Now I know what he meant, and I know that he meant it half tongue-in-cheek. But just half. As good a job as we'd done for him and his colleagues, as much value and caring and support as we had given him, it was — overall — a negative experience for him.

And this wasn't the first time I'd had this expressed to me over my 16-year career. A long-time client would call after a months-long hiatus, and I'd go, "Hey, it's been a long time" and he'd go, "I know. It's been nice." Ouch. Now I know that my client isn't saying that he dislikes talking with me. It's just that he'd rather not have to talk to me.

And this bothers me.

Maybe it's the nature of the work we do: people usually aren't very happy when they need employment-law or business-litigation help.

And yet.

And yet I can't help wondering if there's something we can do — if there's something lawyers can do — to make clients want to deal with them. In the same way that they want to deal with other great businesses.

People love to buy the latest gadgets from Apple. People love to fly Southwest. People love to visit Disney parks, or buy shoes from Zappos.com, or buy groceries from Whole Foods. Is there something we can do to make people love dealing with their lawyers, or is our field fundamentally different from other businesses?

This is an important question, and one that I'm spending a lot of time thinking about. I'll let you know if I find the answer.

What do you think? Can a law firm be like Apple, or are lawyers doomed to being necessary evils? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Why Verizon FiOS is smarter than I

Or is it "smarter than me?" (Verizon FiOS would know, because it's so smart.) (Actually, according to Grammar Girl, it's both, but "I" is probably better.)

Anywho, here's why Verizon FiOS is so smart. It's currently locked in a grudge match with archrival Comcast over whose TV-and-internet package is better. Most of the commercials by both companies are nasty and forgettable. But the following commercial, which has been in heavy rotation on NESN (the network of the Red Sox), is inspired. Go ahead, it's only 32 seconds. I'll just stand here awkwardly:

... and we're back. Pretty good, huh? What I really like about the ad is that, unlike all the other commercials, it doesn't make subjective claims about being "better." Nor does it get into technobabble about how many more "Mbps" it can deliver. Instead, it focuses on a single, indisputable idea:

That cable was invented in 1948.

Implicit in that fact is that cable is somehow inferior to the modern technology of Verizon's "100 percent fiber optics." And that's a powerful message. (Full disclosure: I'm watching the Red Sox game and transmitting this post on my Verizon FiOS network, on which I'm getting a bitchin' 17 Mbps in download speed. But fear not, FTC: they ain't paying me to write this; I'm paying them.)

So how does that make Verizon smarter than I? Because I should have made this commercial years ago. But I would have changed some of the words. Like:

So why are you still using an antique law firm with an hourly billing model created in 1919 to for your 2010 business?

Then maybe something about hooking your business up to 100% fixed-price lawyering. I gotta work on the tagline.

Big shout out to VeraSage's Ron Baker, whose research uncovered the 1919 origin of law-firm timesheets. See my recent exchange with him on this example of antiquity.

This isn't the first post I've mined from a sporting-event commercial. See "What lawyers can learn from an Office Depot commercial" from this year's Super Bowl.

What do you think? Is this an effective message? Do I watch too much TV? Is it really "than I"? Sound off in the comments below.

Why I hate "practicing law"

No, not the career. The phrase.

Why do we say that we "practice" law? It has a connotation that we need to practice before we get any good. "Keep practicing, counselor. You'll get there." (As in "Carnegie Hall," as the old joke goes.)

But my problem with "practicing law" is more serious than that. I think the use of the term subtly affects what we as lawyers think we should be doing. Let's see what my dictionary (the New Oxford American Dictionary, the very best) says:

verb [ trans. ] ( Brit. practise)

1. perform (an activity) or exercise (a skill) repeatedly or regularly in order to improve or maintain one's proficiency : I need to practice my French | [ intrans. ] they were practicing for the Olympics.

2. carry out or perform (a particular activity, method, or custom) habitually or regularly : we still practice some of these rituals today.

Here's where my problem is. "Performing an activity repeatedly or regularly ..." "Carrying out an activity habitually ..." And how about that use of the word rituals?

The way we describe to the world what we do is with these words that connote that we keep doing the same old thing. And that fits in perfectly with the nature of most lawyers. Precedent. Tradition. These are the watchwords of our profession.

But no one else "practices" in the business world. They innovate. Or they go out of business. The same is true for lawyers; we just don't like to talk about it. So we cling to our 1919 business model based on timesheets, like we used to cling to powdered wigs. Like we still cling to fax machines and bike messengers.

We need to stop "practicing" and start innovating, or those rituals we perform will soon become unnecessary and extinct.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Think I'm picking nits, or am I on to something serious? Shout out in the comments below.

The Client Revolution Evolution

Hope you've enjoyed your Labor Day weekend. I've spent much of it completing a redesign of The Client Revolution and its sister blog Gruntled Employees. For those of you who read this blog through an RSS reader or email feed, you can take a look at it here.

