Last week I mentioned how the business model of the legal profession has real problems and that maybe the current crisis may spur us to fix it. In June’s American Lawyer, Susan Beck uses the tragedy of two recent lawyer suicides to raise the same issues. Her observation: “The cracks in the foundation expand by the day.”
Ms. Beck holds up Holland & Hart as having a possible model for the profession’s future: a good income and a sensible work/life balance. Holland & Hart, the largest firm in the Rocky Mountains, is based in Denver where I practice with Minor & Brown. I have a number of friends at Holland & Hart, so I am pleased for the positive attention they are receiving for the choices they are making.
Law firm partners are of course business owners. I tell my kids that the ability to make choices about the business is the best part of owning a business; it is also the toughest part. Here’s to making good choices.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Memorial Day
Humans are sometimes too legal. When we focus on what is legal, we can lose sight of what is right. Legal holidays become required holidays. Required becomes entitled. Entitled doesn’t ask why.
Memorial Day honors the men and women who gave “the last full measure of devotion” in service to our country.
So before firing up the grill or saving money on a mattress remember why the day used to be called Decoration Day.
With gratitude and in tribute to all who serve our country and risk everything for us: the National Anthem performed by the Colorado Children’s Chorale at opening ceremony for the 2008 Democratic Party National Convention here in Denver. (Note the Color Guard--these gentlemen are Navajo Code Talkers. It was cool to meet them.)
Friday, May 22, 2009
Better Law Firms for Better Business
Adaptations made by individual businesses in the face of an economic crisis are no surprise. That is what entrepreneurs do. The severity of the current crisis, however, is pressuring entire industries and professions to change. Such fundamental changes even when necessary are still surprising to watch. And because one of those professions is mine--the practice of law--I am both surprised and pleased.
Starting salaries for lawyers at the nation’s largest, most prestigious law firms have been headline material for years. Paying increasingly bigger bucks to inexperienced lawyers requires those lawyers to work longer hours while learning their craft on the job, most often at client expense. This model creates dissatisfaction among both lawyers and clients and has done so for some time.
While some in the profession have been wondering how that law firm model can continue to make economic sense, those of us in smaller firms have had to grapple with the trickle-down impact of those salaries on our recruiting.
We keep hearing “Never waste a good crisis,” and it seems some lawyers are listening. The Law Firms Working Group, a project of the American Bar Foundation and the Indiana University Maurer School of Law Association, recently concluded FutureFirm 101, a competition to devise a new business model for a hypothetical large law firm.
Plans came back focused on drastic cuts in starting pay balanced by meaningful training, opportunities to interact with clients, and other human benefits, which describes the model my firm and other small firms have used for years as our only viable way of competing with the big boys. This “FutureFirm” solution is moving beyond academia. Drinker Biddle, one of the country’s top firms, recently announced that instead of deferring its new hires as its competitors are doing, it will pay its newbies less and train them more.
So while our competitive advantage is at risk, this move is good news for small law firms because it is good news for the legal profession. It is entrepreneurial and it is human, just like our clients.
Starting salaries for lawyers at the nation’s largest, most prestigious law firms have been headline material for years. Paying increasingly bigger bucks to inexperienced lawyers requires those lawyers to work longer hours while learning their craft on the job, most often at client expense. This model creates dissatisfaction among both lawyers and clients and has done so for some time.
While some in the profession have been wondering how that law firm model can continue to make economic sense, those of us in smaller firms have had to grapple with the trickle-down impact of those salaries on our recruiting.
We keep hearing “Never waste a good crisis,” and it seems some lawyers are listening. The Law Firms Working Group, a project of the American Bar Foundation and the Indiana University Maurer School of Law Association, recently concluded FutureFirm 101, a competition to devise a new business model for a hypothetical large law firm.
Plans came back focused on drastic cuts in starting pay balanced by meaningful training, opportunities to interact with clients, and other human benefits, which describes the model my firm and other small firms have used for years as our only viable way of competing with the big boys. This “FutureFirm” solution is moving beyond academia. Drinker Biddle, one of the country’s top firms, recently announced that instead of deferring its new hires as its competitors are doing, it will pay its newbies less and train them more.
So while our competitive advantage is at risk, this move is good news for small law firms because it is good news for the legal profession. It is entrepreneurial and it is human, just like our clients.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Cuba Invades
Not Bay of Pigs in reverse, more like Bay of Dogs. Cuba is a Guide Dogs for the Blind puppy-in-training and his trainer is my partner, Barb Wells.
Barb guides clients through the maze of taxes and other challenges to growing a business, some of the most technical and demanding work we do, and she does it with a puppy in her lap. At least she will until Cuba gets too big.
What do clients think? They love it. A dog in a law firm sets a human tone, especially a young dog being trained to work with the blind.
Before Cuba, Barb raised Larabee and Army. Now each is helping a blind individual. Many of our clients know these dogs and they love to hear their stories and see their pictures.
