LeftFoot - Fresh Conversations on the Business of Law

Daniel Yi is Senior Counsel for Innovation, at the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. His work helps attorneys explore new approaches to persistent operational and mission-delivery challenges using innovation and creativity. He also leads an incubator program called Concept Lab where legal professionals use design thinking and lean methodologies to make improvements.

Dan has an intense curiosity and fascination for learning how smart people see and engage with the world.

Even with 11K attorneys, resource allocation at the DOJ requires on going effort.

Trial prep is stressful; there are lots of tasks, lots of terms, and time is limited. Applying design thinking a Kanban board was used to outline workflows, and monitor progress including classic daily scrums.

A lawyer’s predisposition to identify risk and a cultural reaction to the risk of change multiplies the traditional product adoption curve.

Prior LeftFoot guest, Lucy Bassli of Microsoft – commented that change is about people, processes, and tools – in that order.

With outside vendors, you see the tool first. The vendor may say it solves our problem but has the vendor taken the time to understand our problem? Can we test and evaluate whether it will solve the problem we intended to solve.

Problem framing, will they use it and can we maintain and improve it into the future.

Today we’re seeing a shift in the legal world to a people and client centric view.

Dan and others are looking to create a legal system that is less complicated and does not require retaining a high-cost guide.

In-house legal counsel has been clearly communicating to outside counsel the need to present work product more in line with what they need in the way they will ultimately be using it.

We are living and working in a time of tremendous and rapid iteration.

This episode is sponsored by CLOC (Corporate Legal Operations Consortium).

Bruce Stachenfeld is the Managing Partner of his firm, Duval & Stachenfeld.

He’s known for being one of the most ‘connected’ real estate lawyers throughout the worldwide real estate community. He’s specialized and adapted his area of focus to meet the needs of the market over a 30-year legal career.

Habits that have lead to Bruce’s success:

- Being relentless

- Being open minded

- Experiencing and evaluating failure

- Ruthlessly analyzing his and his team's performance.

Ask clients and prospects questions. What do they care about? Learn how their business works, what their needs are. Be helpful.

Being better than the competition (adding features) is less profitable than being different. Competition drives similarity, adding features increases costs.

Define yourself differently. Strategically.

The Power Niche:

- Define ‘it’

- Learn everything about ‘it’

- Communicate about ‘it’ broadly

- Until you’re identified with ‘it’.

Don’t be a lawyer who does legal work when asked. Stay in touch and educate on the issues.

Advice to develop your practice:

1. Get out and about: you’ll get ideas/information about clients and prospects out in the field.

2. Be enthusiastic: show your passion, the thrill and the love of what you do

3. Knowledge is power: be dominant in your niche through knowledge

4. Follow-up is critical: if you don’t follow-up the above 3 points are futile.

Respond to a changing market condition specifically. Business slow? Use the available time to market.

Bottom line: Clients care about why you’re different. If they value that difference – and need it, they’ll pay for it.

This episode is sponsored by E-STET.

Marriott has a budget for litigation and looks at the cost-benefit of settling versus litigating.

They often select cases to litigate that advance the longer-term goals of the company that drive broader principals.

Marriott looks for partners when evaluating outside counsel, firms that understand their business and can be viewed as a partner.

Marriott works with firms and lawyers that show a high level of integrity and are easy to work with.

Mike shares a success story involving Jenner & Block and Sheppard Mullins noting successful partnering and collective decision making as they assist in-house counsel on a key case

Marriott welcomes new ways of billing and complemented Crowell & Moring for creativity in this area.

Advice to Lawyers pursuing clients like Marriott - be smart about it; tell me about your expertise, be likable, personable, and friendly.

This episode is sponsored by Doxly.

Jane Greyf is a partner in Goodwin’s Private Equity Group and a member of the firm's Impact and Responsible Investing Practice. She advises private equity funds, companies, and management in leveraged buyouts and growth equity investment transactions.

Business development is like fitness – you have to keep at it. A little has to be done every day. It can take years – keep at it - many interactions will result in business.

You can’t take rejection personally in terms of business development. Your ability to control your response to things is a learned strength.