Much of the changes are cosmetic. The basic blog design has been in place for nearly four years (later this month) at Gruntled, and coming up on two years here. Like many blog designs from 2006, these two became cluttered with too many sidebar elements, internal references, blogrolls, and widgets. Quite frankly, I'd gotten a little tired of looking at it all.

The redesign goes for a much more streamlined and clean look, similar to my firm's website (coincidentally last redesigned in 2006). This should allow the content to take on more prominence than before. Photos and other artwork will become more rare; I usually take too much time hunting down the "perfect" pic. Also, for the first time, the blogs now use real fonts, hosted by TypeKit. This one is called FF Dagny Web Pro, and it's a nice upgrade from Arial and Trebuchet.

Let me know what you think of the new look in the comments below, or give it a "Like" if you do. (Facebook doesn't seem to have a "Meh" button.)

Cosmetics aside, I'm also changing my approach to the posts themselves, trying to focus on more, shorter posts. My tendency is to post longish articles, which naturally take longer to write (and read). Shorter, targeted posts should also make it easier to write with greater frequency, something I've found difficult while running a law firm and raising two kids. Heck, even the ABA Journal gave me a hard time about infequent posts when it named this blog to its Top 100 list. Ouch.

I've started using the simple-but-brilliant Markdown language developed by my favorite Apple blogger, John Gruber of Daring Fireball. It allows me to write nearly everything on the iPad using SimpleNote.

I want to try to get more discussion going, too, so I've disabled the comment-moderation feature. I've heard that removing this barrier will let readers feel more free to share. Of course, I'll still be removing any spam or inappropriate comments, so it shouldn't become too much of a free-for-all.

Lastly, and most importantly, I'm aiming for a more-unified theme in my blogs, my firm's website, my law business, and my nascent consulting practice. They all share the same goal: to make clients' lives easier by reinventing the business of law. Ideally, making these minor social-media changes will help me do a better job of helping you.

OK, this has felt like a fairly self-indulgent post. If you've read to this point, thanks, and sorry. If you're one of the hardy souls who reads both blogs, please ignore the almost-identical post over at Gruntled.

But do tell me what you think of the redesign. I value your feedback, and I thank you for continuing to join this conversation.

Competing by raising prices

Good article in Monday's Wall Street Journal about pricing strategy, something most lawyers never think about. The main premise is that most businesses shouldn't be competing on price — that is, by lowering prices. Instead, if you turn out a high-performance product or service, you should be able to charge a premium for that. The article is called, aptly, "Raise Your Prices!" and is written by Harvard Business School professors Frank Cespedes and Benson Shapiro and by consultant Elliot Ross. And despite my natural aversion to Harvard and to titles with exclamation points, it's a good article and one that all lawyers should read. Strangely, it is not (currently) hidden behind Rupert Murdoch's paywall, so you don't need a subscription to read it. (Maybe the Journal failed to take the article's advice.)

There's also an excellent sidebar piece, "Seven Mistakes of Poor Pricers," which briefly describes many of the same objections lawyers give me when I talk about Open Pricing. Read it, and see if any of it sounds familiar to you (such as "Cost-based pricing is easier to explain" and "Everyone else prices it that way").

Here's one of the money quotes (ignore my pun) from the main article on the benefits or pricing based on performance:

By competing on performance instead of price, you shift the battle to where your company's strengths lie—in the ability to deliver unique benefits. So-called performance pricers are adept at three core activities: identifying where they can do a superior job of meeting customers' needs and preferences; shaping their products and their business to dominate these segments; and managing cost and price in those areas to maximize profits.

But wait, you say. I thought all your talk about Open Pricing or fixed fees or value pricing was about saving the clients money? Why now all the talk about raising prices? My clients aren't going to tolerate that!

It's oversimplifying things to say that value pricing is about saving clients money. Instead, and much more importantly, it's about aligning your prices with the value the clients place on your services. Without that alignment, there is enormous waste and client frustration. Plus, the perverse incentives and unintended consequences of hourly billing artificially inflate client costs. So yes, you can raise prices for premium service and still save clients money.

Bottom line: clients will pay for value. If you're constantly discounting your fees, what does that say about the value you provide?

Private-practice lawyers: What do you think? Is there something you're so good at that you can command a premium? And in-house counsel: Are you willing to pay a premium for higher-quality service? Sound off in the comments.

What lawyers can learn from an Office Depot commercial

So ironically, the best commercial I watched this evening — Super Bowl Sunday — wasn't even during the Super Bowl. Instead, it came during the new CBS show "Undercover Boss," which had the coveted post–Super Bowl slot. (So coveted because people tend to be too brain dead to turn off the TV after the game ends, as we were.)

