The Lawyers Weekly has launched a new column in the business section that explores life inside the firm. Last week the focus was on Bull, Housser & Tupper an old Vancouver firm with some new approaches to management.  The firm has been ranked as one of the best workplaces in BC by a local business magazine the last two years running, which left many of us scratching our heads and wondering what was going on at BHT?  Best places to work?  A law firm?

Yes, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. 

To poach from Beverly Cramp’s article here are some of the goings on up there on the 30th floor of the Royal Bank Tower:

• Job sharing for staff members.  Working mom’s sharing a job during the early years of parenting. 
• Impromptu gatherings of staff and lawyers (triggered by invitations over the internet) grouse grinding together, playing basketball, and other such sporting activities.
• Meet and greets for staff members from different parts of the office.
• Mentors for new staff members.
• A health and wellness program featuring lunch time seminars and fitness subsidies.

The demand for qualified legal support staff has never been higher.  Law firms all over the country are paying increasing attention not just to associate benefits, but also to the perks that will keep talented support staff in the firm, and out of the recruiter’s office.

Harper Grey LLP, a litigation firm in Vancouver, has also launched a number of similar programs for their staff including fitness subsidies, lunch and learns, healthy food in the coffee rooms, walking groups, and flexible work hours for staff.  Most noteworthy, the firm held a staff survey to determine the areas where improvements could be made.  In a legal market where law firms are still reluctant to survey their clients this has to be counted as a bold step!  The result has translated into strong retention rates and high firm morale.

Kudos to the Human Resources Directors and the Managing Partners who support them, for taking action to make our law firms places where we can feel good about going to work.

One of the highlights of the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference in Atlanta last week was the screamingly funny ”mocumentary” presented at the opening session.  This exposé of the real world of legal marketing had conference participants in side-splitting laughter and tears. 

Great news - the video is now available for viewing on You Tube!

Entilted “Truth Justice & Credibility” the video was developed for the conference by Jeff Reade of Cole Valley Software - in just two weeks time!

Reade appears in the firm in the role of the proto-typical Managing Partner.  The Marketing Director is played by a member of the LMA, Michele Golivesky, the Marketing Director for the firm Swift Currie in Atlanta.

While satirical, the video underlines some of the universal truths of legal marketing.  Take a minute out of your busy schedule and have a look today! 

I just returned from the LMA (Legal Marketing Association) Annual Conference in Atlanta where I had the good fortune to present “Coaching the Alpha Lawyer” with Heather Gray-Grant the Marketing and Business Development Director from the firm Alexander Holburn LLP. I’d like to thank the members of the audience who attended the presentation for their warm welcome, active participation, and great questions. As promised, here is a list of my favorite coaching books:

1. Hargrove, Robert. Masterful Coaching, Revised Edition. John Wiley & Sons; 2002. I can’t recommend this book enough. His materials on the seven hat coaching system, winning strategies, and river/rut stories, are valuable tools for coaching in the law firm. If I could only own two coaching books this would be one of them.

2. Flaherty, James. Coaching, Evoking the Excellence in Others, Second Edition. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005.

This is the second book I think is absolutely vital reading for anyone interested in coaching. The word for Flaherty is RIGOROUS. His bibliography reads like it belongs in a PHD dissertation. Where some coaches like to work exclusively with leaders who are motivated high-performers up for a challenge, Flaherty’s approach to coaching works with a much broader group of individuals.

In the introduction to the second edition Flaherty writes:

How do I contribute to someone’s competence in a respectful, dignified, and effective way? If you find yourself asking these or similar questions, then this book definitely has something to say to you. (p. xxiii)

In late April I will be taking part in an advanced coaching program with Flaherty in San Francisco, and I’ll be sure to report on the experience in this blog when I return!

Other great coaching books if you are interested in further reading:

3. O’Neil, Mary Beth. Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart, A Systems Approach to Engaging Leaders with Their Challenges. John Wiley & Sons, 2000.

4. Crane, Thomas G. The Heart of Coaching, Using Transformational Coaching To Create a High-Performance Culture. Second Edition. FTA Press, 2002.

5. Coaching for Leadership, How the World’s Greatest Coaches Help Leaders Learn. Edited by Marshall Goldsmith, Laurence Lyons, Alyssa Freas. Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2000.    

You are faced with a tough decision to make about a complex real estate transaction.  Should you purchase the property, or give it a miss?  To get the best answer should you:

A.  Go with your gut instinct.
B.  Take the time to carefully consider all angles, discuss it with your friends, and weigh the pros and cons.
C.  Sleep on it.

This question was the example used in the February edition of the Harvard Business Review’s list of Breakthrough Ideas for 2007. 

And the answer is:

C. Sleep on it.

The breakthrough idea for 2007 is that our much valued and vaunted conscious mind is really just a wind-up toy on top of a super computer - our unconscious mind.  It turns out that there is a real limit to the analytic powers of our conscious mind.  The result is that when we try to analyze complex problems the longer we try to think it through, the more likely we are to take into account random and unimportant bits of information and stray farther and farther from the best answer. 

While this is the breakthrough idea for 2007, one of the definitive books on the subject was actually published in 2002 - Strangers to Ourselves, Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious by Timothy D. Wilson. 

I remember first learning in practice about how the unconscious mind can be put to work when I was an undergraduate at McGill.  At essay time, I would read a pile of books, but when I sat down at the computer to write I would find that I wasn’t ready.  The ideas wouldn’t come, but doing more research wasn’t the answer.  Instead I found that putting the essay on my mental backburner and heading out to the pool hall with some friends did the trick.  After some time off, and a sleep, the next morning I was ready to write.  And the ideas and arguments were all there and ready to be typed out.

I’m sure you have experienced this yourself in numerous ways.  Being able to take a complex issue, send it to the powerful unconscious mind to do the heavy lifting while you take some time out for fun and relaxation, and pick up the answer later in the day or the next morning has got to be one of the great advantages of our human minds.

One Managing Partner was known to take her thorniest issues with her on the Grouse Grind.  Two hours later, and at the top of the mountain, she would have her answer.

So why don’t you try an experiment?  Next time you have something complex you are struggling to figure out, take a moment to consciously place it on the mental back burner and then take the night off.  The next morning find out if you have your answer.

Sleep your way to success!

I attended a great LMA Vancouver lunch hour seminar today presented by Tim Leishman from Kerma Partners.  (Kerma Partners came into existence in late 2006 and has already developed into an alternative to Hildebrandt in the professional services consulting arena.) 

Leishman first penned an article on lawyer practices styles in 1998, and the ideas he set out provide a helpful tool for thinking about and understanding the contributions lawyers make to the success of a law firm.

Leishman sets out four categories of contribution that lawyers make to their firms:  Rainmaker, Point Person, Hired Gun, Brain Surgeon.  In very short form here’s how he describes each of these types of lawyers:

Rainmakers are interested in connections.  They are into meeting new people.  They are initiative takers.  They are high intensity networkers.  They approach business development from the standpoint of “how can I help this person?” Or, “how can I make it easy for them?”

Point Persons are the client managers par excellence.  They are most interested in loyalty.  They approach their client service from the standpoint of how can I make this person look good?  They are natural team players and consensus builders.

The Hired Guns are motivated by credentials.  They like to focus on publishing, presenting and building their profile and reputation.  They help strengthen the firm’s reputation for expertise.

Brain surgeons are those lawyers whose insight, and intellectual prowess, put them in a category all to themselves.  They are highly knowledgeable in key niche areas of law and are known for their outstanding legal abilities. 

Leishman’s point is that firms would be best to work to lawyers strengths rather then trying to get them to improve in their weak areas.  Trying to get a Brain Surgeon become an effective practice group leader is likely an exercise in futility!  Leishman sets out two priorities for law firms:

First, lawyers should be guided to develop in accordance with their relative strengths and talents.

Second, firms should learn to identify the natural abilities and talents that are associated with certain practice styles and learn from lawyers with those abilities so that those abilities can be developed in others.

Once you know your strength you can then maximize the intensity you are putting into it, and get the most out of it.

Attendees at the seminar also offered some of their own thought provoking questions and comments.  One person commented that the difficulty for many firms is that they have a number of lawyers who fall into neither of the above categories.  In these cases, coaching can help to support the lawyer in discovering and developing their strengths. 