Jane keeps a fluid list of top 5 prospects. She spends a few minutes every day, every other day, once a week to execute that next step. It doesn’t take a tremendous amount of time. Always, always, always keep in touch with current clients.

Success Story:

A lawyer at a client with a shared business background moved companies to a company new to the US market. Jane reached out (stayed in touch) and was hired. When the company expanded in the US, Jane’s business also expanded. Jane was able to position other Goodwin practices with success. Over time Goodwin gained business for the firm from this client in their businesses outside the US.

Business development is different for women but not harder. It’s different because men and women develop relationships differently and business development is about building relationships.

Today there are a lot of women GCs - and firm team diversity is being demanded both are business development opportunities for women.

The fundamentals that apply to establishing a personal brand are the same for men and women. Find out ‘who you want to be’; do you have a niche; a specialty. Then write, speak, network – get your name out in that industry.

Be yourself in developing your personal brand. Look to mentors and sponsors to shape how you create your approach but make it your own. Don’t try to behave exactly like that mentor or sponsor if it doesn’t feel natural, even though you like the perception.

Positive Trends in the legal environment:

· A more business-like approach to the practice of law - business will not come based on your expertise. You have to encourage and spend time on business development.

· Law used to be a lone wolf profession – you brought a client in and worked on that client’s work. Today we see more of a team approach to working with clients - which is much more successful.

· The use of technology is making collaboration much more efficient - and it’s helping to develop a more standardized work product.

· The open demand for diversity in the teams assigned.

Advice:

· Millennials can reach large numbers of people quickly. Use it effectively.

· There is no substitute for in-person discussions or for building relationships in person.

This episode is sponsored by E-STET.

68: Team Diversity and Earning New Business - Walmart Stores - A Culture of Being Respectful to All.

Alan Bryan is the leader of the Office of Outside Counsel Management & Legal Operations for Walmart Stores. He transitioned from law firm partnership to in-house counsel managing litigation for the world’s largest retailer. Today his office oversees his company’s relationships with all outside counsel measuring performance, cost and diversity.

4 personal strengths that can lead to success in a changing environment:

1 – Patience with yourself as you transition. Give yourself time. Know that others will give you time.

2 – Honesty and humility. Successful change has a lot to do with attitude.

3 – Communication skills become increasingly important as teams and responsibilities grow.

4 – Passion for what you do.

On the transition from a firm to in-house legal and ultimately legal operations: As a firm lawyer you dive deep into a specialty. As an in-house lawyer and specifically a legal operations professional; your attention turns to costs, internal processes, vendor management and strategically looking at legal department operations as a whole. This effort has grown to include a Legal and Data Analytics team.

When asked what Walmart Stores looks for in their legal and business partners: Cost, diversity, and performance are a few of the top priorities.

We do not want to feel like we’re ‘the prize’ that was won: Often when a firm is awarded a matter they focus on the revenue and not the relationship they should be building. Get to know the people - we’re all people.

Be patient: It’s highly likely your bidding against an incumbent and others in the market – there’s a lot of competition.

Explain why you’re unique: Why we should consider you and your firm versus the others in the market. Make it about us, do your research know our industry, what’s occurring, and present a resolution that highlights your differentiator.

A growth success story: A firm partner recommended an approach that resulted in an effective resolution and significantly less work for her and her firm than alternative approaches. By thinking about the long-term relationship versus short-term financial gain, this approach helped build an effective business relationship and lead to future assignments.

Get to know the person before you pitch: Have patience, be in it for the long haul.

The problem with firm marketing materials: They talk about the lawyers and what they’ve done which is instructive but not unique. Focus on what you bring to the table that’s different.

Bring, assign and deliver a diverse working team: When bidding on matters with Walmart Stores.

Change is a constant in the legal profession: The disaggregation of legal services has been a surprising and significant change in the market. E-discovery, document review services, technology-enabled, and many other solutions have taken and will continue to take services out of the traditional law firm model.

AI will not replace lawyers but it will replace tasks: Like e-discovery, AI and the focus on Cyber Security will become part of the way we do business.

We have yet to see broadly scalable AFAs across the industry: The organization that can expand AFAs across the industry and gets both in-house lawyers and outside counsel comfortable with them has a market advantage.

Risk and the billable hour: Both sides have to be comfortable and it has to be of value to the client.