Unlike the Super Bowl ads, this commercial featured no pantsless office workers, screaming chickens, or sadistic Doritos-loving dogs. Just a barber, a voiceover, and a sign (from Office Depot, natch). And a lesson for lawyers on how to price and market their services.

The commercial features Dan, who owns a small barbershop. To his alarm, a large haircut chain moves in across the street, featuring six-dollar haircuts. Dan can't compete at that price. Instead, Dan goes to Office Depot, where he buys a sign:

WE FIX $6 HAIRCUTS

Soon, the large discount chain has gone out of business. All (presumably) because Dan was smart and didn't try to compete on price (and went to Office Depot to buy his sign).

You and I are Dan. We provide a quality service that people will pay for if they understand its value up front. If Dan tried to fight a price war against a huge chain, he would end up like all the little five-and-dime stores across the country that evaporated once Walmart got to town. Or the mom-and-pop hardware stores once Home Depot arrived. Or the little stationery stores once Office ... oops. (Awkward.)

Dan (yes, I know; Dan's not real. He's a character in a commercial. But work with me here. It's like a parable) knows that he can provide something that the discount chain can't. In this case, higher-quality haircuts. Instead of trying to fight a battle on his competitors' terms, Dan wisely changed the game and fought on his own terms. And he knew his customers would appreciate that value, and would pay for it.

Don't compete on other law firms' terms. Figure out what you can do differently from your competitors, and then buy a big (proverbial) sign. Be like Dan.

You can watch the ad here.

Blawg Review #246

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

— Alan Kay, computer scientist, 1971

The future is already here — it's just not evenly distributed.

— William Gibson, author, 2003

In gathering the best and the brightest from the blawgosphere for this first full week of the 2010s, I thought I'd look at them through the lens of a crystal ball. Many of us are wondering what this new decade will be like, especially in the world of the law. First, though, let's talk about what this decade will be called.

A decade with no name

Look, we just went through a decade that had no name, let alone a cool one. No Roaring Twenties, no Gay Nineties (the 1890s). Even the decades that lacked ready-made adjectives could easily summon up images and memories: the eighties (bad hair), the sixties (bad hair, but in a different way), the seventies (bad lapels), or the nineties (the 1990s; nothing but irony). And don't talk to me about calling it the "Aughts" — what are we, soccer fans now? No, we're stuck with calling them "the two thousands," which stinks because you can't tell if you're referring to the decade or the century. (Kind of like my problem with calling law blogs blawgs, because you can't tell the difference when you're saying blog or blawg aloud. But for today, "Blawg Review" it is.)

First prediction: this decade will be called the "twenty tens" (or the "tens," for short).

Not "teens," not "tweens," not "tennies," or anything silly like that. And for Pete's sake, quit with the "two thousand and ..." business. People, especially lawyers (who generally are people, though some would argue), tend to clutter their speech with extra words. Don't. This year is "twenty ten," not "two thousand and ten." Check out this website devoted to this cause: twentynot2000.com. Also see this discussion at Wikipedia, and this article at TechCrunch.

OK. Now that we've got that settled, what's the law going to look like in the tens?

Killable hours

Second prediction, and this one's a bit of a layup for me, and will come as a surprise to no one, given the source: The billable hour will die die die. If it survives in any form at all by the end of the tens, it will be at the kind of fringe firms that will cause you to sadly shake your head and maybe cross to the other side of the street.

But don't just take my word on it. Over the past year, the blawgosphere and oldstyle-media traffic on the topic has taken on the shape of a hockey-stick graph, without all those embarrassing Climategate emails and tree-ring proxies. For example, legal-marketing guru Larry Bodine's Law Marketing Blog covers Comcast's recent insistence that its lawyers stop billing them hourly; Ashby Jones at The Wall Street Journal Law Blog also has the story.

Even more novel, Matt Homann recommends that we let our clients set their own price. Matt, whose name is synonymous with innovation, writes at the [non]billable hour that if lawyers focus on value to their clients, rather than their costs (their time), their clients will reward them. Across the pond, Michael Scutt at Jobsworth asks "Is it all about price?" He answers his own question, writing that lawyers need to be salespeople and recognize and apply his "single sales principle": your client's compelling need plus your credible solution plus your perceived value equals a sale.

Speaking of value, Ed Kless of the visionary Verasage Institute deftly shows how price has nothing to do with cost. His post has a graph showing that HP black ink is far more expensive than bottled water, which is in turn far more expensive than crude oil.

Jason Mendelson's Musings discusses what the failed hourly billing system has wrought — namely, clients who demand ever-increasing discounts and clients who don't pay. These are just symptoms of the problem, of course. Another symptom is that the billable-hour system pays lawyers more if they do more work, rather than enough work. Ron Friedmann discusses "good enough" at Strategic Legal Technology. But let's not get too focused on counting and measuring and reporting hours and documents and other output. The Wall Street Journal this week wrote approvingly about firms' having electronic dashboards to monitor their hours. The article's behind a paywall, but we discussed it here — disapprovingly.

