THE POINT 1. Unlike countries in Europe and Asia, Big 4 accounting firms are prohibited from offering corporate legal services in the U.S. 2. Through its rule-making state bar authorities (made up of lawyers), the U.S. legal profession is fighting tooth-and-nail to keep it this way. DISCUSSION U.S. law firms…
THE POINT 1. “Ethics” rules are the main determinant of how the legal market is structured: Who can do what? With whom? What is “practicing law”? 2. After decades of practicing business law, I believe that “ethics” rules structuring the market for legal services are largely about protecting lawyers from…
Speed-to-contract is vital to your revenues. As a P&L executive you know that. As a former P&L executive — now practicing law — I know that. But too many lawyers just don’t. They focus on verbal tweaks and “improvements” that hold up the process. … It was only after I…
Last Thursday (March 5, 2020) I was, for the umpteenth time, shocked to be reminded of how un-businesslike the legal industry’s billable hour-based business model really is. I say “un-businesslike” rather than “crazy” — or something more colorful — because the clients I serve are businesses themselves. And their businesses…
P&L executives need to know that there are good places — and bad places — to find the specialist lawyer your company needs for an important task. … I recount the following with my wife’s permission: An alert physician identified a problem with the way her body was regulating calcium.…
P&L executives concerned with managing legal risk and controlling legal costs should know that artificial intelligence (AI) promises greater accuracy and lower costs in litigation tasks. If and when the legal industry adopts the technology. And last month some of this promise appears to have been realized in some concrete,…
On bringing to Legal the same cost, staffing, and technology disciplines that apply everywhere else in the business enterprise — other than Legal — cooler heads have emerged. But they have not yet prevailed. Many lawyers still blow litigation dangers and regulatory peril out of proportion to their real magnitude…
On Saturday morning (January 11, 2019), I glanced at the front page of the Wall Street Journal that I held in my hand as I walked up the driveway to my house: “MAX Chatter at Boeing Undercuts Its Public Stance”. The first line: “Striking internal messages released this week by…
After 12 years running two divisions at Whirlpool Financial, and then as an executive at GE — and having been a business lawyer before that, and thereafter — I have reached this conclusion: Protecting the business from legal risk should be entrusted mainly to management — with attorneys accountable to…
The legal profession as a whole tends to resist adoption of new technologies that can save on lawyer time and enhance the accuracy of work product. This is because the legal profession’s prevailing business model is based on the following: Hourly billing, rather than pricing according to the task performed;…