Masterclass: Fee negotiation and pricing for law firms – 12 March, London

Posted on 15 January 2013 by tonyreiss
Coins

Better fee negotiations lead to greater margins

The brochure from ARK, the Masterclass sponsors, says about this Masterclass:

“A recent study has found that the UK loses £17 billion per year through bad negotiation. With an increasingly competitive legal market and clients looking for more cost certainty and availability of alternate billing structures, law firms are under a lot of pressure to maintain fee rate levels. It is, now more than ever, essential for law firms to have a comprehensive understanding of the techniques of fee negotiation to ensure profitability.

This masterclass, led by award winning law firm coach and highly experienced law firm consultant Tony Reiss, will enable you to negotiate fees for a win-win scenario where both you and your clients walk away satisfied. You will learn the theory behind effective negotiation in the legal sector, and with rigorous practical exercises you will master the art of putting the theory into practice. Tony will also take you through the relationship between fee negotiation and pricing, showing you how you can gain the best possible profit from an instruction. The information will be particularly relevant for partners, managing partners, heads of training who will impart the knowledge and all fee earners who are challenged with clients asking for more and wanting to pay less.

This highly interactive masterclass will enable you to:

  • Understand the techniques of fee negotiation to ensure profitability
  • Establish the value of the work in the mind of the client
  • Determine pricing when bidding for work
  • Examine the pros and cons of different pricing options
  • Impart the art of re-negotiating when circumstances change

Previous attendees found this masterclass to be “lively, quite a contrast from the more ‘formulaic’ and soporific presentations” and “very engaging, warm, informative and supportive”.

Attendance at this masterclass qualifies for 5 hours and 20 mins of SRA CPD (at intermediate/advanced level). To claim your hours, quote provider code: EEW/ARCL.

Masterclass leader: Tony Reiss

Tony started his career with Procter & Gamble. He was a senior consultant with Coopers & Lybrand working with the BBC, BP, BT, Prudential, Rank, Shell, and the London Stock Exchange before becoming Head of Marketing for Deloitte’s management consultancy. Tony has since accrued 20 years experience assisting executives to become more effective leaders and develop more profitable business from stronger client relationships.

In 1990 Tony joined Cameron Markby Hewitt (now CMS Cameron McKenna). He introduced project management techniques at Camerons to improve profitability, the firm received a National Training Award and he introduced planning processes that contributed to Camerons being the first professional firm in the City to be accredited as an investor in people. He led the subsequent project to develop the brand values and visual identity of Cameron McKenna.

He is a qualified Master Coach and accredited to use the MBTI psychometric indicator. Tony studied management studies at Templeton College, Oxford and St Catherine’s College, Oxford. He has an MPhil from Reading University.”

Further details about the masterclass at http://www.ark-group.com/mp_introduction.asp?ac=1384&nc=1&fc=167

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Making 2013 a more Fulfilling Year for Lawyers!

Posted on 3 January 2013 by tonyreiss
English: Michelangelo's David (original statue...

Michelangelo – inside the slab of marble is a beautiful statue

What will 2013 bring for most lawyers? Well, it has to be true that if you approach the year in the same way as you did 2012 you’re highly likely to get similar results. If you didn’t find 2012 a positive experience, full of personal growth, read on…..

An important aspect of our approach to work is what we might call our attitude. You can describe this as how we choose to see things and how we choose to react to situations and people.

The choices made by many lawyers leave them feeling somewhat flat, pessimistic, anxious or simply too burdened to be really happy in their roles.

You might argue that these feelings are realistic and normal. After all, there’s all that pressure to hit targets, all that responsibility and all those decisions that have to be taken without enough information. Then there’s so little feedback on your performance – that’s bound to lead to some anxiety.

But I sense that many partners spend too much of their time thinking about negative things – about all the things that are going wrong, such as a star associate leaving, a client making you re-tender for the work. Then there’s all the things that could go wrong – that’s an endless list!

In my one-to-one coaching work I find it helpful to think about each partner as two people. There’s the partner and there’s the voice in their head!

The voice in their head says things like:

  • “The other partners are better at me at X, Y, Z”
  • “I should be more knowledgeable or skilled to do this work better”
  • “I ought to get more profitable clients, otherwise my position in the firm will be weakened”
  • “I might mess this transaction up and get blamed”

If you’re wondering what I mean about the voice in the head – it‘s that voice!

All these ‘oughts’ and ‘shoulds’ and focus on blame and faults create a negative spiral. It takes the spring out of your step. Frankly it can make you less fun to be around! And much less of a successful entrepreneur.

So what is the alternative? Here are some suggestions – all of which have made a huge difference to partners I have worked with.

