Categories
Law Students and Young Lawyers

Murray’s Masterclass in Managing Client Expectations

Murray (M) at my first rodeo:

Client (C):  We need to close this transaction in two weeks.

M: That is impossible.

C: The Vendor said that his lawyer told him that deadline is perfectly reasonable. Why are you creating roadblocks? If you cannot get it done, I will find someone else who is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Categories
Law Students and Young Lawyers

Gladly Suffering Fools

Back in the day, before I became as warm, compassionate, empathic, and all-around loveable as I am today, I had something of a reputation as being someone who did not suffer fools gladly. There were even a few people around the office who found me to be intimidating. Of course, self-awareness not being my strong suit, I did not understand how anyone could have possibly found me to be anything other than wonderful.

Categories
Law Students and Young Lawyers

A Sucker’s Game

Imagine the following scenario:

Jordan is a third year Associate with a mid-sized firm in Calgary who has a billable hour target that is somewhat reasonable compared to the targets in Big Law. He typically achieves that target and receives a bonus of $18,000. He is also paid 10% of the billed and collected business that he brings in.

Categories
Law Firm Management

Titles are the Opium of the Masses

Unsuccessful people are the ones who are impressed by celebrity, by people’s names and titles.

~ Robin S. Sharma

In the old days, there were Associates and Partners. Every lawyer planned to work ridiculously hard as an Associate for about seven years, after which the firm would invite them to become a partner.  Or not.

If you were not invited to become a partner, you were expected to hang your head in shame and slink out of the firm. The system was called “Up or Out.” 

Categories
The Mentality and Attitudes of Lawyers

Murray’s Random Thoughts About In-House Counsel

I never worked in-house.  Of course, having no experience working in-house is not going to stop me from spouting off about in-house counsel (“IHC”).

So, here we go!

Categories
Firm Culture

Clowns To the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

Last week I was at the Barnstable County Fair in Cape Cod. At the midway, there was a game called “Dunk the Clown.” Let me describe it for you.

A clown sat on a ledge over a tank of water. People paid a few dollars and received three baseballs to throw at two large buttons on the walls adjacent to the clown. If a button were hit, the clown would fall into the water.

Categories
The Mentality and Attitudes of Lawyers

Zero is the Loneliest Number

In law firms, more zeros are better than fewer zeros.  For example, announcing, “look at me! I just closed a $100,000,000 acquisition” impresses your colleagues more than saying, “I just did a deal worth $10,000,000.”  A deal that was only worth $965,000 is not even worth mentioning. There just are not enough zeros. Frankly, it is almost embarrassing to have been involved with it.  

Categories
The Mentality and Attitudes of Lawyers

It Just Doesn’t Matter


When I had been practicing for about six years, I attended a meeting with two more senior lawyers to pitch a potential client on leaving a Big Law firm and coming to our mid-sized suburban firm. The other two were: (1) Sam, who was our managing partner, very business savvy, and a great marketer; and (2) Chuck, who was the senior corporate lawyer and also a great marketer. My late father would have described him as, “all flash, no cash.” Poor Chuck was an administrative disaster and despite his intelligence, a truly awful lawyer.

Categories
Firm Culture

Twenty-Four Hundred Hours

I spoke to two law firm partners this week, both of whom told me that their hourly expectation was 2,400 hours per year, consisting of 2,000 billable hours and 400 non-billable hours (administration, firm events, continuing education, business promotion, and mentoring).

I set about to do some math and determine how many hours these people have to spend on their mental and physical health and personal relationships. The law firms are all advertising their  mental health initiatives, so I knew that it would be substantial!

Categories
Law Students and Young Lawyers

Believe in Yourself or Perish!

I have something important to say.  It is so important that I will say it three different ways in the hope that those of you who are too busy trying to achieve your ridiculous hourly billing target to do anything other than skim read will not miss it. Here I go: