Law And More

Harvard and Ms. Campbell

Would Chanequa Campbell be receiving her Harvard College diploma if she had the money and contacts to hire a dynamite attorney?  Could be.  She is African-American, from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn and was and is poor. In addition, she refused to take on the genteel ethos of many of her classmates from privilege.

We don't know the details and maybe never will but Campbell, a Harvard senior, was forced to move off campus and will not graduate because of her alleged role in the May 18th murder at the school.  Harvard and she are mum.  She is acquainted with one of those involved in that incident.  The past has a way of following those who might have assumed it was over. 

Perhaps naively, the folks back at Bed-Stuy are supporting her.  She needs lots more than that to influence the powers-that-be at Harvard.  She needs a good lawyer, who knows how to work the law and the media.

RIFs as New Normal: Squire Sanders Has 3rd Round of Layoffs

There's been a systems change in the legal profession: Reductions in Force [RIFs] as a standard tool to accomplish organizational goals.  Yeah, layoffs are no longer one-time shocking events.  RIFs are the new normal.  This mirrors the systems changes which have become usual and customary in corporate America since the early 1980s.

Today, Cleveland, Ohio-based [so, the Midwest isn't as immune as trend experts have been observing] Squire, Sanders & Dempsey did its third round of layoffs, along with slashing first-year associate.  In this round 32 attorneys were let go.  The associate pay reduction was 10 percent or a drop from $130,000 to $117,000.

The lion's share of the sidelined attorneys had been with the firm three years or less.  Clearly, experience is increasingly valued as clients rebel against unseasoned associates working on their account.  They resent both the lack of expertise per se and the high fees for non-partner work.

Off-the-shoulder:  In an increasingly uncertain employment universe, the risk of self-employment looks less risky.  With so much possible business coming from social networks like LinkedIn, we free agents seem to wake up to new opportunity every day v wringing our hands anticipating the tap on the shoulder.  In 2001, Daniel Pink, in his book by that title, predicted we would all be free agents.  He could be on the money. 

Giant Coke Adopts Pay-for-Performance - Even laggard on business trends BigLaw has to pay attention

Among large corporations, the compensation model for vendors is changing from hourly or even flat fees to pay-for-performance.  That is going to change lots faster now that giant Coke has adopted the value model.  In AD AGE, the bible of the marketing industry, Jeremy Mullman and Natalie Zmuda report:

"Coca-Cola Co. is trying to start an industrywide movement toward a 'value-based' compensation model like one it's adopted that promises agencies nothing more than recouped costs if they don't perform - but profit margins as high a 30% if their work hits top targets."

BigLaw has tended to be a laggard when it comes to macro business trends.  But this move by Coke can't be ignored.  Nor can the guerrilla activities of what might be called The New Barbarians in law.  One of them is the Rimon Law Group. Its model is so compelling that I will be posting a full-length interview on it and more with its co-founder Yaacov Silverman [Yaacov@rimonlaw.com, 917-720-4027.]

What Rimon Law Group is is a virtual law firm, based in San Francisco, California, which is able to embrace pay-for-performance billing.  It calls its version Satisfaction-Based Billing.  Here are the details on that approach.

Stay tuned for LawandMore's exclusive interview with the Rimon Law Group.

Note:  Yes, my virtual communications boutique Genova Writing, Coaching and More provides pay-for-performance billing to law firms.  Contact Jane Genova for a complimentary consultation 203-468-8579 or Mgenova981@aol.com. You have nothing to lose.  And competitive advantage to gain.  Come to think of it, it could be a competitive disadvantage for you not to consult with me about using social media for branding and actual selling.  Here is my Internet backgrounder Download JGenovaInternet.

Mergers can be bad for in-house lawyers

In-house lawyers, no matter how talented and useful, are still staff.  And it's staff, at least at the company taken over, which gets the brunt of the post-merger effort to eliminate "redundancies."

So, those in the know are recommending that the 170-something in-house legal eagles at Sun Microsystems start looking for other positions.  Oracle is acquiring Sun for $7.38 billion.  Zusha Elinson of THE RECORDER tells readers that Oracle has a track record for cutting loose the lawyers from the companies they take over.   After BEA was acquired, reports Elinson, of the 20-something attorneys and eight staffers, only one lawyer and two staffers are still on the Oracle payroll.

Even if you're not declared a redundancy post-merger and not laid off, you might still be treated like a less-than by the conqueror.  It's rarely a good scene for those at the acquisition.

"The trades have become increasingly irrelevant," Sharon Waxman, former NYT reporter

Those trades, be they VARIETY for Hollywood, law journals for the legal profession or subscription-paid newsletters for the public relations industry, are becoming "increasingly irrelevant."  That's what Sharon Waxman, a former THE NEW YORK TIMES reporter, tells THE NEW YORK OBSERVER.

Clearly, ambitious lawyers and enterprising law students have been sensing this zeitgeist. 

That slouching toward irrelevance has been speeded-up by the downturn which put the pressure on every player to be out there, opining brilliantly about something. Therefore, more are turning to the 24/7 accessible, high-reach medium of blogging, including microblogging.  Daily, instead of every six months, I receive pitches about news insights on public nuisance, emerging models for law firms, and an award having been won. 

Simultaneously, there are fewer and fewer of traditional trade media.  Most of those are protean configurations, containing everything from macro economic information to specific industry coverage.  That lack of a razor-sharp niche focus or long tail has tended to put them in the vulnerable category of old media.  Media expert Michael Wolff predicts that 80% of publications in that category will be dead in 18 months.  No newsflash, those wanting coverage are flocking to new media.