Lawyer wannabes

In Ron's post, he mentions a New York Times piece written by two states' chief justices (NH and CA) that calls for the "unbundling" of legal services — namely, more do-it-yourself work by would-be clients. Revolutionary legal-learning genius Susan Cartier Liebel covers this in more detail at her Build A Solo Practice @ SPU. It all comes down to what your clients need. Third prediction: this DIY lawyering will becoming a growing trend. Look at WebMD. Lawyers have to stop thinking of themselves as special, as members of a priestly caste.

As our clients dabble with being do-it-yourself lawyers, we need to become more entrepreneurial. Big-hearted and big-minded Tim Baran of uMCLE talks about this killer app of a personality trait. Over at Wired GC, John Wallbillich explains how law firms need to look at their business models right now, before it's too late.

Client says what?

You can tell from the title of this blog that it's supposed to be focused on clients. Similarly, Dan Hull's ecletic and passionate What About Clients? reminds us to always ask that question (except when it's called "What About Paris?"; I haven't figured that out). The current post (by Holden Oliver) admonishes lawyers to get over themselves and act like professionals ... focused on clients. Likewise, the always-inspiring Carolyn Elefant tells us at My Shingle to see our clients as our new partners, and she does it convincingly without irony or cliché.

Also sidestepping the dangers of an overused phrase, change agent and quixotic Toronto Blue Jays fan Jordan Furlong explains at Law 21 what it really means to be a "trusted advisor." Jordan makes the fourth prediction: that lawyers will be competing with other service providers for clients' dollars (even Canadian ones), and that our lawyerly sense of service and trustworthiness will be competitive advantages.

Over at Legal Ease Blog, Allison Shields warns lawyers to be specific, meaningful, and realistic in setting goals for the new year. Heather Milligan at Legal Watercooler advocates a daily resolution for marketing over a yearly one. And the musically clever Jared Correia over at Mass. LOMAP instructs lawyers to resolve to maintain client contact. It sounds so simple, and yet we all end up letting it slip.

Benched

This past year has been brutal on associates at firms big and small, with nearly 5,000 reported layoffs. Law Shucks has done an incredible job of basically becoming the National Bureau of Economic Research (in a good way) when it comes to law firms, who are usually stingy with their information. Fifth prediction: Law Shucks will become the new NALP (also in a good way). And here's what the incomparable Elie Mystal at Above the Law has to say about the old NALP:

I don’t know. Increasingly, I’m of the belief that the old system just needs to be blown up and a new one should be built from scratch. How can a firm make a realistic hiring decision nearly two years in advance based on one year of law school? How can a law student make an informed choice when firms straight-up lie to them?

Elie is a wise, funny man. And speaking of funny men and making realistic hiring decisions years in advance, how's NBC's 2004 decision to hire Conan O'Brien to host "The Tonight Show" in five years look now? Does the word "d'oh" mean anything to you? Here's some advice, for TV networks and law firms alike: hire people when you need them, not when you think you might need them in a few years.

All these layoffs have had many unforeseen consquences, such as diminishing participation in lawyers' sports leagues. The Am Law Daily reports that some basketball and softball leagues are down as much as 30 percent since last year. Sixth prediction: Participation in laid-off lawyers' leagues will continue to rise.

Don't weep too much for laid-off associates. As Larry Ribstein at Ideoblog writes, lawyers are paid too much. They're also paid too little.

Don't say "pursuant to"

If we're looking into reinventing the legal business, we should spend some time rethinking how we write. Lawyers use words like carpenters use hammers and nails. Except that they tend to use too many nails, and the nails are often fancy, overpriced, weak, feckless, and pompous (OK, maybe I went too far with the nail metaphor at "pompous"). Mister Thorne at Set in Style explains how lawyers are authors, and like all authors, need editors. If you care about writing, you should be reading Mister Thorne. (I swear he's the only person I call "Mister.") Over at Feminist Law Professors, Ann Bartow offers some hysterical media examples of why every writer needs a good editor. ("I never thought to look in the sandwich.") Meanwhile, The Namby-Pamby, Attorney at Law, shows that even potty-mouthed plain English is better and more readable than legalese. It's an important lesson, motherf@*&!%.

Social (media) security

It used to be that lawyers just had to write briefs, memos, and letters. Then in the nineties (the ironic ones, not the gay ones), lawyers started writing emails. Now, social media has opened up a whole new world of words for lawyers. And pictures and videos too. But lawyers are conservative, wedded to tradition and bound by precedent. Turns out that lawyers have been a little slow in embracing Web 2.0. Award-winning blogger Robert Ambrogi notes at Legal Blog Watch that only 29 of the Am Law 100 firms have vaguely active Twitter accounts, and only nine of them tweet regularly. Seventh prediction: Law firms will be dragged kicking and screaming into Twitterville. Not being on Twitter in the tens will be like not being in Martindale-Hubbell in the nineties (ironic ones). And still being in Martindale in the tens will be like being booked as a guest on "The Jay Leno Show" ... at ten o'clock. (Actually, the new Martindale is really LinkedIn, where you absolutely have to be, with a complete profile and headshot. Do it now. I'll wait. Mine's here.)