  1. See the glass being at least half full – not half empty! Focus on what’s good and on your strengths.
  2. Take yourself less seriously. When you hear that inner voice whispering in your ear, don’t beat yourself up, but have a little chuckle to yourself.
  3. See all that wonderful potential in your associates. Praise people whenever you can. Say ‘well done’ to yourself. As Michelangelo said: ‘Inside the slab of marble is a beautiful statue – my job is simply to chip away all the unwanted stone’.
  4. Lead by example. If the partners are going around being miserable, it’ll be contagious. The whole firm will become infected
  5. Challenge all the assumptions you’ve made about who is good and who isn’t – about who likes you and who doesn’t. Most of these assumptions are likely to be stories you initially made up and have sought to reinforce. Be open to the possibilities that there is more good and more potential out there.
  6. Have a vision for your team. Everybody wants to know where you’re sailing the ship – particularly those more junior than you working in the equivalent of the engine room.

As Ben Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, says about teaching: ‘If the eyes of your students aren’t shining, ask yourself the question – how am I being that stops their eyes shining?’

Finally, remember that you do have a choice!

Here’s to a better, more rewarding, more positive, more fulfilling 2013 with many more possibilities!

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Consultative Selling Using MBTI Psychological Profiling

Posted on 19 December 2012 by tonyreiss

There are four recognised stages to selling where there may be important aspects of the buyer’s psychological profile to consider, as follows:

  1. Initiating the relationship
  2. Investigating client needs
  3. Proposing a course of action
  4. Obtaining agreement and contracting

My overall premise is that it’s useful to flex our style depending on the nature of the people we are trying to sell to.

There are lots of different psychological frameworks, but I’m going to use the Myers Briggs (MBTI) one because it is one of the best researched and documented.

For those unfamiliar with MBTI, here is a summary of the different psychological types of buyer:

Focus of Attention Extravert (E) – prefer to talk things out Introvert (I)– prefer to think things through
Pay Attention to….. Sensing (S) – practical facts, in the past and present Intuition (N) – the big picture and what could be
Base their Decisions on…. Thinking (T) – logical implications Feeling (F) – the impact on people
Their Preferred Way of Working Judging (J) – organised, planned with a joy for closure Perceiving (P) – flexible, spontaneous with a joy for processing
  1. Initiating the relationship

Research is important to ensure targeting the right companies and people. This avoids wasting time. One client flew two senior advisors to the head office of a major computer company to discover that the service they wanted to talk about had been outsourced!

Once appropriate targets have been recognised, prepare questions for an initial phone call and meeting.

An initial approach might be made on the telephone or using email. Before making your approach, consider what’s in it for the prospect to spend time talking to you. Do you offer insights, connections or opportunities for the prospective buyer to meet their own targets or look good internally?

From your research, try to find five topics that might be of interest and pick one of them with which to lead your conversation.

Here’s an example. PwC were talking to a leading international law firm. They had done their research on topical issues. As the fork was lifted for the starter, the Senior Partner at PwC asked the Senior Partner of the law firm: “Tell me. What’s your thinking about LLP status?” Sure enough, three years later, this led to work for PwC.

How Psychological Profiling Affects Stage 1 of the Selling Approach:

  • Research is important to try to find out the psychological style of the prospect you’re meeting. The clues are in the language you hear and behaviour you see.
  • Extraverts (E) will want to talk everything through and may prefer phone calls to email.
  • Introverts (I) will want to think things through and may not be as forthcoming on the phone. They may want to think about things after they meet you and get back to you. They may prefer email to a phone call

2. Investigating client needs

Having got a meeting, you need to deliver what you promised. But the main skills required now are primarily questioning and listening. You need to establish your credibility and build rapport and a sense of being a trusted adviser  As the trust develops the prospective buyer will share their buying criteria.

The role of the professional sales person is to facilitate the buyer thinking all this through – not overtly to push their services! This may take several meetings and involve introducing colleagues.

It should be the prospective client that is doing most of the talking at this stage – not the seller!

How Psychological Profiling Affects Stage 2 of the Selling Approach:

  • Prospects with a Sensing (S) preference will want a lot more specific information
  • Prospects with an Intuitive (N) preference will want the big picture

3. Proposing a course of action

A proposal should be offered only after the prospect has expressed interest. The best proposals don’t start with a list of how good your firm is. Instead they should open with establishing that you understand the clients’ needs (those of the organisation and of the buyers themselves, as individuals) and show clearly what tyou can offer in terms of features (about the firm) and benefits (how the firm’s offerings benefit the client organisations and key individuals – in other words, the value propositions).

But most of all, the effective seller will demonstrate their capability by providing evidence. Selling is more effective if it’s not just ‘blah, blah, blah’ but also contains something such as ‘Here – let me show you….’

How Psychological Profiling Affects Stage 3 of the Selling Approach:

  • For Sensing/Thinking prospects, remember the FACTS, be practical, keep it short and business-like
  • For Sensing/Feeling prospects, remember to offer PERSONAL SERVICE, emphasise loyalty and build a relationship
  • For Intuitive/Feeling prospects, support their VISION, emphasise personal connectedness and focus on harmony
  • For Intuitive/Thinking prospects, provide LOGICAL OPTIONS, project into the future and help them think through pros and cons.

