In House Rants

It’s not that we’re cheap but, well, ok, we are cheap, but we can’t understand the firms who want to make a connection with new and existing clients, and then charge them for the privilege. Read more »

More on getting legal business. This time: Identify your strengths and weaknesses. Read more »

So you want legal work from our company? You have to get past the gatekeeper. Who is the gatekeeper? It’s not who you think it is. Read more »

This is a popular one, especially among legal assistants:

“Attention to file. 1.0 hr”

You’re kidding, right? Is anybody reading these bills before they’re sent? As we’ve asked before, if you were the timekeeper who made this entry, would you pay this bill? (”Work on case” is a variation on this theme.)

Also, nothing looks more like padded time than round numbers. We’re not saying anyone should change their actual time entries, but pages full of “1.0 hr, 2.0 hrs, 3.0 hrs” etc. just looks suspicious, and sends us a message about the timekeeper’s credibility and the billing attorney’s management skills.

Timekeepers, please describe what work you did (this is why the entries are called time descriptions). Billing attorneys, please review the bills before you send them.

Among other things, lawyers are recognized as the only humans with more than two hands. This is evolutionary, of course. Centuries of equivocating require appendages appropriate for proposing multiple alternatives without having to commit to one. “On the one hand, you could A, but then the plaintiff could do B in response, or possibly C, so instead of A you could do D; on the other hand, doing A and D together would box the plaintiff in. Still, you could try E followed by A, which is a little aggressive, but will send the right message. What do you think?” Too many hands. Too little analysis. No recommendation. This kind of advice just isn’t advice.

The failure (refusal sometimes) to make a recommendation is one of our greatest weaknesses as lawyers. Perhaps we’re trying to make sure clients don’t blindly jump to a conclusion without understanding the thorough analysis needed to arrive there, but I suspect there’s really more anatomy covering going on than anything else.

Garden-variety lawyers can always come up with another theory. But as business people, clients don’t deal with the theoretical; they have to make decisions. The best lawyers advance this process by making recommendations. Like the criticism we level at memoranda that merely explore the parties’ “best arguments” (i.e., the “on the one hand/other hand” treatment), preparing a legal analysis without a recommendation is unfinished work. Even if the best choice is so clear that anyone would recognize it, go the extra step, and tell us what you would do if you were in our shoes.

When you make a recommendation, you’re telling us that you approached the assignment as though it were your money, your liability or your reputation at stake — not just another research project.

Please stop talking like your lawyer-grandparents. It’s not scholarly, it’s not professional, and it doesn’t impress anyone except non-lawyers. If that’s how you boost your self esteem, you’re in the wrong business.

For example take the antiquity, “please find enclosed herewith.” Yes, I still see this all the time — even in email messages from recent law school graduates.
What are you trying to say? “Please start digging through this mound of stuff and maybe, in here, with it, you will find something I’m sending you.” Of course not. All you’re trying to say is “I have enclosed X.” If that’s what you mean, say it. “Dear Rantor, I have enclosed the drafts I described this morning.”

Or how about “inter alia“, “supra” and “assuming arguendo.” Perhaps these gems have a place in formal legal briefs (I have my doubts), but they have no place in routine communications. What’s wrong with “among other things”, “above”, and “assuming for argument’s sake”?

If you want to keep your clients on your side, write using words they will understand — not the secret code of lawyer lingo. I’m not starting the “plain English vs precision” debate; we can do that another time. I am suggesting, however, that we drop the lawyerly affectations and write simply and clearly. Your clients might even read your letters for a change.

As a GC you get lots of lunch invitations from lawyers who want to start a business relationship. I turn most of them down because they’re generally a waste of time.

The other day I had lunch with a lawyer I used to work for when I was with The Big Firm(TM). It had been a while since we had talked. We hadn’t been particularly close, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, with all his experience, I could (for once) have lunch with a “pro” who knew how to make it rain. It would be fun to admire an expert in action, and share some of his better techniques in this blog. Unfortunately it didn’t work out so well and it was another wasted afternoon.

This lunch, like so many others before it, was the “blue plate special” of marketing lunches.

• Small talk before ordering
• How big the firm is
• Where our offices are
• Our practice areas
• My practice area
• Is there anything we can do for you? We’d sure like your business.

