The attorney’s definition of “productivity”? How many hours did I bill the client and get paid for? It’s that simplistic. And it’s that one-sided — in favor of the lawyer — and against the client. Consequently — according to conventional law firm metrics — the lawyer who bills and gets…
As a lawyer who became a general manager when a corporate client invited me to run one of its divisions, I learned that each corporate function — each individual — had to be accountable to someone else in the organization. Everyone. Almost everyone. Everyone except the law and regulatory compliance…
A new app from Silicon Valley highlights a legal industry that resists innovation to the point of self-parody. Zero, a 2015 start-up headquartered in Los Gatos, California, now enlists artificial intelligence in the retrograde practice of lawyers billing by the hour: “ … Today, lawyers work everywhere and anywhere, on…
In the early 1980’s Fred Bartlit headed litigation at one of Chicago’s premier law firms. He’d brought in a client whose big case was keeping 8 partners and 30 associates busy for months. Classic leverage (see “Leverage” Part I). “My partners loved me”, he said. But — as he recounted…
A friend of mine – new to his job as chief financial officer – received a bill from a law firm for advice in an obscure area of federal income tax law. The law firm was nationally prominent – one of the 100 highest profit-per-partner practices in the country. My…
When the IRS changes a lease regulation, compliance protocol calls for review of every lease to which a company is a party. Until recently this always meant lots of professionals reading lots of pages for a long time – slow, costly, and error-prone. Now – employing a tiny percentage of…
In 2009 the Mayo Clinic’s cardiac surgeons asked for two more operating rooms to meet growing demand for open-heart surgery, according to a June 2017 story in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) “No” – replied the Mayo Clinic’s CEO. Then he asked them to redesign every aspect of heart…