Another point raised was that there is a lot to be gained for firms in having practice group leaders learn to manage their groups by leveraging the strengths of their group members in each of these areas.  Rainmakers, Point Persons, Brain Surgeons and Hired Guns when brought together as a team can bring about some powerful results for a firm.  The challenge is that there are currently few practice group leaders given the time, training, and support from the firm to effectively manage, or learn to manage their groups in a way that maximizes the strengths of the members.

I encourage you to take a moment to read Leishman’s article.  It’s a valuable tool for thinking about lawyer marketing and business development strengths and maximizing our investments in them.

This Friday I am presenting on Marketing for the Solo and Small Firm along with Lorne MacLean of the MacLean Family Law Group at the CLE BC’s Solo and Small Firm Conference 2007.

Lorne and I have been chatting with each other over the past few weeks about what really works for building profitable and interesting practices at solo and small firms. Here are ten pointers for you to consider when planning your solo or small firm marketing initiatives for 2007:

1.  Alignment.  Take the time to determine what kind of firm and practice you want to build and make sure your decisions align with those goals.  Develop a clear message that describes what you would like your potential clients to know about yourself and your firm, and that will distinguish you from other lawyers.  Focus your marketing efforts on delivering that message. 

2.  Plan.  Take the time to plan your marketing.  Decide what you want to achieve in a given period of time and develop a simple plan of what you are going to do to get there.

3.  Clients.  The number one source of new work is from your current clients.  Would they be open to sending you more work?  Will they refer their contacts to you?  Investing in your current clients is the vital first step of any marketing plan.

4.  Network. The vast majority of work comes in through word of mouth referral.  After your clients, your personal network of contacts is your biggest marketing asset.  Have you got a system in place for keeping track of the names, addresses, phone and email for your contacts?  Have you established a system for staying in touch with your most important contacts?  How are you currently investing in building this network?

5.  Research.  Each time a new client joins your firm track how they heard about you.  Talk to your clients.  Find out what publications they read.  Do they prefer email or printed newsletters?  Do they look at legal blogs?  Do they even know what a blog is?  Do they use your website for anything?  What would make your delivery of legal services easier for them?  The more information you can uncover about your clients preferences the better you can tailor your marketing efforts.

6.  Technology.  Web sites, blogs, email provide the best return on investment for small firms.  They are cheaper then print materials, can reach large numbers of people, and are easy to keep fresh and up-to-date.

7.  CMS.  Make sure you have a website that you or your secretary can update yourselves.  This means you have something called a “content management system” (CMS) plugged to the back-end.  These don’t have to be expensive.  Adobe sells a program called Contribute for US$149 that a programmer can plug into your site and will allow you or your staff to update content with only a little training.  It’s so easy I taught myself how to use it.

8.  Yellow pages.  Don’t invest in yellow page ads.  There are better and more targeted ways to get your message out to potential clients. 

9.  PR.  Use the free announcements available in the Vancouver Sun, Business in Vancouver, Lawyers Weekly, to announce new lawyers at your firm, new partner announcements, and other related developments.  Determine which newspapers, industry publications that might be interested in quoting you for time to time or printing your articles.  Contact the editors and find out how they like to be approached with story ideas and articles. 

10.  Recycle.  Time is precious.  Get as much mileage as possible out of each marketing activity you invest in.  If you write an article for a publication then post it to your website.  Look for an opportunity to present on the content to your clients or potential clients.  Use the same material in as many ways as possible.

From day one of their practice lawyers are inducted into the world of the billable hour.  Efficient tracking and billing of time is vital to a lawyer’s success. 

Time is money. 

So it is not surprising that when I meet with lawyer friends for lunch and coffee one of the complaints I most often hear is: why would I bother to do X if I’m not compensated for it.  X can stand for lead the practice group, bring in business for other members of the firm, dedicate time to marketing activities, or help manage the firm.

And they have a point. 

Sure there are intrinsic rewards to be garnered including the lawyer’s own long term professional goals and interests, and the long term benefit and prosperity of the firm, but let’s face it, when the compensation committee comes to call, it can be a real slap in the face when all the hard work and effort goes unrewarded.