Molly DiBianca at Delaware Employment Law Blog lists her three principles for being a good social-media citizen: community, conversation, and transparency. Similarly, pioneering Twitter interviewer Lance Godard of 22 Tweets says that social media is all about connecting, contributing, and community. Check out his slideshow on social media here.

The brilliant Michelle Golden at Golden Practices wants to make sure that we're not turning people off with negative postings and status updates. Stephen Seckler at Counsel to Counsel advises that social media has to be a part of a firm's marketing plan. He's right. But Twittering lawyer extraordinaire Adrian Dayton at Marketing Strategy and the Law warns that Twitter is not a game to see who can get the most followers; they have no cash value. If they did, Adrian would be one of the wealthiest lawyers on Twitter.

The blawgerati

Lawyers have been somewhat more social-media savvy when it comes to blawgs, as you can see from all these excellent links. Besides Blawg Review, there are many other sources for aggregated links. The Brits are trying their own new version of Blawg Review with UK Lawyers Blog of Blogs, with the first edition hosted by Michael Scuff (see above). The ABA has a good collection (by Joshua Poje) with the Practice Management Advisors blog roundup. Blogging in-house lawyer Colin Samuels has what he calls "A Round Tuit" at Infamy or Praise. A terrific link collector, Colin is also a "sherpa" for Blawg Review. Walter Olson at Overlawyered, the original law blogger (since 1999, which makes him the Homer — as in Odyssey, not Simpson — of law blogging), always has a great roundup of legal news that will often make you spit-take your coffee.

Lawyers can provide a great clearinghouse for information. Conveniently named Ernie the Attorney (what would his parents have called him if he had been destined to be a plumber?) has a terrific post telling us his favorite sources for information.

Of course, not all law blogs are created equal. Social-media-for-lawyers guru Kevin O'Keefe, who writes Real Lawyers Have Blogs, takes issue with the so-called blogs that West Publishing–owned FindLaw puts out. As Kevin shows, these are not real blogs posts, but rather search-engine-optimized ads for its lawyer-directory service posing as actual content. In an indirectly related story, knowledge-management expert Greg Lambert of 3 Geeks and a Law Blog reports on how West has laid off a third of its law-library-relations team. Eighth prediction: The traditional providers of legal information — now freely available on the Web — are headed the way of the billable hour: West, Lexis, Martindale-Hubbell, and others. Their time has passed. They could save themselves if they could get ahead of this wave, but like newspapers and video stores, they're showing no sign of doing so. Already, Google is starting to make free online legal research available. Rick Georges over at Futurelawyer argues that law-book publishers are in the same kind of danger from e-books. Bruce MacEwen, who writes the always-excellent Adam Smith, Esq., boldly predicts which industries will survive the digitalization of the tens before making his Cassandran warning for our little industry.

There's an app for that (of course)

Soon it won't be enough for lawyers and law firms to have a website, a blog, a Twitter presence, a LinkedIn listing, and maybe a Facebook fan page. You're also going to have your own iPhone app. Jeff Richardson at iPhone J.D. shows how a couple of firms are already doing it. At last week's Consumer Electronics Show, according to tech blog Cult of Mac, a panel said that businesses must have a mobile app or "they don't exist." As for the iPhone itself, Enrico Schaefer at The Greatest American Lawyer has just gotten his own, and is declaring the BlackBerry platform dead for lawyers.

Gerry Riskin at Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices wonders whether we'll soon be delivering our marketing materials on a slatelike device. The video, which is a prototype demonstration of a fake but awesome slate, is worth a look ... at least until two weeks from now, when Steve Jobs (as rumored) introduces the Apple slate. Ninth prediction: He will, and it will completely change the way we interact with media.

R-E-S-P-E- ... aw, you can spell it yourself

One final thought, and then a final prediction. There is a theme in many of these posts, and while it's not always explicit, it's found in the best advice of these wonderful blawgers. It's this: treat people with respect. Respect for a client that goes with giving them an agreed-upon price — not a rate — before the work is done. Respect for different types of clients and what their needs are. Respect for associates to whom you promised jobs. Respect for readers of your written words, who have limited time and attention to devote to what you have to say. Respect for members of the social-media community that we're increasingly becoming a part of. And respect for people who are adapting to the forces of change in the new decade.

My last link is to our sister blog, Gruntled Employees, which discusses an interview with an airline executive who understood about respect: "If you treat me with respect, I'll do more for you." Seems like a fair trade.