4. Obtaining agreement and contracting

It is quite likely that the prospective buyer will have some doubts about saying ‘yes’ just like that. When objections are expressed, it can feel like rejections to those that are selling. But they are often what are called ‘buying signals’. If the buyer was not interested they wouldn’t be haggling!

The sales person should firstly listen and acknowledge the buyers comments, perhaps asking some gently probing questions to understand better what lies behind their concerns. Then revised options should be offered with both buyer and seller offering thoughts on alternative ways forward.

If you are trying to overcome major objections and persuade at this stage then something’s wrong. You have probably missed understanding an important client need and you may need to go back to stage 2 to clarify the buyer’s needs.

You should gently seek to ‘close’ the sale. I don’t mean an old style, somewhat pressurized ‘closing’ (as in ‘Would you like it delivered on Wednesday or Friday?’ or ‘Would you like one dozen or two?’). This should be a process designed to reach a collaborative agreement on a way forward.

You should be acting as a facilitator and assume a positive development (assumptive closing). Complex systems, such as selling legal services, need help in arriving at good decisions. Try ‘How would you like to proceed and make a decision?’

How Psychological Profiling Affects Stage 4 of the Selling Approach:

In a Judging (J) mode, the prospective client may:

  • Move more quickly to closure
  • Find loose ends bothersome
  • Want clarity about who has control over what
  • Want a clear schedule

In a Perceiving (P) mode, the prospective client may:

  • Resist closure
  • Want to spend more time on more options, information
  • Bring up side issues
  • Resist having a schedule for moving forward

Having started to establish the role of ‘trusted adviser , you should now focus on fulfilling the provision of legal services and delighting the client. This may involve a good deal of internal coordination and good project management skills.

Good client advisers should continue to take responsibility for checking the quality of service being delivered, even if by a different team.

After-sales service is likely to be particularly important for those with a Feelings (F) preference.

If you can spot these psychological types in your business development activity and reflect back the style you’re noticing, you will develop more rapport and win more work.

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Are some of your lawyers a bit bored? Might this cause some under-performance issues?

Posted on 16 December 2012 by tonyreiss
This chimpanzee was enjoying a snooze this sun...

Nothing much to do – have a nap!

If they are bored, let’s start by exploring what might be causing the boredom?

One of the subjects that one of my partners Sally Woodward and I are really interested in is motivation – in particular, what motivates and demotivates lawyers. We’ve asked hundreds of lawyers ‘what motivates you?’ and have used a diagnostic tool to help us develop a quantitative response.

And what are the answers? Well, whereas it’s important to recognise that we’re all unique, most professional lawyers are motivated by the challenge inherent in the work itself – in other words, by having opportunities to solve difficult problems and see the result of their efforts. Aspects such as High Pay, Congeniality, and Status can be important for some but are less important as motivators for what you might call ‘the average partner’.

Assuming these results are right, I believe that many partners are bored and demotivated because of the lack of variety in their work. They experience too many similar matters requiring similar documents to be drafted and similar issues to be negotiated. Where’s the challenge and reward in that?

Another related issue causing the problem is the lack of career planning in most partnerships. You get made a partner and that’s about it. I come across many partners in their 40’s who have reached the top of the lock-step and begin to wonder ‘is this all there is?’

You might be made head of a practice group or something similar, but many aren’t attracted to this role. It’s seen as more admin work and a source of hassle typically having to deal with intransigent fellow partners. No thank you!

Neuroscientists are also gathering increasing evidence that suggests we are stimulated by the act of learning. It’s interesting to reflect on what opportunities firms provide their lawyers to continue learning and developing new talents once they are made partners.

What might be making matters worse is the current difficult economic market. To avoid taking risks, firms may be discouraging partners from experimenting in their approach to solving client issues. And experimenting can be fun for many people.

What makes this issue more important is that bored partners tend to have lower performance figures. Firms might be getting better at managing out poor performers, but surely there’s a better way, perhaps by avoiding the problem in the first place?

Where’s the passion? How to find the passion?

I’ve coached more than 100 partners over the last few years and this issue comes up a lot. As an aside, when I was asked the other day what I did for a living, I found myself saying ‘I help partners find their passion’. It got a strange reaction, understandably, but fortunately I was able to go on and explain.

To help partners find their passion, not surprisingly for a coach, I use a series of prompt questions.

To capture their technical strengths, I ask them to go through their matters over the last 3-5 years and ask ‘what is the basis of your expertise?’ An interesting follow-up question is ‘is there anything that, if we added it to your expertise, would make you a real ‘wow’ in the marketplace?’ For some, for example, this might be leading a particular type of cross-border transaction.

Then we look at their skills. I ask ‘what are good at and where are your development needs?’ For one commercial litigator who didn’t have any particular focus in his practice we discovered that he was good at IT and was a bit of a whizz at putting order into reams of paperwork. We turned this into a substantial element in their role in the firm as well as outside the firm in various working parties.