I know one great business developer who threw up his hands and said forget it!  If all you want is billing, that’s all you will get. 

This week Beverly Cramp of The Lawyers Weekly has published an informative article following up on the discussion Simon Taylor and I had in this blog earlier this year about an innovative new compensation system being introduced by a local Vancouver law firm.  Taylor worked with the firm extensively on the system and shared with me some of the ideas behind the approach.

Here’s a quote from Cramp’s article:

“But the more time partners spend building relationships, the less time they have for doing their own billable work and with a compensation system overemphasizing the partner’s billable hour record, their income can fall. This is a financial disincentive to delegating work and spending time with new clients. So even though one of the key drivers of profitability is the ability to effectively delegate, the partnership is collectively shooting itself in the foot.  This calls for significant changes in partnership behaviour. But this stuff isn’t learned at law school. Entire careers are built on billable hours.” Simon Taylor

I encourage you to take a moment to read the article in full.  And if you want to make changes to your firm’s compensation here’s what can help:

• Align the compensation system with the overall firm strategy
• Develop a long term change management plan, with strategies developed in advance for overcoming some of the road blocks and objections you know will arise 
• Support your plan with clear and frequent communication and dialogue from the leadership with members of the firm
• Set your lawyers up for success. If you are asking busy professionals to make a significant change to their practice make sure you are giving the support to make that change.  Invest in the tools, technology, and professional assistance that they will need to succeed.

The crucial point is to not allow the fear of change (or the turmoil cause by change) to prevent your firm from taking measures to strategically manage the practice.

I had the good fortune to attend a panel discussion today held by the LMA Vancouver Chapter on “How Public Sector Counsel Select Their Outside Counsel.”

It was a dynamite session. Paul Reynolds of 2nvision consulting moderated the discussion.  He spoke with three public sector in-house counsel on the factors influencing their retention of external counsel, what distinguishes the great lawyers they have worked with, and why they fire some firms.

Doug Jasinki, from Skunkworks Creative, and I are developing a five minute podcast with highlights from session for posting to the LMA Vancouver website.  In the meantime here’s a brief excerpt from my notes on the session:

The best lawyers are:

• Responsive.  They are prompt and respond in a timely manner to requests.
• Pragmatic.  They work the file appropriately.
• Aware of context.  They repeatedly invest in learning about the organization, not just for the initial sales call, and are sensitive to the organization’s particular requirements
• Team players.  They work closely with in-house counsel, communicate well, and keep counsel well apprised of what is going on in a file
• Flexible.  They are able to work at odd hours and on short notice when  necessary.
• Pleasant to deal with!  They are well mannered, and treat their clients with respect.

Listening between the lines today it seemed to me that the panelists had experienced some atrocious examples of bad client service.  Here’s my take on the five easy ways to get fired:

1. Don’t meet deadlines.  If the client requests the Opinion for their very important meeting at 2:00 pm then hand it in at 4:00 pm. 
2. Communicate with the client as little as possible.  Keep them in the dark.  Don’t keep them updated on the file.  If nothing happens on the file for weeks or months, you don’t have to contact them! Better to just let them wonder what is going on.
3. Bill the client for the friendly chat you had with them on the phone.
4. The client is a public agency and under public scrunity – but who cares?! Advocate as aggressively and sharply as possible, regardless of any negative media fallout.
5. Be as arrogant as possible.  When the CEO enters the room don’t stand up, don’t shake his hand.  Turn up late for meetings and act like you are doing everyone a favour for being there.

The panelists were refreshingly candid and many of us left with a stack of notes on such topics as how to structure your business development approach, how to respond to RFPs, how to stand out as great counsel, and what are the most effective marketing tools.

The feedback I am hearing about the event has been overwhelmingly positive.  As one lawyer concluded, it was great to have the opportunity to get “find out the answers to those questions that lawyers typically don’t have the guts to ask!” (Guts is my word.  He used a more descriptive one!)

Coaching is a broad area of practice.  There are life coaches - who help people with personal challenges and goals, career coaches - who help people with career change, and executive coaches - who help people facing issues and challenges in their professional lives.  There are also numerous consultants who use coaching approaches towards their work but who have never received any professional training in the practice.

