Road to Partnership Flashcards
What are the three essential steps to partnership?
- Prove yourself on a difficult project;
- Fit in; and
- Grow the cake.
To look the part, it is suggested you have “executive presence”. What is this?
Executive Presence is a blending of temperament, competencies, and skills that, when combined, send all the right signals.
It generally consists of:
- High energy and self confidence
- Strategic thinking
- Decisiveness
- Assertiveness
When looking at partnership, why is it important to align yourself with influential partners?
Elevation to partnership, unlike other positions, is popularity driven and decided by a vote. An influential partner can champion you and guide you through the maze of politics.
What type of marketing strategy must you have to bring clients in the door and “grow the cake”, regardless of the precise tactics used?
A marketing strategy must be focused and systematic.
You must focus on the “rivers of gold”, or the 20% of your legal services that account for 80% of your profit.
You must be systematic - in that your plan must be planned, regular, and results measurable.
Once the client is “in the door”, what is the key responsibility of the partner?
Focus on achieving results through management. The larger the pyramind you control, the higher your “controlled billing”.
Also focus on keeping the client happy and updated.
What are the three types of client needs for legal work?
NB: Routine contract review and drafting and basic legal research are tasks that are more commodity than premium i.e. Rio Tinto 2009.
Which US anti-trust case, finding the the minimum fee schedules published by state and local county bar associations and enforced by the state bar associations violated section 1 of the Sherman Act against price fixing, helped encourage the uptake of modern time billing?
Goldfarb v Virginia State Bar (1975) US Supreme Court
Plaintiff sought quote from 36 lawyers for title search - all quoted 1% of lands value in line with the county’s minimum fee schedule - created a “price floor”.
What is over-monetization?
When clients can obtain similar services at lower prices elsewhere and they act on this, your services are over-monetized.
If your offerings are over-monetized, the clock is ticking. You will never find enough new clients with pockets so deep they don’t mind over-spending, or with management so inept that they don’t recognize over-spending, to make up for the rush of clients out the door.
What is a lawyers utilization rate?
The amount of time an associate actually bills as a percentage of his/her targeted number of hours.
What is a collections realisation rate?
The percentage of fees collected against fees billed.
To improve this:
- Request an adequate advance fee deposit
- Learn to say “no” when there are red flags
- Clarity in written fee agreement
- Bill timely, with value-demonstrated billing descriptions
- Fire bad clients
- Develop a collections policy with automatic effect when an account becomes past-due
What is a lawyers Billing Realization Rate?
The amount of time charged versus the amount of time billed.
To imporve, reduce write offs:
- Capture time contemporaneously
- Query all discounts and write-offs
- WIP (too much unbilled time on the books)
- Ineffective delegation which results in unbillable rework
What is WIP and why is minimising it important?
WIP is “work in progress”. It is all time and disbursements that have not yet been billed, normally because it hasn’t been recorded.
Speedy turnover is important because it gets the firm paid faster and reduces debates with clients about poorly recollected bills.
Though unpaid bills is a massive problem for law firms, why is it sometimes unwise to sue a former client to recover legal costs?
It is common for client’s to cross-claim alleging professional negligence.
What are the two stages of a large scale, “bet the company” piece of litigation?
Brains project: Requires the best and brightest to decide on overall strategy. Short, sharp and impactful with high average billing rate but lower profitability.
Hands project: The implimentation stage of the project. Requires many “hands”. Average billing rate will be lower because of lower cost resources, but will be more profitable due to greater leverage.
When reviewing a matter, what is it important that you do?
Read methodically - check everything - no assumptions.
What are three high impact actons you can have when meeting to win business?
Homework in advance to show interest - start immediately - example of finished product.