I also look at their network. Who do they have good relationships with inside the firm and outside? Notice the reference to ‘inside the firm’. For many partners, particularly specialists such as tax lawyers, litigators etc, it may well be more important to have good internal relationships to develop their practice. It’s your fellow partners that will feed you lots of work if you go about building relationships with them in the right way.

Finally I ask that vital question ‘what gives you joy?’ If we can’t find that in a partner’s career, it’s unlikely that the career will be easy to sustain.

So what can firms do about the boredom?

Here are a few suggestions:

  1. Talk about ‘motivation’ at partner reviews. Your senior partners should be thinking about ways in which other partners can be stretched, challenged and motivated.
  2. Firms should consider introducing a career path for partners. Alternative roles, which partners could be offered include:
    • Client Relationship Partner – with the objective of ensuring key clients know they are loved and introducing more services to them as required
    • Leading a project to develop a new methodology (eg to find cheaper ways of working)
    • Becoming an ambassador in the market place, perhaps chairing a trade association
    • Client secondments – yes, even at partner level
    • Office secondments – the bigger firms send partners out to China, Dubai etc for short periods
    • Building academic links for the firm – so your firm is seen as ahead of the pack.
    • Producing technical bulletins – to ensure your firm has a top reputation in your marketplace.
    • Pro bono or charitable work – a way of giving meaning to legal work and giving to society
    • Firms could consider introducing more training, personal development and coaching for partners
    • Firms could encourage creative thinking and experimentation – particularly if this might lead to finding better and more efficient ways of delivering client service.

One eminent consulting firm has created the role of ‘elder’ for partners towards the end of their careers. Their prime job is to ensure the firm deepens its sense of identity and holds on to its culture and values. What a great and rewarding job that could be, for the right partner of course!

And what about giving partners time off to enjoy a hobby? Motivation studies confirm that jobs can’t give us all that we need. One of my fellow singers in The Bach Choir is an eminent Judge. It takes some juggling of diary commitments, but it’s do-able and the singing helps beat the stress!

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If Tesco ran a Law Firm…..

Posted on 9 December 2012 by tonyreiss
Tesco trolleys

Trolleys ready for those legal docs

When you get right down to it, law firms buy hours from their staff and then go out and try to sell them. Just like Tesco buy and sell apples. It’s a crude analogy but it’s essentially a similar activity.

The big difference is that Tesco go to great lengths to buy the right number of anything and minimise wastage. Surely law firms would benefit from having lower fixed costs and higher variable costs. In other words supplement existing staff number with a more flexible resource of qualified lawyers or paralegals.

Let’s look in a bit more detail at these hours…..

Assuming time off for holidays, training, sickness, we might expect 46 weeks’ worth of work. With five working days a week, that’s 230 days. At the senior level, and with the high salaries and rewards being offered, we might expect 10 hours a day in the office. So that’s 2,300 total hours per person a year.

So what might we think is a fair target for the number of hours to be charged to clients? 1,900, 1,700, 1,500 hours? It turns out that a recent survey for about 70 firms in the £2 million -£10 million turnover range showed an average of 874 chargeable hours. Surveys for the Law Management Section of the Law Society show similar figures. These seem worrying low to me.

What should be done? It seems to me that firms have a choice of two approaches:

  • Buy in fewer apples
  • Do some more marketing to sell more apples

Then how would Tesco respond to the increasing pressure to keep costs down? They would do the following:

  • Analyse what people do with their time
  • Determine if the activity adds value or not
  • If it does add value, they would work out how to do more of it
  • If it doesn’t add value, they would eliminate it (unless it was a compulsory activity, in which case they would streamline it or automate it)

It makes me wonder what lawyers are doing with all their non-chargeable time. Are they spending their time adding value?  If you’re wondering what they could be doing, here is a list of useful activities for non-chargeable time:

  • Developing precedents to help do work more quickly
  • Capturing useful knowhow from work they’ve done on recent matters
  • Doing research on industry developments
  • Helping to produce any insights for potential thought leadership material, so partners can keep in touch with clients and provide useful information between active engagements

I don’t see a lot of such activities going on and I’m not sure why it isn’t.

I started by questioning how Tesco might run a law firm. The truth is that the Cooperative, with all its skills in logistics and efficiency, already is! They’re offering probate, personal injury, employment law and conveyancing amongst other services. Others are likely to follow!

This article was inspired by material presented by Barry Wilkinson, partner at Wilkinson Read & Partners at the 8th Annual Managing Partner Conference on Financial and Business Planning for Law Firms on 6 December 2012.

Other insights from Wilkinson Read are at http://www.wilkinsonread.co.uk/news/category/blog

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Why Lawyers Don’t Give Constructive Feedback

Posted on 30 November 2012 by tonyreiss
English: Photo of a bunch of cushions that I t...

Don’t vent frustrations – hit cushions first!