And our last prediction, giving us ten for the tens: The Red Sox will win the 2010 World Series. They might have gotten a little weaker offensively, but it's a cardinal law of baseball that pitching and defense win championships.

Enjoy all these posts. Shepherd out.

• • •

Blawg Review has information about next week's host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.

What does your law firm say about you?

No one ever got fired for buying IBM.

So goes the saying. What it really means is that buying a big-name product is generally seen as a safe bet, a lower-risk purchase. A cautious move.

The same thing is said about hiring big law firms. No one ever got fired for hiring Cravath. Or Sullivan & Cromwell. Or here in Boston, Ropes & Gray.

The logic goes this way: If your big law firm wins your case, then everyone says, "Well, of course they did. They're Cravath." And if they lose the case, everyone says, "Well, that can happen to anyone. No one wins all their cases."

But if your company chooses a smaller, lesser-known, perhaps-less-expensive boutique, the conversation goes differently. If they win your case, everyone says, "Well, it was a risky move. It's a good thing they won." And if heaven forbid they lose your case, everyone says, "Who the hell is Boutique Law Firm? And why didn't you hire Cravath?"

So risk-averse buyers of legal services buy the big-name firm, despite its being more expensive. In fact, they buy the big-name firm because it's more expensive. They go through a silent casuistry that goes like this: "The firm must be good because they charge so much. People wouldn't pay that much if it wasn't."

The truth is, we all do this. We ascribe qualities to products and services based on price and name recognition. Asked to choose between two glasses of wine, those of us who aren't oenophiles will usually say that the more-expensive one is better if — and only if — we know the prices beforehand. We buy status-symbol products because we think they're better, when in fact we're really buying them because they're more expensive.

Confessional time: I wear a Breitling watch. It was an anniversary gift from my lovely wife, but I got to pick it out. It's supposed to be a high-performance chronometer (not just a mere watch). Actually, it says it's a chronometre, which is better because it's in French. (Of the Swiss variety, of course.) It certainly seems to work well. But the truth is, I really don't know if it keeps better time than a Casio. And I've haven't fallen off a boat with it and sunk to 500 meters, so I can't really test if the claim in tiny letters on the face is true.

But if you held a gun to my head, I'd say ... well, I'd first say, "Whoa, what the hell's with the gun to my head?" — but then I'd tell you that the real reason I wear the Breitling is because it is expensive. (And because my lovely wife bought it for me.) It is a bit of a status symbol. Because people who notice it and know a little bit about watches will recognize it, and maybe they'll think I'm successful and good at what I do. I wear it because of what it says about me. Is it a good watch? Sure it is. It must be. People wouldn't pay that much if it wasn't.

What expensive things have you bought because of what they say about you? Clothes? Cars? A MacBook Air? An iPhone? Organic lettuce? A venti latte? Single-malt scotch? Share your own confessions in the comments.

But back to law firms. You might hire an expensive law firm because they really are the best. Or you might hire them because it says you can afford an expensive law firm. Or because it says you made the cautious choice, even if it was more expensive.

If you hired a discount law firm, what would that say about you?

And if you hired a law firm that used open, upfront prices based on the value of the desired result, what would that say about you?

Honor and guilt

I was honored to learn that the editors of the ABA Journal have selected The Client Revolution as one of the 100 best websites by lawyers, for lawyers. There was a nice quote from Edward A. Adams, the Journal’s editor and publisher:

Each year, it’s gotten harder and harder to pick the 100 best blawgs because so many lawyers are now sharing their professional expertise online. We’ve never had as strong a group of law blogs as we have this year.

The entire list is here. (Make sure you look through the different categories. We fall under "Business.") The fine folks at Law Shucks (also selected) have created a Twitter list of Blawg 100 editors to follow, if you're so inclined. I've met many of them through Twitter, and I can tell you that it's a great group of people.

Lance Godard, whose excellent 22 Tweets site was also honored, wrote that this blog "envisions a different world where the focus is on value, not the cost of legal services." Well said, Lance, and thanks.

But along with this honor came a wet smack of guilt like a flounder in the face. In its summary, the Journal wrote:

The Client Revolution by Boston lawyer Jay Shepherd almost missed the cut this year because of fairly infrequent posts. But when he homes in on a client-focused topic, his insight and analysis is well worth the read.

D'oh. Like my conscience yelling at me to write more wasn't enough. But I appreciate the sentiment, and I'll work on frequency.

By the way, my new taskmasters (!) at the Journal are inviting lawyers to vote on their favorites in each of the Blawg 100’s ten categories. You can vote here. Voting ends December 31.

An alternative to "alternative billing"

Words matter. What we call something matters. The name we give something usually provides people with the first opportunity to form an opinion about that something, so it's important that the name fits.