What’s missing from this list? Oh. Right. How about a question about MY company? What’s going on with MY industry? What’s on MY stay-awake list? Is MY staff sufficient to support the increasing demands from our internal customers?

That’s right, it IS all about me.

Let me let you in on a secret: We love talking about our company, our challenges, our successes, and our industry. Simply put, we like talking about ourselves.

Your job is to fill my needs. How will you know my needs without asking? Better yet, how will you help me discover my needs unless you probe the periphery? You should be doing no more than 50% of the talking.

Ask me about me, and then listen.

Vacations are always too short, and sometimes they don’t seem worth the effort. But they’re important, and we need to take them. I’m sure you appreciate time away with those close to you, and trusting your colleagues (both in house and outside) not to let the place fall apart while you’re flopped on a sandy beach, hiking in a national park or just doing something different.

So today, in the spirit of doing something different, I have not a rant, but praise.

While on vacation the immigration folks resurrected some regulations on what to do when you get a “no match” letter from the Social Security Administration. (Here is a link to the .pdf of the Federal Register listing, if you’re interested: http://tinyurl.com/27u3cw). This is a big deal for us because we have a lot of employees, and an overwhelmed human resources department. Driving to the airport, the news radio station chattered about the “stepped-up enforcement” policy, and something about social security, but my mind was on my vacation. Cue the smart outside counsel.

That evening, while checking voice mail (yes, we do that too while on vacation), one of our outside employment counsel left this short message (I’m paraphrasing): “Hi, I saw your “out of office” email notification, and figured you might not have heard about the new “no match” regs that go into effect September 15th. I know we’ve not talked about this, but I’m putting together a some guidelines for human resources departments on what to do with these letters to be sure you come within the safe harbor. Your company is a little different from most of my other clients, so I’m going to customize it for you guys, and will have it to you next week. If you think it’s useful, let me know. If not, there will be no charge. Hope you’re having a great vacation!”

Stress level at beginning of voice mail: moderate. At the end: low. Having a great vacation? You bet.

A show of hands, please. Who has ever considered hiring a law firm after reading an unsolicited brochure? That’s what I thought: nobody.

Yet these tired warhorses of “legal marketing” report dutifully to the in-box daily. Why? So that law firm marketing departments can point to an “accomplishment” at budget time. I don’t mean to pick on the marketing departments. In fact, we get most of our unsolicited brochures directly from lawyers, most of the time with nothing more than a business card stuffed in the little cut-out slot.

We’ll be writing more on how to market legal and professional services (at least to our company). But let us start with one very simple recommendation: dump the brochure. They all say the same things, and they all stink. If you think you’re distinguishing your firm because you “seek cost-effective solutions to difficult challenges,” or if you’re the “go-to firm for ‘bet-the-company’ litigation,” get in line. Everyone else thinks so too. Even fancy Wall Street firms seem to have hired the same advertising/marketing consultants as the mid-Western regionals. Remember, $200/hr insurance defense lawyers can say they represent “Fortune 100® companies” if they get a case or two from an AIG subsidiary every now and then. Avoid generalities.

There are other channels that will be much more effective. Yes, more work is required, but you already knew that.

More on what works next time.

It was only a matter of time before law firms started treating their clients as adversaries. Consider the now fairly standard boilerplate engagement letter provision in which the client consents to be sued by its own lawyer.

It’s never stated quite so directly. The waiver is always soft-pedaled with soothing, somewhat apologetic explanations that all boil down to this: We really aren’t a law firm, but are instead a collection of independent franchisees, and we aren’t gong to let the shortsightedness of one of our dopier “partners” stifle our chance to represent a much more lucrative client against you if the opportunity presents itself.

I’m used to seeing these provisions in the national firms’ engagement letters, but they’re even showing up in the smaller firms’ letters.

Of course I strike these routinely and have never had a firm refuse our business because of it. What’s more interesting is that I never get any push back. No hesitation, no negotiation, no comment. The paragraph just disappears. Which makes me wonder why it’s there in the first place.

How candid will the client be if he knows he could meet his own lawyer across the negotiating table on the next transaction . . . or worse: as opposing counsel in court?