I am not sure why senior lawyers aren’t giving their junior lawyers more useful feedback. After all, we know:

  • how important it is for lawyers to get everything right and manage risk
  • how important it is to work efficiently, particularly given fee pressure from clients
  • how important it is for people to be motivated, so they give their best.

Surely senior lawyers can be playing a more active role in coaching and giving feedback? The alternative is to do nothing, take a view that the other person is incompetent and just not work with them in future. That’s such a waste of talent and potentially rather hurtful to the junior lawyer.

When I deliver workshops on this topic, I ask lawyers to remember back to times when they’ve received feedback. I ask what the other person did when the feedback was helpful and motivating and what they did when it was unhelpful and demotivating. I usually get a list a bit like this:

  • The feedback needs to be balanced – we need to hear positive feedback to be able to take on board negative feedback. Otherwise we tend to argue back, saying something like ‘but I only did it like that because…..’
  • The feedback needs to be specific – otherwise it isn’t heard or understood. To hear ‘I didn’t like how you presented in the client meeting’ isn’t helpful. But to hear ‘ I noticed that the client looked confused and asked lots of questions when you presented the financing options’ would usually be more helpful.
  • The feedback should be provided in a timely fashion – not ‘in that meeting a year ago…..’ when it’s highly likely you’ve forgotten the details
  • The feedback should be factual – not judgmental. To hear ‘you are slow’ is potentially demotivating. The statement ‘the draft document was expected on Thursday and you delivered it on Friday’ is not judgemental .
  • Feedback needs to be delivered in manageable chunks  – otherwise key points are likely to be missed. If you find yourself saying ‘…. And the 92nd point I want to make is….’, you know you’re risking over doing it!
  • Another important point is that a good feedback review meeting should include checking out that the feedback has been understood.
  • A final point is that, in more sophisticated practices (such as the Big 4 accounting firms), the culture might allow the feedback process and content to be more controlled by the learner. The supervisor might ask at the start of a project ‘what role would you like to play?’, ‘What support would you like from me?’ and ‘What would you like feedback on?’

This is a good list. It shows that lawyers know what works for them and what doesn’t work.  They know in their heads how to give feedback. So what’s stopping them giving it?

Giving Difficult Messages

During my workshops I’m invariably asked how to give difficult messages. I think it is widely recognised that many lawyers might seem super confident, but deep down they can be rather fragile.

The first thing I say is that it makes a big difference if you are motivated by a genuine desire to help. What I see happening a good deal day-to-day isn’t really feedback – it’s the more senior lawyer venting their frustrations! My advice is not to do that if you want to help the other person. Go home and punch a few cushions to get any annoyance out of your system. Prepare your feedback session and have an unemotional and constructive discussion the next day.

Then I would seek the recipient’s views on how things went. I would specifically ask ‘what went well’ and ‘what they might have done differently’. On at least half the occasions, they say what I was going to say. So that makes the whole conversation a lot easier.

Ideally negative points should be sandwiched between positive points. For example you might start by talking about doing a good job here, then point out that this area needs work, and finish by saying well done for doing that. But this approach needs to be genuine. A junior lawyer can tell if you’re just using this as a technique and not meaning it. Your positive points need to be heart-felt and real.

If recipients push back and deny there is a problem, they may have a lack of self-confidence. Show you value their work and express confidence they can deal with the issue.

Once the issues have been raised, a joint discussion needs to be held on what could be done differently in future. What tends to happen in real life is the senior lawyer tells the junior what to do differently. This doesn’t work as well because it doesn’t generate as much ownership of the solution. Senior lawyers would benefit from asking before telling.

But you need to be realistic. Some conversations, for whatever reasons, are likely to fail however well they are planned. Balance your effort to deal with the problem and maintain the relationship – not an easy task!

A Process for Giving Feedback

So in a nutshell, here’s my suggested process for having a constructive feedback discussion:

  • Prepare beforehand
  • Ask for recipient’s views on what was done well and what could have been done differently
  • Deliver your comments (balanced, specific etc)
  • Discuss jointly ways of changing performance
  • Check understanding, commitment and confidence

So Why Don’t Lawyers Give Constructive Feedback

I think several factors are at play here.

1. The culture in law firms doesn’t encourage it – their boss didn’t give it to them and we all tend to model the behaviour of our seniors

2. Junior lawyers don’t ask for feedback – like most human beings they judge that it might be better to imagine how you’re doing rather than risk being told

3. Senior lawyers fear that the conversation might be difficult. Emotions might get raised.

But now we know how to do it, let’s see more conversations offering constructive feedback in law firms. Partners should lead by example. It may take a few minutes, but it will lead to a greater transfer of knowledge and skills and lead to less time wasting in future. After all, an important part of the role of senior lawyers is to develop the talent of the junior lawyers.

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Coaching Support for Salaried Partners to Become Equity Partners

Posted on 12 November 2012 by tonyreiss
Juggling balls

Partners need to be good jugglers!

We recognise the challenges that partners face making transitions in their roles.