I hate "alternative billing." (If someone quotes me on this, make sure they include the quotation marks.) It's a terrible term; one that does injustice to the concept. As I've said before, it has a seamy connotation to it, like "alternative lifestyle." It seems vaguely Berkeley or Brookline or (gasp) Vermont, which makes tradition-bound lawyers very uncomfortable. We need an alternative for "alternative."

And I don't like the "billing" part any better. First, it makes it seem like the issue is about invoice styles, which makes it more boring than the Tax Code or, say, professional soccer. ("Woo! Another one-nought blowout!") Second, it places the focus on the law firm and its adminstration, rather than on the client and the value it is getting.

The intellectual godfather and guru of this ill-named field, the Verasage Institute's Ron Baker, has long advocated "value pricing" as the preferred term. [Update: Ron points out in the comments that he prefers "fixed price" when talking to the customers themselves; "value pricing" is more of a behind-the-scenes term.] It's definitely an improvement, and it is far more descriptive and accurate. The main idea, of course, is that lawyers should price their services based on their value to the client. (Gee, it sounds so obvious when you say it like that.) But my quibble is that the word "value" has Walmart-y connotations. People often connect "value" with "discounted," and that's missing the point entirely.

I propose a different approach:

Open-price lawyering.

What we're talking about here is legal services where the price is known to the customer ahead of time, so that the customer can make an informed decision about the worth of those services to him or her before actually agreeing to buy them. In other words, the price is out in the open. There is a fair exchange between lawyer and client with the client having as much knowledge about the price as the lawyer.

And what's the opposite of open-price lawyering?

Hidden-price lawyering.

The price is hidden from the client (and, often, even from the lawyer). I'm not saying that in a judgmental sort of way, like the lawyer is intentionally hiding the price from the customer. Well, maybe I am. But even if it is unintentional, that's no excuse for doing it.

Clients of the world: which would you rather have — open-price lawyering or hidden-price lawyering? Sound off in the comments, or reply to me on Twitter at @jayshep.

Try out the term, and let me know what you think.

Or offer an alternative.

Price cuts?

We recently covered JetBlue's dramatic new All-You-Can-Jet pricing program (see "JetBlue and alternative billing"). It struck me that if an airline can offer unlimited flights (for a month) for a fixed price, then companies in other industries — including law firms — could do something similar. Well, just the other day, my wife and I were walking down Boston's tony Newbury Street when we saw this sign:

$495 per year unlimited haircuts. Includes: Haircut • Scalp Massaging Shampoo Conditioning Treatment • Shoeshine & Beverage plus 10% off all services

The company providing the service is called Barbershop Lounge. (Warning: when you go to the website, some mildly annoying Euro-technopop starts playing. Why do web designers do this?) The company pitches itself as a high-end men's salon, and it has done a nice job of getting some press. (See this Forbes article.)

Here's what I like about this from a marketing point of view. The fixed price tells me that I'm going to pay this much and no more, no matter how many haircuts I need to get in the next year. The sign spells out all the things I get in this deal:

• The haircut. OK, well that's sort of a table stake.
• Scalp massaging shampoo. (I would have used a hyphen after "scalp.") Most places are going to wash your hair before cutting, because it makes it easier to cut. Scalp massaging sounds nicer, although it kind of has to happen anyway. How else do you get the shampoo into the hair?
• Conditioning treatment. I think that's just a fancy way of saying "conditioner." But kudos for that.
• Shoeshine & beverage. OK, that's something new. But I'd pay $5 for a shoeshine and another dollar or two for a soda, so I'm happy.
• 10% off all other services. That's where the real genius comes in. Get people to come in for the (relatively) inexpensive haircut. Make the real money by cross-selling higher-value services. Brilliant.

Most companies are too afraid to make an offering like this. As I mentioned in the JetBlue post, they worry that someone might take advantage of them. "What if someone comes in every day and gets a haircut? That's 260 haircuts [they're open five days a week], at an average price of $1.90 a cut. How can we make a profit on that?"

Again, dumb question. Most people won't get a haircut a day. A few may get more haircuts in the course of the year than usual, but many others will end up getting fewer. Rather then focusing on the average price per cut, the company should be looking at the total value of the client relationship. Barbershop Lounge obviously is.

Lawyers: are you going to admit that a barbershop is more sophisticated in its pricing than a law firm? How would you do something like this in your firm? Or would you? Share your thoughts in the comments.

In the meantime, don't be afraid to take a little off the top.

Tone-deaf marketing

I love bookstores.

One of my favorite activities is to aimlessly browse a bookstore, looking for titles that catch my attention. But bookstores — like newspapers and record companies and large law firms — are part of an industry facing dramatic changes. Small bookstores have largely been destroyed by the large chains. And Amazon is eating the large chains' lunch.