The whole firm chips in when needed. My job is to drop by Barb’s office on the way to the men’s restroom so I can bring the dog with me. This way, Barb explains, the dog will understand the different restroom routines of men and women. I’m glad I get that tricky part.
There is a lawyer joke that goes like this: “The law firm of the future will consist of a computer, a lawyer and a dog. The computer is there to do the legal work. The dog is there to keep the lawyer away from the computer. The lawyer is there to feed the dog.”
A coming post will focus on a project called FutureFirm 101 and some ideas for real improvements percolating in my profession. There are no dogs proposed in the FutureFirm, but based on our invasion experience, a dog in the right hands for the right reason can make a firm a better place.
Barb guides clients through the maze of taxes and other challenges to growing a business, some of the most technical and demanding work we do, and she does it with a puppy in her lap. At least she will until Cuba gets too big.
What do clients think? They love it. A dog in a law firm sets a human tone, especially a young dog being trained to work with the blind.
Before Cuba, Barb raised Larabee and Army. Now each is helping a blind individual. Many of our clients know these dogs and they love to hear their stories and see their pictures.
The whole firm chips in when needed. My job is to drop by Barb’s office on the way to the men’s restroom so I can bring the dog with me. This way, Barb explains, the dog will understand the different restroom routines of men and women. I’m glad I get that tricky part.
There is a lawyer joke that goes like this: “The law firm of the future will consist of a computer, a lawyer and a dog. The computer is there to do the legal work. The dog is there to keep the lawyer away from the computer. The lawyer is there to feed the dog.”
A coming post will focus on a project called FutureFirm 101 and some ideas for real improvements percolating in my profession. There are no dogs proposed in the FutureFirm, but based on our invasion experience, a dog in the right hands for the right reason can make a firm a better place.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
The Missing Inc.
A friend referred a new business client to me recently. I’ll call the corporation "Guys and Dolls." Only problem is its legal name should be "Guys and Dolls, Inc." or "Guys and Dolls Company" or something which indicates it is a corporation. Similarly, if Guys and Dolls was a limited liability company, it would need to include LLC or such in its legal name.
The owner of Guys and Dolls formed the corporation through the Colorado Secretary of State, which warns that corporate designators are required under state law but still allows a user to file without one. Guys and Dolls compounded that incorporation mistake by using the Inc-less name to refer to itself in all of its business dealings.
Inc-less names can be used properly as a trade name or trademark, but references to the entity in its correspondence and contracts need to be to its legal, corporate name. The owner of Guys and Dolls was setting himself up for lawsuits with customers and vendors who did not know the business was a corporation, but since we caught it early in the corporation’s life, Guys and Dolls’ missing Inc. will be corrected with minimal hassle.
Your business lawyer can explain not only how and when to use your corporation’s official legal name, she can help you develop guidelines for using the name, logos and marks in a manner that will protect you from lawsuits as well as protect the value of your business name, which aside from your people is your business’ most valuable asset.
More on other ways a business owner can blow the protection of a limited liability entity in a future post.
The owner of Guys and Dolls formed the corporation through the Colorado Secretary of State, which warns that corporate designators are required under state law but still allows a user to file without one. Guys and Dolls compounded that incorporation mistake by using the Inc-less name to refer to itself in all of its business dealings.
Inc-less names can be used properly as a trade name or trademark, but references to the entity in its correspondence and contracts need to be to its legal, corporate name. The owner of Guys and Dolls was setting himself up for lawsuits with customers and vendors who did not know the business was a corporation, but since we caught it early in the corporation’s life, Guys and Dolls’ missing Inc. will be corrected with minimal hassle.
Your business lawyer can explain not only how and when to use your corporation’s official legal name, she can help you develop guidelines for using the name, logos and marks in a manner that will protect you from lawsuits as well as protect the value of your business name, which aside from your people is your business’ most valuable asset.
More on other ways a business owner can blow the protection of a limited liability entity in a future post.
Monday, May 11, 2009
No Funny Lawyers?
I was a first-year lawyer only months out of the University of Texas law school when attorney D. Robert White in The Official Lawyer’s Handbook declared “There are no funny lawyers, only funny people who made career mistakes.”
Too late for me.
White’s quip was exaggerated of course. There are many very funny lawyers; lots of them much funnier than me. But as a profession we take ourselves (and our wallets) too seriously, giving fodder to an endless stream of lawyer jokes.
It’s now 26 years since I learned of my career mistake and I am still not smart enough to change professions. Instead I work at keeping it human, which includes funny and a number of other emotions. This blog is my attempt to put some legal humanity on the web and I dedicate it to my clients who daily remind me that they are human too.
Too late for me.
White’s quip was exaggerated of course. There are many very funny lawyers; lots of them much funnier than me. But as a profession we take ourselves (and our wallets) too seriously, giving fodder to an endless stream of lawyer jokes.
It’s now 26 years since I learned of my career mistake and I am still not smart enough to change professions. Instead I work at keeping it human, which includes funny and a number of other emotions. This blog is my attempt to put some legal humanity on the web and I dedicate it to my clients who daily remind me that they are human too.
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