Partners you have promoted have hopefully successfully transitioned from being senior associates and are now taking greater responsibility, particularly on matters and with clients. Lateral hires have hopefully successfully adapted to your new culture and ways of doing things.

But now there’s the big one – to build a book of business and a team to do the work – to justify being rewarded with being an owner of the business and sharing the risks and hopefully rewards with your fellow owners.

Where can new partners go to get that extra support to make the transition to being an equity partner a success?

Sherwood offers a 6 step coaching programme to partners in transition called ‘ From Salary to Equity’. Here’s what we find works well. One of the reasons why we think it works is because we work on their commitment as well as developing their intellectual understanding as to how to develop a legal practice.

Throughout the coaching meetings, we would look at the following issues:

  • Where are you ‘on your journey’ from employee to owner?
  • What remains to be done/demonstrated?
  • Reviewing your ‘personal business plan’ and your resources for doing this
  • Identifying and leveraging strengths
  • Identifying and dealing with gaps/obstacles
  • Keeping yourself sane, honest and on track
  • Looking ahead – what happens after you’ve ‘made it’ and how can we stabilize the changes

A typical programme of six meetings might go through the following steps. This looks like a logical process – in practise the focus of the discussions can be rather more iterative, as areas need to be revisited, perhaps in greater depth.

Step 1 – Clarity – What’s Required?

Potential Issues: Anxiety, Confusion, Stress

Desired Outcome:

  • A focus on areas of strengths
  • A review of opportunities on the marketplace – which types of work and sectors offer growth, profitability and a good fit with other investment areas in the firm
  • Clear goals

Step 2 – Taking Stock

Potential Issues: Anxiety, Confusion, Drowning

Desired Outcome:

  • Clarity on the source of passion
  • Recognition that the partner has found a sustainable practice to focus on
  • Hopeful, positive energy

Step 3 – Creating a Strategy

Potential Issues: Vision, criteria for decision-making

Desired Outcome:

  • To maintain an optimistic demeanour
  • Getting clarity on appropriate criteria for decision-making
  • The production of an action plan

Step 4 – Knowledge, Skills and Mindset

Potential Issues: Lack of confidence, not sure about best approach

Desired Outcome:

  • Skills refresher – perhaps on presenting with confidence or pitching
  • Tips – this is how you might approach this important phone call or meeting
  • Opportunities to practise

Step 5 – Taking Action

Potential Issues: Juggling the workload, delegating/supervising, building a loyal team

Desired Outcome:

  • Early successes
  • A sense of progress and momentum
  • Growing confidence – ‘I can Do It!’

Step 6 – On a Roll

Potential Issues: keeping to the plan, not being distracted, following up to ensure changes stick

Desired Outcome:

  • Sense of success
  • Growing confidence
  • An ability to share this newly found confidence and skills and coach others.

Would your firm prefer to have more higher-performing equity partners? If so, give us a call. There’s lots more we can tell you about how coaching works.

We even offer a free chemistry meeting to see if you think it will work!

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Take the Time Recording Challenge

Posted on 29 October 2012 by tonyreiss

You can’t bill what you don’t record! Most firms recognise that the largest source of leakage of chargeable time is the time that should have been recorded but wasn’t.

Take this test to see what you would record. The answers aren’t straightforward. Discuss your answers with your colleagues. Agree a policy. I’ve tried this test with firms and it has helped.

I have some suggested answers. If you email me and provide your email address, I’ll send them to you. No it’s your turn…..

1          You spend an hour with a partner putting together a quote for a matter.

Do you:

(a)          Each record one hour chargeable time

(b)          Record no chargeable time yourself but let the partner record one hour chargeable time

(c)          Neither of you record the time as chargeable

(d)          None of the above

2          The first meeting on the matter is at the client’s offices.  You travel there directly from home.  This takes you 30 minutes longer than your usual journey to work.

Do you:

(a)          Not record anything

(b)          Record the full time of your journey chargeable time

(c)          Record the 30 minutes extra chargeable time

(d)          None of the above

3          You spend 10 minutes briefing a junior lawyer about some research you want her to do.  She spends 3 hours doing the research and does not find an answer to the point.  You do 30 minutes of research yourself and find the answer.  You then spend 20 minutes with the junior lawyer talking about the answer and giving some general advice about how to research effectively.

Do you:

(a)          Record 30 minutes chargeable time

(b)          Record 40 minutes chargeable time

(c)          Record 1 hour chargeable time

(d)          None of the above

4          At the end of the day, you tidy your office.  This takes 20 minutes of which 10 minutes is spent organising and filing papers relating to the matter.

Do you:

(a)          Record 10 minutes to the matter and 10 minutes as management time

(b)          Record 20 minutes as management time

(c)          Not record any time

(d)          None of the above

5          A week later, you meet the client for lunch.  The journey to and from the restaurant takes 30 minutes.  Lunch takes 60 minutes of which 20 minutes is spent talking about the matter, the remaining 40 exchanging general news about the client and the firm.