There is a large Borders bookstore just down the street from my office in downtown Boston. Over the years, I've watched this store increasingly struggle to stay alive. It's located in a down-at-the-heels neighborhood (Downtown Crossing), its customer base has withered, and it has felt the need to hire more "loss-control officers" (they don't use the hyphen) and fewer, you know, booksellers.

But it has made some efforts to lure customers inside.

Like many large downtown bookstores, this one holds frequent book signings and readings. Outside, facing a small park (ish), the store places racks of books, encouraging passersby to stop and browse. (Granted, these are all deeply discounted remainder-table books — books that would otherwise be shredded by the publisher.) And the store pipes music out onto the sidewalk.

And here's where they blow it.

As it happens, I walk by the store several times a day (it's on the way between my bus and my office), so I've noticed that they repeat the same music throughout the day. They generally favor more-sophisticated fare: some jazz, some classical, some Sinatra. But too many times, I've walked by the store as its speakers were blaring that most hated song of all Bostonians ...

No, not "Walking on Sunshine," by Katrina and the Waves. (Gak!)

OK, fine: its speakers were blaring that second-most hated song of all Bostonians: Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York."

ZOMFG! This is Boston, the heart of Red Sox Nation. You cannot play "New York, New York" (which is technically called "Theme from New York, New York," which doesn't make it any more acceptable) on the sidewalks of Boston and expect Bostonians to want to come in and buy stuff.

(For those of you outside the Nation, you should know that this is the insufferable song blared over the loudspeakers at New New Yankee Stadium after every Yankees home win. They play the Liza Minelli version after every loss.)

This is my idea of tone-deaf marketing. You do a smart thing by placing books outside and playing music to try to draw in customers. Then you go and ruin it with tone-deaf moves like having surly loss-prevention goons be the first people you see when you walk in. And by playing that song in this town.

Law firms and lawyers: Pick your marketing moves carefully. Don't ruin your good ideas with dumb execution. Don't be tone deaf.

Go Sox. More Liza.

Top ten Twitterers for innovative lawyers

There's no denying that Twitter has gone from a mere internet fad with a quirky name to a legitimate innovation in today's business world. There are more than six million users, and more than a few of them are lawyers. And within this group of twittering lawyers, there are a bunch of lawyers and friends of lawyers (yes, such an animal exists) who are committed to innovation. If you have a free Twitter account and have any interest in innovative lawyering, you could do worse than to follow them (that is, read their tweets). To help get you started, I've come up with a top ten list.

Here they are with their Twitter handles (plus real names if they're different) and Twitter bios. The order is arbitrary, but you really can't do a top ten without numbers. Just click on their links to follow them. They will help you innovate.

1. @kevinokeefe Lawyer, dad to 5, husband to saint, Cubs-Packer fan. CEO of LexBlog, provider of professional blogs to law firms & operator of LexTweet & LexMonitor.


2. @matthomann Legal Thinker. Innovational Speaker. Creative Facilitator. Dad.


3. @lancegodard International legal business development and marketing consultant. I help law firms grow and prosper.


4. @nikiblack Legal technology consultant (www.lawtechtalk.com) & crim. def. attorney trying to drag the legal profession into the 21st Century while enjoying good food & wine.


5. @riskin (Gerry Riskin) Lawyer/Consultant, http://www.gerryriskin.com/cat-about-gerry.html


6. @carolynelefant Practicing lawyer, marine renewables expert, avid blogger, Solo by Choice author, CEO (MyShingle.com), mom.


7. @alexisneely Mom, Family Financial and Legal Expert on TV, Changing the Way Lawyers Think And You Think About Lawyers, Wrote a Book For Parents Who Care What Happens. 


8. @karasmamedia (Kara Smith) Principal & Founder Karasma Media the first Harlem based boutique specializing in social media public relations campaigns for the legal marketing industry. 


9. @bobambrogi Lawyer, writer, consultant.


10. @glambert (Greg Lambert) Law Librarian, Blogger, geeklawblog, Competitive Intelligence, Social Media, Knowledge Management (KM), Speaker.

And one up and comer: @ronaldbaker. Ron is the guru of value pricing, and the nemesis of timesheets and billable hours. He's new to Twitter. (His brand-new bio: "Quest: To bury the billable hour and timesheets. Founder of VeraSage Institute.") He's a CPA by trade, but he's forgotten more about legal innovation than any lawyer could hope to learn. Without a doubt, one of the five smartest people I've ever spoken with. 

So there's my list. I've doubtlessly left off many who should be included. Please offer up your own additions in the comments, or send me a tweet (@jayshep). I'll probably have to do another top ten list.

To learn more about Twitter and to get a free, twitterable corporate Twitter policy (that is, a Twitter policy that is exactly 140 characters long — the maximum size of a tweet), head on over to our sister site, Gruntled Employees.

[Updated 2 April 2009 to include Ron Baker's bio.]