10 Ways for Lawyers to Find Their ‘Inner Steve Jobs’

The weather had me stuck inside airports last week, so I read the new Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs. It is certainly a great book about a fascinating life, and for a boomer like me, a bit of a jarring experience to encounter a full-on biography of a near…

Nov 8, 2011 3:13 PM CST

‘Legal Kaizens’ and Getting Lawyers to Solve Simple Problems Together

Whenever I have 15 minutes free at an airport, I love to log onto TED to see what smart people are saying about almost anything. I recently stumbled upon the following talk given by Clay Shirky in 2005 on the move away from closed institutions to networks that foster collaboration.…

Nov 2, 2011 2:15 PM CDT

Letters: Rebel-Rousers

Nov 1, 2011 9:50 AM CDT

Make or Buy in the Age of the Free-Agent Lawyer

At all stages of a company’s life cycle, leadership continually asks the classic “Make or Buy” question. When should a company hire and develop expertise internally, and when does it make more sense to outsource tasks and purchase professional services? When it comes to legal needs, every company has its…

Oct 26, 2011 1:51 PM CDT

Getting Better Means Getting Closer—and Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

One of the nice parts of being, along with Pat, the Wayne and Garth of the New Normal, is that I get pulled into more interesting conversations than I might otherwise, as happened to me last week in Washington, D.C. Mark Cohen and Bryce Arrowood are the two founders of…

Oct 19, 2011 2:10 PM CDT

Can Less Be More? Professionalism in the New Normal

Several recent stories have raised issues about what we might call “Professionalism in the New Normal.” The first story comes from IBM General Counsel Bob Weber’s op-ed in Bloomberg Business Week. Weber argues against the U.S.’ following the lead of the U.K. and Australia to allow third-party ownership of law…

Oct 12, 2011 1:55 PM CDT

‘Justice’ and the New Normal

After my last post, “What Law Firms Can Learn From Steve Jobs,” there were a couple of comments that gave me pause. My post discussed the role of design, or ease of customer use, in the delivery of legal services. Several commenters agreed with at least the gist of the…

Oct 11, 2011 7:45 PM CDT

What Law Firms Can Learn from Steve Jobs

The October issue of Fast Company contains yet another article on what the late Steve Jobs can teach us, titled, appropriately enough, “What Steve Jobs Can Still Teach Us.” It is no accident that the article appears in an issue devoted to design, and the importance of design in our…

Oct 6, 2011 1:32 PM CDT

If Legal Services Value Stats Were Created, Standardized, Law Clients Could Play ‘Moneyball’

Paul Lippe’s discussion of the new Brad Pitt movie, Moneyball, and how that movie sheds light on value followed a discussion on statistics I listened to on ESPN’s Mike & Mike in the Morning radio show. Of course, sports and statistics have always had a close relationship, what with ERAs,…

Sep 29, 2011 3:30 PM CDT

Can ‘Moneyball’ Principles Be Applied to the Valuation of Legal Services?

I just saw the movie Moneyball, profiling how Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A’s, built a competitive team despite a payroll one-fourth that of rich teams like the Yankees, Red Sox or Phillies. Beane’s approach (based on baseball sabermetrician Bill James and chronicled in the Michael Lewis book…

Sep 29, 2011 2:29 PM CDT

The Point Man: Steven Berrent, WilmerHale

Forecasting where technology can take litigation and understanding the steps needed to get there are great strengths of Steven Berrent’s, say those who know the managing director of WilmerHale’s Discovery Solutions. The in-house document review program uses technology that searches and organizes information. “The old way of doing document review…

Sep 28, 2011 1:54 PM CDT

Adding Value and Forging Alliances with Non-Firm Firms

Paul Lippe recently wrote The Rise of the Non-Firm Firms. The post generated considerable favorable comment, with the majority of the comment agreeing with Paul’s premise that “non-firm firms” (NFFs) are challenging traditional firms’ monopoly on process-focused work like document review. The reality is that many NFFs perform this work…

Sep 28, 2011 1:30 PM CDT

African Adventurer: Jeffrey Krilla, SNR Denton

A prime-cut filet might be the centerpiece of a New York or Chicago meal between law firm partners and business executives, while in Los Angeles they might dine on halibut and baby artichokes while discussing multimillion-dollar deals. And in some parts of Africa, the meal might be made up of…

Sep 26, 2011 1:49 PM CDT

Making It Lean: Lisa Damon, Seyfarth Shaw

When you get paid by the minute, becoming more efficient might seem like a bad idea. Lisa J. Damon, a member of Seyfarth Shaw’s executive committee, has moved past that notion. Her firm has developed a plan that borrows heavily from the corporate management plan known as Six Sigma with…

Sep 21, 2011 1:50 PM CDT

The Deal Maker: Paul Sweeney, Foley Hoag

Paul Sweeney didn’t intend to make any money off a $250 startup incorporation package that Foley Hoag offered on the deal site LevelUp. But the marketing aspect of the email, sent to thousands in the Boston area, was priceless. “In terms of business development, the old rules of communication still…

Sep 19, 2011 1:51 PM CDT