Do you:

(a)          Record 90 minutes chargeable time (and make sure client pays for the meal)

(b)          Record 50 minutes chargeable time and 40 minutes marketing time

(c)          Record 20 minutes chargeable time

(d)          None of the above

6          You attend a client meeting, in your offices, with the matter partner and an IP lawyer.  You do not participate in the meeting, which lasts for one hour.

Do you:

(a)          Do not record the meeting as chargeable (but put it under another category)

(b)          Record 60 minutes chargeable time

(c)          Do not record the time at all

(d)          None of the above

7          At a training meeting, a colleague talks about an issue that is directly relevant to the matter on which you are working.  Your colleague took two hours to research the issue.  The result is that you now only have to spend 15 minutes to research the issue, rather than 2 hours 15 minutes.

Do you:

(a)          Record 15 minutes chargeable time yourself and persuade your colleague to record 2 hours to the matter

(b)          Record 15 minutes plus the time spent in training as chargeable time

(c)          Record only 15 minutes chargeable time

(d)          None of the above

8          The junior lawyer working with you asks you how she is progressing on the matter.  You spend 30 minutes with her, giving general feedback on her performance, the majority of which relates to tasks she has performed on the matter.

Do you:

(a)          Record 30 minutes chargeable time to the matter

(b)          Record just under 30 minutes chargeable time to the matter

(c)          Record the time as management time

(d)          None of the above

9          The client calls you to provide some facts that will be included in a document you are drafting.  The telephone call lasts for 2 minutes.

Do you:

(a)          Not bother to record the time at all

(b)          Record 2 minutes chargeable time

(c)          Record the time as chargeable time and round up to the nearest time recording unit (e.g. 6 minutes)

(d)          None of the above

10        You complete the matter.  You and the matter partner have a lunch meeting with the client to discuss the firm’s performance.

Do you:

(a)          Record the meeting as chargeable time (and imatterly persuade the client to pay)

(b)          Record the meeting as investment time (i.e. marketing)

(c)          Do not record the meeting

(d)          None of the above

How did you get on? Some of them are quite tricky aren’t they? Suggested answers are available. Please forward your email address and I’ll send them.

Notes:

  1. I’m grateful to Robert Mowbray of Taylor Mowbray LLP for designing the original version of this quiz and allowing me to use it. Please contact Robert at rmowbray@taylormowbray.com
  2. Readers interested in this issue and based in the US might be interested to contact Todd Gerstein. Todd co-founded Smart WebParts in 2008 with the vision to provide innovative solutions that increase profits for law firms, accounting firms and professional service organizations. Formerly, Todd was the Managing Consultant at Legaltec.com for 28 years where he helped AMLAW 100 & 200 firms implement financial, practice management and back office applications. He was the first Director of Finance at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in New York (in the early days of law firm management) and the Executive Director for Feldman, Waldman & Kline in San Francisco. Todd holds a B.A. from the Ohio State University in Computer Science and a M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Denver. Todd can be reached attgerstein@smartwebparts.com.

     

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Managing Your Workload and Minimising Stress

Posted on 28 October 2012 by tonyreiss

How’s your work-life balance? Are you saying ‘yes – I’ll take on that extra job’ too easily.

With the economic downturn still affecting professional firms, the pressure is on for management to get partners, associates and staff to work harder.

But some of us get more overloaded than others and the mythical work-life balance can too easily go out of the window.

Many of us like to be wanted and want to be liked. We can say ‘yes’ too easily to taking on another job.

Many of us don’t like saying ‘no’. Maybe they won’t ask us again. Maybe I should make my chargeable hours figures look even better – particularly if I want to get considered for promotion.

Here are some tips for how to avoid getting overloaded and managing your time effectively:

  1. Saying ‘No’

This doesn’t have to be done in a brutal way. You don’t have to be rude. Sometimes it’s possible to suggest other ways the other person can get what they are looking for. If you feel the pull to wanting to say ‘yes – I’ll do it’, ask yourself what that is about. Why are you feeling that? Try to deal with that feeling to help you make a more balanced decision.

2. Asking ‘What for?’

You might get asked to attend various meetings or be on conference calls. Rather than just saying ‘yes’, try asking a few questions, such as:

  • What’s the purpose of the meeting?
  • How long will we need?

Consider whether you can attend for a single item of the agenda and then leave the meeting rather than having to sit through a whole lot of irrelevant discussions.

  1. Asking: ’Does it have to be me?’

We all have the tendency to have illusions of grandeur. It’s as if we’re saying to ourselves ‘they asked me because I’m the best or only person who can do this work properly’. But the truth is that others could help.

Suggest someone else who could help instead of you. An alternative is to delegate one of your existing tasks to someone else to free-up your time for this task. Try to operate a ‘one in – one out’ policy in terms of workload!

  1. Who owns the problem?

Try to be helpful, but avoid taking the problem from the other person. Leave responsibility with its rightful owner. One of the least helpful responses you can make for yourself when you’re already busy is ‘Leave it with me – I’ll sort it out!’

