Confession time. I’m crazed. Crazy busy at work. A thousand moving pieces. Eighty six internal clients today (and two more joining on Monday). Then there is home. My personal life. Spiritual life. Still haven’t made it to the market. It’s crazy. Nothing has fallen through the cracks, but we’ve gotten close a few too many
I remember taking my first Myers-Briggs assessment way back when. I was an ENTJ. The “E” completely confused me. I hated people. I preferred to be alone. Ugh. I had to be an introvert. Right? Wrong.
Fast forward 20 years and I have completely come into my extroversion (is that a word?). I get my energy from being around others. And, more than anything, I get my work energy from the LMA Annual Conference.
Transitioning to a new firm this year has really taxed my mental energy. I have so many ideas swirling around my head every day. There are so many things to do, and many more possibilities as well. I have a great support team back in the office to help me process, wade through my ideas, help me to decide what’s a go, and what’s a no-go.Continue Reading I don’t need to zone out, I need to zone in.
My post from the weekend, Rambling thoughts from 30,000 feet in the air, is about the BUSINESS of law (moving law firms from good to great; the metrics we’re measuring for success). Tim Corcoran‘s latest post, Working Smarter, Not Harder, is about the BUSINESS of law (h/t for the Dilbert). Kevin O’Keefe
Is live-Tweeting overrated?
That’s the question my friend Ben Greenzweig, Momentum Event Group, asked the LME group this morning. And, with multiple people live-tweeting the same sessions at a conference, I can understand why he’s raised the question.
Not too shockingly, many of us have an opinion, and a conversation has begun so
For quite a while now I keep telling attorneys in my firm that we need a Pete. For those of you who do not watch Mad Men, Pete Campbell is the head of accounts and a partner at Sterling, Cooper, Draper and the other guy. His job is to go out, find the business, wine and dine (and throw in a whore house or two) the clients. He is not an ad man. He’s a BD (business development) guy. Client services professional. And his role to the firm is key in their success:
Once Pete interests a client in the firm, he then introduces them to Don Draper, one of the agency’s partners and senior creative directors. Don then starts to get the potential client interested in the pizazz of what an advertising campaign run by him would look like. Once they get the green light to prepare a formal pitch, Don then brings his team together. Peggy, the head copy writer, and on her way to becoming a partner, along with the media buyers, art directors, and junior copywriters. They then work together to pull the pitch together and present to the client.
Nothing about this flow chart is unique. Accounting and other professional services businesses are run this way. They all have a Pete.
Law firms? For the most part, we don’t have a Pete. And our flow charts for new business doesn’t look like their process at all.
Continue Reading Mad Men and Law Firms: We Need a Pete
My daughter asked me a math question the other night. I replied, “I haven’t had to take a math class since Algebra II.”
Okay, that’s kinda a lie. I had to take stats in college to graduate, and was really happy to get through that class with a C.
But, needless to say, I don’t do math. And I certainly do not do accounting (yet).
Scrolling through my e-mails and blog feeds this morning and came across A Call to Arms: I by Adam Smith, Esq.:
I fear that most of you may be unaware that Congress is considering a proposal that would have, I believe, have tremendously negative consequences for Law Land, without any scintilla of a principled justification or countervailing benefit other than a cheap shot one-time hit of revenue heroin.
Continue Reading Why YOU need to care about Congress’ push for accrual based accounting for law firms
I’ve been working on the business side of law for a long time now. I have attended NUMEROUS general counsel panels. I have read study after study. And I have to ask, “Are any of you listening?”
I was at a presentation yesterday with the good folks at Thomson Reuters. They put up a
In Let’s not be like the lawyers (Let’s not attack the example), I responded to what I thought was a deflection in the responses to Noam Scheiber‘s article, The Last Days of Big Law. At the bottom of that post I have a collection of “read these” articles that I keep updating. Here’s
I am late to the game blogging on The New Republic article, The Last Days of Big Law. To quote my friend Diane Hamlin:
Let’s not be like the lawyers. Let’s not attack the example.
I would caution us here to not dismiss the premise of the article, there is big change in the legal industry, by attacking the example.
Is Noam Scheiber‘s article perfect? No.
Does he make some great points that we should be discussing? Absolutely.
But why are we wasting time arguing over whether the glass is half-full or half-empty when there is a hole in the cup?
Continue Reading Let’s not be like the lawyers (Let’s not attack the example)
The world was a buzz yesterday with Yahoo! and Marissa Mayer‘s new policy banning working from home. Everyone seemed to have an opinion. And, for every opinion there was a counter opinion. For every business leader who thought Yahoo! was wrong, there was another business leader who thought they were doing the right