What does this mean for law firms, their stars, the 3Ls desperate to just enter the game, and the 20,000 unemployed attorneys?  Obviously, participating in digital communications is now a necessary part of the marketing mix.  Yeah, seminars to general counsels and influentials on labeling and product liability are important. But so is presenting the implications of what was discussed in those seminars in blogs, microblogs, podcasts, and YouTubes.  More than ever, how we market has become an integrated system. No, there is no Killer App to keep hammering - exclusively.

Professional services firms, be they law, public relations or management consulting, will be as dead as much of old media and as soon if they don't migrate from what used to be effective in marketing to what else can be tried out.  More deals get closed now from just-in-time opportunistic approaches than codified success formulas.  If a so-called marketing pro claims to have the "secret" to unleash the potential of your operation, flee that field of force.  It's dangerous to your survival.

Billing: High Noon in Dodge between client Century Indemnity and Latham & Watkins/Montrose Chemical

The kinds of work that law firms bill for, at what rate they bill, how time records are maintained, and who is doing that billable work are all issues in a petition client Century Indemnity Company filed in Los Angeles Superior Court last Friday. 

In the petition it requests arbitration against Latham & Watkins Law firm as well as the firm's client Montrose Chemical.  The scope of this attack on how a law firm traditionally operates could represent a sort of High Noon in what's called for shorthand "Billing Practices."  And that could prove to be the tip of the iceberg in how BigLaw will be forced to remake itself as more of a business and one that is transparent. 

In THE AMERICAN LAWYER, Drew Combs provides the background.  In a large toxic lawsuit dating back to 2002 Latham & Watkins represented Montrose. Century, as one of Montrose's insurers, has covered a portion of the defendant's legal bills. As of December 2006, that portion came to more than $5.8 million or almost 27 percent.

Century alleges:

• Unreasonable and unnecessary work was done. 

• Fees were excessive since under California Civil Code section 2860, the reasonable hourly rate should be between $140 and $180 for attorneys.  The law firm billing began at $380 hourly and rose to $450 hourly for all attorneys.

• An attorney who had not passed the bar billed Century for almost $62,000. This echoes the common complaint of new associates participating on cases.

• Time was not recorded per task.  As Combs notes, "Instead, timekeepers make a single bulk entry for each day, which, according to Century, makes it difficult to determine how much time was spent on specific tasks."

Clearly Century Indemnity, by this petition, has opened the door for similar comprehensive questioning of every aspect of billing.  In play could already be that paradigm shift in BigLaw that legal trend experts have been predicting.

"How do you feel?" Philip Howard asked people that 100s of times

People are feeling constrained by the America created during the rights movement.  That's what Philip Howard, author of "Life Without Lawyers," found out when he interviewed people while he was writing that book.  He asked them, "How do you feel?"

A lot, reports John Seabrook in the April 27th edition of THE NEW YORKER, answered that they perceived themselves restricted by bureaucracy.  Teachers noted they fear disciplining a student because of possibly infringing on rights.

My question is: Did any of them feel that their ability to make a good living was deep-sixed by too much litigation?  Perhaps they really don't understand the link between lawsuits against business and an eroded economic base, particularly in high-paying jobs such as manufacturing.

Legal Obsession - Are we Neuroatypicals?

Is law that kind of complex system - part rules, part cunning to reinterpret them - which attracts us neuroatypicals?  Could be. 

Neuroatypicals, and that category is being expanded by research, have brain wiring which allow us to perceive unusual relationships and master unusual skills.  All this used to primarily be discussed within the framework of manic-depression and schizophrenia.  But lately, thanks to the research of Patricia Howlin of King's College, London, which is described in the current of THE ECONOMIST, it's being reclassified as on the autism spectrum. 

Whatever the label, the reality is that neuroatypicals tend to find lines of work which fit with out-of-the-ordinary wiring and don't demand too much of what neurotypicals excel at, e.g. socializing, group activity.  Law is one.  Art is another.  Academia, particularly scientific research, can be a third.  Fine.  That is until we are exiled from our Private Promised Land. 

When the lead paint public nuisance litigation petered out, I felt a jolt.  Yeah, nights of those adolescent dreams of having a test but not knowing the room number. Blogging about that constituted an effective new-business-development tool that I loved leveraging. Yeah, total comfort zone.  In the mid-1970s, a similar thing occurred when I couldn't secure a college teaching job.  I floundered until I found the bizarre vocation of ghostwriting/speechwriting. 

This could be the same sense of disclolation which the 20,000 unemployed lawyers are having, along with 2Ls who fear being jobless.  It's difficult to replicate an environment like law in which to focus talents and even make a decent living.

But not impossible.  Between the loss of Paradise and Paradise Regained is hell.  Here's one story of that Download Geezerguts.  On the other side of hell, if we're willing to experiment, can be something as comfortable and lucrative as what was taken from us.  After the field of executive communications collapsed, I gravitated, slowly, toward communications on the web.  That medium keeps mutating, is part formulas, part cleverness, and although is social can be operated solo from a studio apartment during any time of night or day. 

Current gens of attorneys have an advantage my Baby Boom gen didn't.  You weren't hammered to be well-rounded.  You can be as un-well-rounded and one-dimensional as the career calls for.  For too many years I had the burden of attempting to behave like a neurotypical.