Law And More

Those Fried Frank Results: So much for magical thinking

The magical thinking in some parts of the legal sector is that the Crash was in 2007.  That was then.  Now is now and it should be business as usual - predictable and quite profitable.

That expectation is one reason so many are paying attention to the financial results announced by Fried Frank.  As AM LAW DAILY reports, the law firm had a bad first half and a good second half.  That's not what was supposed to be in the cards.  Instead, gross revenue declined 6.3%, revenue per lawyer went down 2.6%, and profit per partner declined 16.8%.

"It's unlikely that the 'business as usual' from pre-2007 will return," observes Boris Kreiman, Chief Executive Officer of Laws.com.  "Competition for new business will remain stiff and there will continue to be client churn.  That's why lawyers have to not only keep marketing but experiment with new ways of attracting and retaining business. A piece of that will be learning how to use BigData, particularly predictive analytics."

On Bloomberg, Bruce MacEwen of Adam Smith, Esq. had predicted the end of growth in the legal sector.  In a sense he frames it as a zero sum game.  However, through BigData, for example, law firms could develop new kinds of products, expand beyond the boundaries of conventional law practices, and not only run operations more cost efficiently but also  the strategies for managing cases. 

Full Disclosure: I assist Laws.com with communications.

 

Steubenville, OH Rape: Are drunk females an attractive nuisance?

In her column in the LA TIMES, Sandy Banks hammers that the Steubenville, Ohio rape victim was drunk.  In this era when females are being encouraged to Lean In, they should also be warned that, given their anatomy, drinking to excess makes them targets for rape - or worse.

If we believe media reports, there seems to be a high correlation between rape and heavy drinking.  Will the law connect the dots on this one and classify public intoxication by a female as a type of "attractive nuisance?"  If the conviction involves a heavy penalty like jail and a stiff fine, females might stop this reckless behavior.

In rape not only do the victims suffer.  So do the rapists who can become pariahs in society. The odds are against them being able to pursue good careers. 

Isn't it time we accept the "shadow side" of human nature and admit that many males will be attracted to having some fun with a drunken woman.  That's how it starts. 

Lawyers Are Good at Lawyering: That and other factors undermining successful career change

Most of the information, analytic skills, and persona which go into being a successful lawyer undermines the ability of that professional to shift to other lines of work. 

On a voluntary basis, for instance, lawyers might decide to enter politics, starting as an aide writing speeches for their senator.  Or, by necessity they have to find an alternate to practicing law.  The path to that goal can be rocky if they don't take an inventory of how they approach working and present themselves in all mediums - in-person, in print, digitally, on video and through audio.

Last week at a retreat at the New Haven Zen Center the "guiding teacher" (that's his title) Ken Kessel help participants get unstuck from whatever.  He pointed out that we like to do what we're good at.  That can range from productive tasks like creating marketing materials for law firms to unproductive ones like losing our temper in professional settings.  Like the rest of us, Kessel has to make a living and he does that through being a psychotherapist.

Since lawyers are good a certain ways of thinking and acting which usually aren't marketable in other career paths they will probably have to take an inventory of them (become aware) and then clear off the shelves, replacing them with more marketable behaviors.

Another obstacle in transition is preoccupation with debt.  Debt comes in many forms.  Student loans are just one.  The new parent is looking at future debt  of hundreds of thousands to put the child through college.  The entrepreneur has significant debt now and intends to add to it.  Debt is simply a fact of life, not a determining force.

A third bit of poison in shifts is a fantasy of what could have been in a career in law.  There is an image of this and that, along with regrets about not doing this or that to make it happen.  The reality is that none of us know what the outcomes could have been if we did Y rather than X.

Lawyers and law students in Connecticut can sample what the New Haven Zen Center can offer.  The website provides the schedule for meditation on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, workshops, and attending special events in Providence, Rhode Island.  Get on the mailing list and you will receive zen instruction on a weekly basis.

 

Lawyers: The Comeback Called You

The success game has changed, at least for those of us who had been knocked out of the box.  The way back has been in small steps.  That's the rub in the legal sector.  Many of those who invested themselves in all that is required to practice law had to think big.

But big isn't happening these days, at least not right away.  And it's isn't the result of one central plan (remember what happened with that in communism).  Most often, a comeback is an outcome of a lot of small bets.  Given the volatility of the marketplace, it's reckless, for example, to place a single big bet on being a partner at law firm X or, when that doesn't happen, to pursue in a single-minded fashion a comparable position at another big law firm.

The new way of the professional world is detailed in the book "The Startup of You" by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.  Reading it a few weeks ago confirmed for me that I have been on the right path for the past 18 years.  On a very bad day and night I finally surrendered to the reality that if I was going to turn around my communications boutique it would require living in ambiguity. I had to try out many new tactics in myriad fields that I hadn't operated in previously.

That was grueling.  Today I have a ton of assignments.  If I continue to act like a startup, not an old white woman who had been so successful in the 20th century, the growth of my boutique will continue, I am certain.

Question: Are too many Millennial JDs acting like Old White Men when it comes to approaching making a good living?

BigData, Big Disruption - New forms of competitive advantage

One key to success in the legal sector could be a law firm's access to and use of BigData.  As THE RECORDER reports, firms have already positioned BigData as a source of competitive advantage.

For example, Wilson Sonsini, THE RECORDER tells us, " ... is leveraging its market position in venture funding with a quarterly data dive that anyone can access."

The power of LinkedIn, THE ECONOMIST identified way back a year ago, is its ability to capture and interpret data about global labor trends in real time. This has been a disruptive force in that it can render conventional approaches to data collection and analysis, which can take weeks or months, obsolete.   The White House has been paying attention.  It requested, tells THE ECONOMIST, LinkedIn to calculate, " ... which industries and job titles were experiencing the biggest gains and losses (which) ... LinkedIn can potentially track such changes in real time."

