“Under more traditional relationships, firms have to pay lawyers retaining fees while they are not using them.” This astonishing glimpse into the past comes from Reactions, May 2004 at 3. The retainer fee actually reserved the right to use the law firm even if there was not a need for…
A belief that animates many convergence programs is that a large number of law firms and partners can handle much of the legal work. That belief in fungibility s generally well-founded. It is a different matter if the area of law is specialized. “Specialists for international industrial insurance and reinsurance…
The Philadelphia-based firm Duane Morris has an ongoing secondment program with the law department of nearby Icon Office Solutions. Each year a first-year associate works at Icon as a secondee for a one-year stint. According to law.com the firm seconded another associate to Minerals Technologies Inc. for about six months…
For years I have shown a slide that lists the top five relationship mistakes law firm partners can make. The worst error on that slide is “patronizing attitude.” In-house audiences always titter nervously when I show that slide, but no one disagrees with its statement. Support for it comes from…
The pedant in me stubbornly insists that English has no exact synonyms, so off to the sophistry of hair splitting I must go. If “retention” carries with it a notion of a retainer – an amount paid each month against which fees are charged, then perhaps an “engagement” is simpler:…
A poll in 2004 of insurance and reinsurance law departments around the world gave respondents 10 qualities of law firms and asked them to choose the three characteristics they value the most when selecting a law firm. Four qualities were selected the most (shown with the percentage that selected it…
A retention letter usually transmits relevant documents of a single matter (See my post of Aug. 24, 2006 with definitions and distinctions.) whereas outside counsel guidelines lay down ground rules for all matters (See my post of Sept. 25, 2006 that compares these letters to outside counsel guidelines.). The two…
Larry Bodine, a respected marketing consultant to law firms, riled me when in Law Practice, Vol. 32, Oct./Nov. 2006 at 12 he writes that “a lot of RFPs are simply fishing expeditions that result in nothing more than wasted time for the firms that respond to them.” Larry, throw that…
“In seeking new business, your last resort should be to discount fees,” intones Patrick McKenna in Law Practice, Vol. 32, Oct./Nov. 2006 at 16. If law departments force their law firms to discount fees or rates, the firm “must extract a reasonable quid pro quo in exchange.” After all, McKenna…
Most law departments are deficient in formal evaluations of their outside counsel (See my posts of March 6, 2006 on NCR and its evaluations of firms; and Nov. 1, 2005 on the poor quality of these evaluations.). In-house counsel have little training on how to review bills; they rarely use…