In posing the above question last Monday, lawyer and law firm consultant Bruce MacEwen quoted Peter Drucker: “There is only one valid definition of a business purpose: to create a customer.” Having consulted to law firms on their business strategies — MacEwen argued that law firms’ “real clients” too often consist…
My most recent post introduced an explanation for the question posed above: The legal profession is an industry managed by committee. There are no outside boards of directors to step in with an “outside view” when things aren’t working. Law firms are run by — and answerable to — no one other…
On my drive to the office yesterday, I learned that the Chicago Blackhawks had fired Joel Quenneville, their head coach. Three Stanley Cups, second winningest among 38 head coaches since its 1926 founding, best playoff record in club history. Replaced by 33-year-old Jeremy Colliton — former NHL and AHL star…
In Part 1 of this two-part series of posts, I described — how “judges’ personal foibles and idiosyncrasies — I mean their distinctive, well-informed, jurisprudentially ingenious perspectives — can drive litigation outcomes more than any objective view of the law or evidence would seem to warrant”. From there I compared…
In a recent post I wrote that judges’ personal foibles and idiosyncrasies — I mean their distinctive, well-informed, jurisprudentially ingenious perspectives — can drive litigation outcomes more than any objective view of the law or evidence would seem to warrant: “My introduction to this came when I was a prosecutor in Manhattan. When my…
THE POINT This series is about how the legal system’s subjective and arbitrary character constrains your lawyer from answering “yes” or “no”. Sometimes your lawyer doesn’t want to be pinned down to a definite answer, and you, as the business client, need to nudge him or her for some specificity.…
In the third of this four-part series, I address another situation in which the legal system’s subjective and arbitrary character constrains your lawyer from answering “yes” or “no” to your questions. … Consider the following circumstance: A judge’s personal idiosyncrasies distinctive, well-informed judgments may drive the outcome more than an objective view…
One of this blog’s goals is to help business owners and executives to make better management decisions through a practical understanding of how the law works. This post is the second in a four-part series in which I explain how the legal system can prevent lawyers from giving a “yes”…
Thus began an October 15 article in “Above the Law” — one of the leading news websites directed at lawyers — particularly lawyers employed by law firms as “associates”. Under the headline “Biglaw Firm Makes It That Much Harder to Get Your Bonus”, here’s the complete text of the first…
One of this blog’s goals is to help business owners and executives make better management decisions through a practical understanding of how the law works. This four-part series takes up the question: Why can’t my lawyers say “yes” or “no”? Why can’t I get a straight answer? With all my…