As many know, fund managers have been using predictive analytics for a while to estimate level of risk and level of profit.  In that industry, the players with the best data scientists could be the ones with the funds which draw the most qualified investors and keep them because of high returns.

K-Street or the lobbying space is also being reconfigured because of  recognition of the power of BigData.  POLITICO framed data mining as "lobbying gold." Last month POLITICO reported that, for example, analysing BigData is uncovering "a whole slew of hidden relationships" between advocacy groups and the legislators who can make that happen."

Law firms which don't understand BigData could be a competitive disadvantage.

 

 

Reinventing Law: Leveraging predictive analytics as an edge

The new sandbox players in the legal sector will dominate is predictive analytics.  They will leverage that to get the edge.  In their marketing communications they will simply say - that will be enough - that they have developed proprietary predictive analytics to assess the success odds of a case strategy as well as key tactics; calculate the amount of damages to put on the table for a settlement; and to select members of juries.

No surprise, reports AM LAW DAILY, the Reinventing Law conference took place in Silicon Valley.  In New York or Washington D.C. the settings might have mitigated against the presentation of radical thinking about how to make the business of law more productive and cost efficient.  Manhattan's mindset is money and D.C.'s is power.  To put the legal sector on a survival track requires a willingness to accept BigData as a major part of the solution.

Already BigData is reconfiguring the business of lobbying and how trading decisions are made.  For example, one startup is focusing on improving the assumptions and speeding up the ability to produce information in predictive analytics for institutional investors.  If that happens, hedge funds could have a second golden age.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Is admission free or not?

How many lawyers will it take to determine if admission to the Metropolitan Museum of Art is free and if that is the case does the institution mislead visitors into believing they have to pony up $25 to get in? 

Likely, a lot, just as there have been plenty of lawyers involved in determining if law schools mislead students about the number of graduates who obtained jobs practing law within nine months of graduation.  Incidentally, those lawsuits are still alive in California.

THE NEW YORK TIMES reports that two Met members Theodore Grunewald and Patricia Nicholson have filed a lawsuit contending that the museum uses tactics such as tiny lettering to indicate that paying for admission is not required.  The Met, in turn, argues that it is no longer required by city policy regarding its lease to provide free admission.  However, in reading reports about this weighty issue, I find great ambiguity if admission is indeed free and if there is bad faith in making that known to the public.

Given that at least one side - the Met - has access to top legal minds, this could be a fascinating situation to follow.

"Say-on-pay" Initiatives - New business coming for law firms

After Enron, there was a lot of buzz about reform of corporate governance.  But it never really took off as a successful movement. Even hedge funds have a rough time generating change in corporate systems. Also, it wasn't a topic which was especially compelling.  The influential media never did get excited about it.

Now there's a game-changer.  As BLOOMBERG BUSINESS WEEK reports, the Swiss - yes, the Swiss - passed a referendum on March 3, 2013 giving shareholders enormous power in determining executive compensation as well as items such as golden parachutes.  The article indicates this initiative, called the "Say-on-pay" movement, will catch on globally. 

Law firms representing both management at public corporations and those representing investors are in for new business.  The struggle will be huge.  Let the good times roll.

 

Jennifer Sultan: Make it big once, possible to do it again

Those who never did make it big and probably never will love the media coverage, including here in BUSINESS INSIDER, about Jennifer Sultan's rise, fall, and four-year prison sentence.

At age 25, Sultan sold her tech startup Live Online for about $70 million.  Then, and this is not unusual, she seemed not to be able to handle success.  At her bottom she became addicted to pain killers.  The police nabbed her trying to sell those and firearms.

Prison provides this 38-year-old time to reflect on her bad moves and plan course correction.  Like Malcolm X she could emerge from the slammer a transformed, stronger, more influential human being.  That could mean she could start up another enterprise.  Or she could become a charismatic leader.

This blog wishes Sultan well.  Its founder has had her own share of success followed by hard times.

Bernie Madoff: Lucky devil doesn't have to worry about funding retirement

Soon enough we could see defense lawyers promoting themselves with this kind of boast regarding outcomes:

97.3 percent of clients receive sentences extending way way beyond their expected life span. You too can live out your golden years as guest of the state.

Among the many media outlets, THE ECONOMIST reports how the prison population is growing around the world.  There are myriad reasons for this. They range from miscreants being apprehended in their older years when cold cases are solved to harsh sentences having been handed out during law-and-order times. 

Although at first prison might not seem like a desirable retirement spot, it is improving in that category.  Laws about humane treatment and public opinion stirred up by liberal media such as MENTAL FLOSS are forcing corrections institutions to accommodate the elderly.

From what we read of Ponzi master Bernie Madoff's new life it appears he has it made in prison.  He has made new friends, receives psychotherapy, and his emotional anguish over his son's suicide was tended to by the chaplain.  Out here, because the plain-vanilla aged person like myself is a second-class citizen and our nest egg has been depleted, it's increasingly difficult to access the high quality lifestyle enjoyed by Madoff and some other prisoners.

If I commit a non-violent crime like embezzlement, can add on enough other felony offenses, and get a good lawyer I may get lucky.  I could wind up at a kind of Camp Cupcake for the rest of my years on planet earth.  Believe me, after two horrific downturns in the 21st century I could use the complimentary psychotherapy provided in correctional institutions.  The way I could give back to the system is coach inmates, guards, and other personnel in the fundamentals of writing what's called "creative non-fiction."  Right on and Write on.  Let the good times roll, again.