With this in mind, when is it best to work with a trained executive coach? 

The answer can be found in the three levels of learning that coaching touches upon: single loop, double loop, and triple loop learning. 

Single loop learning is used to describe the learning that facilitates people getting things done and improving upon current skills.  Coaching in this way is an “accountability partnership”, with the coach helping the client to set goals, take action, and then “staying on” the client to ensure follow-through.  Coaching for single loop learning can be implemented by lawyers mentoring their associates, by legal marketers working with lawyers and staff, and by most any other professional.  Consultants without any professional training in executive coaching generally work with their clients on single loop learning. 

A couple of examples of this kind of coaching are: 

• A single coaching conversation with an lawyer helping her to establish some goals and actions to take in the following six months.
• A sales trainer providing coaching to lawyers who are keen on improving their rainmaking skills.

When learning needs move up one level to double loop it is time start thinking of working with a trained executive coach. 

Double loop learning involves teaching people to do entirely new things, reframing a person’s perspective so that they are able to see new possibilities and are empowered to re-think and re-design their actions. 

Pamela Weiss, a Master Certified Coach (MCC) has a great article on the web about the levels of coaching.  In the article she describes working with double loop learning:

At this level, we help our clients learn something new. We work with the person so that they can not only accomplish a goal or task one time, but also learn to continuously do it on their own.  We help open new possibilities, so the client is able to take new action. Our aim here is to teach them how to do something, rather then just telling them what to do. This requires more skill on our part, and it takes more time, more patience, and a deeper relationship with the client (p.6).

An example of double loop learning would be working with a lawyer who is averse to the idea of selling legal services but who is facing the challenge of expanding his client base. 

Triple loop is in my view entirely the realm of qualified executive coaches.  Triple loop learning is most valuable when a person is blocked.  When the approaches and strategies they adopted successfully in the past are now holding them back. 

Triple loop learning is based on the principle that the human personality is fluid.  Learning at this level fundamentally transforms a person by altering their personal definition of self.  Coaching at this level supports a person in adopting new characteristics and personal qualities and supports the individual in implementing entirely new strategies. 

If you want to think outside of your box, triple loop learning will get you there.

An example of a situation requiring triple loop learning is a leader who has learned to use the winning strategy of micro-managing to succeed.  Now, as Managing Partner, this strategy is breaking down.  The leader is bogged down in details, caught up in the day to day issues, and loosing sight of the firm’s overall strategy, and goals.  Triple loop learning will be required to help the leader see and acknowledge the limitations of the current strategy and empower the leader to adopt a new approach. 

There has been a lot of writing on these levels of learning and coaching.  If you are interested in reading more on the subject I particularly recommend Robert Hargrove’s book Masterful Coaching and Pamela Weiss’ article mentioned above.  In my description of single loop learning I borrowed the term “accountability partnership” from Weiss’ work.

A quick tip: The Legal Marketing Association Vancouver Chapter has just updated their web site. I was on it today and found a number of great articles in the reading room with information on networking, business development, client appreciation, and a primer on law firm finances among other topics.

The homepage also lists a number of the upcoming events. I’m looking forward to attending the lunch session on February 6 - How Public Sector Counsel Select Their Outside Counsel.

Paul Reynolds of 2nvision consulting will be leading a panel discussion with public sector in-house counsel from British Columbia on the factors influencing the decision to retain external counsel; their choice of lawyers; why they fire some firms and how they feel about various legal marketing approaches.

Reynolds held a similar session at this time last year, but with private sector in-house counsel. It was a highly informative event and the speakers shared candid feedback on their evaluation of legal service providers. One of the points I remember from that meeting was that only one of the counsel had been involved by their lawyers in a client satisfaction survey, and all of the speakers said they wished the law firms they hired would take the time to carry these out.  I saw many local lawyers in the audience that day.  I wonder if a few client interview programs were finally launched following that disclosure?

I look forward to learning more from the public sector counsel in February.  If you plan on attending please stop by my table and say hello.  You won’t be able to miss me - I’ll be the one giving the introduction!