Walmart supports supplier diversity: Working with solos, women-owned businesses, minority-owned businesses, AM Law 200, and virtual law firms.

In-house legal departments get into assignment habits: Walmart is doing more RFPs to add more firm variety into their firm mix.

Diversity is engrained in the culture at Walmart Stores: Around 260M people walk into a...

Suzie Scanlon Rabinowitz, is the Managing Partner of SRD Legal Group. Suzie is a virtual law firm legal pioneer having been in the space for more than 10 years. Her firm’s specialty is legal process management and high volume workflows for financial services companies.

• Hear why Suzie is excited to lead a mission-driven business

• Life Long Learners – Educating clients can be the key to biz dev success

• A silver lining to not winning business you bid on - listen in

• AFAs and relationship building

• Yes it’s happening, clients are driving legal tech adoption by firms

• How’s your social media etiquette?

• Why Suzie’s excited about a positive double bottom line…

This episode is sponsored by E-STET.

Frank Citera is the co-Chair of Greenberg Traurig’s Product Liability & Mass Torts Litigation Group and Co-Chair of the Chicago Litigation Practice. He is ‘renowned for his toxic tort and product liability work’ and other complex litigation in both federal and state courts. He defends class actions for companies from all industries and business sectors.

Advice: ‘Get on the train when it’s leaving and worry about which seat you’re sitting in later’.

Work hard: rarely miss an opportunity to work on a matter, no matter how busy you are.

Strategy: stay ahead on your topic – the specifics - so you can be a resource for our clients.

Staying Power: success spreads as you become recognized for your expertise.

Straight talk on AFAs: experience translates to efficiency; technology will help increase accuracy; success relies on a relationship of mutual trust and conversation with your client.

Last Word: law is a profession, have a passion for what you do and a thirst for knowledge.

Good Work is Table Stakes…

Managing Partner and CEO of Catapult Growth Partners, Doug Johnson, recently hosted a group of top business development and marketing leaders from the legal, private equity and professional services industries for a day-long roundtable to discuss the latest trends in business development and marketing. Doug leads Catapult, a US consultancy with an emphasis on accelerating profitable growth within professional services firms.

• Tune in to hear how clients are choosing to allocate their legal fees–think outcomes and ROI

• When it comes to brand and creating a niche, listen in to hear why boutique firms have an advantage–at least at first

• Firm dog and pony? Be sure to include information on what you’ve implemented and how it’s improved efficiency

• Will law firms and lawyers become more proactive with client planning?

• Want to maintain a market focus without reducing the professional’s billable time? There’s a player-coach for that!

This episode is sponsored by E-STET.

Kirkland Hicks is the EVP and General Counsel at Lincoln Financial. He’s a member of company’s senior management committee, overseeing all law, compliance, government relations, and corporate secretary functions. Prior to joining Lincoln Financial, he was senior counsel at Towers Watson and Watson Wyatt Worldwide.

The keys to earning legal work at Lincoln Financial may surprise you.

Whether primary, secondary or tertiary financial agreements are always a consideration.

Learn how firms compete for business at Lincoln Financial - HINTS: be nimble, be ready to do upfront work, it’s very competitive.

We discuss big data and predictive outcomes – as a likely part of the future legal culture – listen in.

Mentions: diversity; legal ops; legal purchasing; Axiom; Advance Law; Chris Groll - M&A Partner of Holland & Hart; Toby Brown – Chief Practice Director, Perkins Coie.

This episode is sponsored by Axiom. AxiomLaw.com

Damon Vocke is the Vocke Law Group, Founder and Managing Partner. In the fall of 2016, he and his partners launched their firm focused on the insurance, reinsurance, and financial services industries, covering corporate litigation, internal investigations, governance and regulatory compliance issues. He’s the former president of the reinsurance firm, Gen Re. Prior to his role as president, he was the Gen Re General Counsel and worked previously for Lord Bissell & Brook.

• Hear why firm size and design is not as important as the specific lawyer

• Forget ‘selling’ - talk about the facts what you’ve done and your experience in the market

• Hear how fees, specific experience, and overall delivery are the components of a fair deal

• Good judgment is critical.

This episode is sponsored by E-STET.