  1. Finding (making) private space

Above all, you need to be on top of your calendar. Make sure you reserve time in it so that you can get the essential work done, such as drafting and reviewing documents.

Try hiding away in meeting rooms and not getting distracted by calls or emails to get essential work done.

Some partners block out time each month so that they ensure doing business development.

  1. Re-stating your priorities

Have time to take stock. Review your lists of tasks and priorities. Some of us are probably better at lists than others. But when you’re busy, lists are essential to ensure you don’t drop a ball!

Many of us can feel powerless when managing our workloads. I realise that it’s easy writing a list of suggestions such as these and it’s harder saying ‘no’ in practice.

Workplace stress caused by an unsuitable work ...

Workplace stress

But the truth is we need to take responsibility for our wellbeing and with a combination of tact and assertion a more balanced lifestyle is possible.

Posted in Coaching and Training, Leadership and Management, Managing Change | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Lawyers – Don’t Focus on Selling – Help Buyers Buy!

Posted on 25 October 2012 by tonyreiss
[Drug salesman]

Snake Oil Anyone?

I think it’s a shame that most law firms feel uncomfortable using the word ‘selling’. But I can understand their reasons. After all, there’s lots of empirical evidence that suggests that it’s more effective to focus on helping the buyer buy rather than pushing your products and services.

Let’s look at selling through the buyer’s perspective. Those with responsibility for legal procurement (General Counsel, senior management etc) are typically busy people who are juggling lots of balls. They have several pulls on their time and most want an easier life with less hassle. They also want to add value by helping the organisation meet its business goals. They want to be seen to be doing a good job and be rewarded with a bonus.

If we examine this is further detail, we can recognise that there are three critical stages to appointing new lawyers, as follows:

  1. Buyer becoming clearer about their needs to do something different (eg raise finance, address a compliance issue, set up a new tax structure, address a dispute, appoint a new panel firm etc)
  2. Buyer weighing up their options (eg do it themselves or appoint external counsel)
  3. Buyer making their selection and negotiating with a provider of legal  services

I look at each of these stages and comment on the ideal role of the lawyer in private practice in each stage.

1.       Buyer becoming clearer about their needs to do something different

What most GC’s would appreciate is receiving some assistance with assessing where they should focus their attention to maximise the value they provide their business. This is where an external counsel may be helpful because, by being outside the day-to-day detail, they should be better at seeing the wood from the trees. Partners can potentially provide insights into:

  • Areas of risk to the business
  • What is truly important to focus on rather than just nice to have
  • The levels of urgency that should be applied

The skills needed by the lawyer during this stage are:

  • To ask good insightful questions to ascertain what’s really important to the client and who is going to be involved in making purchasing decisions
  • To listen really well particularly to any concerns they have
  • To probe so that points made by the client are fully understood
  • To offer suggestions as to how the client could best proceed.

2.       Buyer weighing up their options

Once the buyer has decided to act, they then decide what actions to take and with what resource. Will they do it all themselves? Do they need to appoint the best lawyers in the land because they judge the issue is so serious? Do they just need a team of paralegals to churn out some relatively straightforward documents? If they outsource the work to a firm, what other good things could they do with their time?

To make these decisions they will weigh up the risks and benefits of each option. There are risks to the business to consider. Perhaps more importantly there are personal risks. This sometimes happens in a rigorous and explicit manner, but it’s usually done using more informal judgement.

The role of the lawyer in private practice during this stage is to assist the client make the right decision. If other firms are in the frame, it is helpful to know what the strengths and weaknesses are of the rival firms. It is then appropriate to point out the advantages of using your firm. You might have more experience, better geographical coverage, specialists available to add further value to the advice given. Wherever possible it is particularly powerful to offer evidence of your ability to deliver.

The skills needed by the lawyer during this stage are:

  • To have knowledge about your firm’s offering and how this adds value compared to the rivals
  • To be able to match your offering to the client needs
  • To provide evidence that you will deliver

3.       Buyer making their selection and negotiating

This is a relatively straightforward stage. It is simply nailing down all the details so the buyer is clear what they are getting for their money.

The role of the lawyer is to negotiate and achieve what’s called a ‘win-win’. If you drive too hard a bargain for the law firm, you risk not being reappointed. Being too much of a pussycat and you let your firm down

The skills needed by the lawyer during this stage are:

  • An ability to really understand what the client needs are
  • An ability to deal with pressure on fees (eg when a client says “ Another firm has offered us a price that is 20% lower” etc)
  • To ask for something back if you’re asked to give anything (eg resources to assist on due diligence work, information, access to key people, speedy payment etc)

Firms which work in this more buyer-centric way are noticing a difference, as follows:

  • They create a sales pipeline of potential leads
  • Such firms sell higher value jobs
  • They get a higher conversion rate

But perhaps most importantly, the lawyer clearly gets positioned as a trusted advisor – not a salesman!

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