LawBizBlog : Law Practice Management, Lawyer Coaching, Legal Consulting, Law Firm Retreats : LawBiz Blog : Ed Poll

Ed talks about lawyers who provide solutions and who communicate effectively and often with their clients.

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Developing your practice and business will always be a priority. This week, Ed shares tips about how networking can help you do this.

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Your law practice is a business. You should know how to run it like one.

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Ed discusses 8 steps that law practitioners can take to survive a recession.

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Ed stresses the fact that knowledge of technology is now vital in order to be considered a competent lawyer.

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Whether it's a recession or a depression we're in, several lessons have surfaced we cannot ignore. This week, Ed ponders what we can learn from this crisis to ensure we're on the right track for the future.

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Do you know how your clients would rate you?

During today's clip, Ed will share some indicators that might help you gauge the rapport between you and your clients.

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Ed makes suggestions about what to consider when approaching the end of your lease.

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Ed discusses the factors that influence collection success.
Client selection: you have to get the right client.
You must understand the wants and the needs of the client.
You have to get confirmation of the arrangement between you and the client in writing.
And, check the client's credit.

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Ed talks about creating a bond with the client to achieve client loyalty because your revenue is a perishable commodity.

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Yesterday, I watched the Richard Gere film, Aribtrage. The film portrays a successful billionaire's moral decline as he attempts to save his failing company from his poor decisions. He "cooks" the company books by borrowing money that is not shown on the books as such in order to keep up appearances in order to complete a sale of the company, falsifies investors reports and otherwise plays "loose" with the truth. This is a man in trouble, but Gere continues to exude confidence in order to reach his goal.

Coincidentally, in today's Wall Street Journal, reporters once again discuss the Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP demise. Prosecutors are still questioning whether there was deception about the financial condition of the firm in the last few months. Were partners told the truth, were they given accurate financial reports, and were the firm obligations to pay down outstanding debt on behalf of terminated partners honored? And, were the transgressions that did occur a matter of a struggling business doing what it could to survive or a matter of criminal and/or civil fraud?

As a matter of "black letter law," it's clear that management (managing partner and management committee members) owe a fiduciary duty to others -- investors, lenders and partners. Did they breach this duty? How close to Arbitrage did the leaders of Dewey come?

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In a recent display of enthusiasm, pizza shop owner, Scott Van Duzer, gave President Obama a bear hug when the President visited his shop on a Florida campaign tour. The visit and the ensuing bear hug provided quite a spectacle. After all, how could the secret service have permitted this? But, both the owner and the President seemed to enjoy the moment. 

What impressed me more was the interview of the shop owner. He said, in response to a question about whether he feels that Obama has let the country down, “The bottom line is this: I own a small business. I take accountability for my business. I’m not looking to blame the government. And if people had the same mentality of taking care of their own businesses instead of looking to blame somebody when things are a little bad—just tightening things up and doing the best they can—I think we’d be better off that way, too. The whole world is not in a good place right now, and I’m not looking to blame someone. I think that’s the problem. We’re looking more so to blame him for our misfortunes.” 

In other words, we’re not “entitled” to a particular way of life; we have to work to achieve our success; and we are accountable to ourselves ... neither the government nor anyone else has “done it to us.”  Blaming someone else merely allows us to feel like a victim.  We do have power and control over our own lives to a far greater degree than we admit.

By analogy, in a show the other day, Katie Courac talked to two teenagers who were bullied. Their common characteristic was that they refused to feel like a victim. They remained upright and confronted their attackers. Their stories provided an interesting perspective

Can we use help? Absolutely. Do we need rules of the road to assure that we have a level playing field? I believe so, but that's my bias. Should the government provide us with help? Before you answer this question, read the Time Magazine article by Jeremy Styron to understand how the government actually is in our daily lives, more than we know, more than we care to admit, providing us with material assistance just to get through our normal day's routine. 

But, without the accountability to ourselves, without rules that apply to all, equally, we go nowhere. Thank you, Mr. Pizza Shop Owner, for putting entrepreneurship and small business in the proper perspective.

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Ed discusses the virtual office and the importance of face-to-face client contact.

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Commentary about when and how a lawyer can represent both defense clients and plaintiff clients on the same issue.

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Ed speaks about positive and negative changes that affect the way lawyers practice law.

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Today, I realized that it is the 10 year anniversary of my riding up one of the most famous mountains in the world, Alpe d'Huez!

I rode a major mountain here in California earlier in the year, Mt. Figueroa about 1/2 hour north of Santa Barbara. It is the same mountain climb that many professional cyclists ride in the early months of the year to train for the Tour d'France and other major races. When I reached the top, the coaches at CTS Training (Chris Carmichael, then the coach of Lance Armstrong) assured me that this climb confirmed that I could climb any mountain in France. Well, in some disbelief, I made reservations the following week to go to France in July 2002.  And I did climb several of the other major climbs in that year's Tour, as well.

It's now 10 years later; time has taken its toll. But, I did start training to climb Mt. Fig. again this year. Wish me luck, though I'll need more than that ...

What's in your bucket list? What are you doing to achieve your goals?

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Ed's wife reminds him that there's no such thing as a free lunch, but today Ed shares tips that will promote your firm and services at little expense.

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In the Wall Street Journal, staff writer, Jacqueline Palank discusses the Justice Department’s attempt to control fees that bankruptcy lawyers seek. Creditors and employees may, at times, be a bit disgruntled by such fees. So, now, the U.S. Trustee Program appears to be entering the fray.

Before going further, it should be noted that i) any fee sought by an attorney must first be approved by the client going into bankruptcy; ii) the fee cannot be paid before a Bankruptcy Court Judge approves the fee request; iii) the legal fees most often are a pittance compared to the debts of the company and thus have little or no impact on either the creditors or the employees. In fact, the current proposal is limited to companies whose assets and debts exceed $50 million, hardly your "normal" bankruptcy.

The only reason for focusing on the legal fees is that this is a topic that makes good reading in the tabloids, including the WSJ. While the quoted hourly rate received by some attorneys seems high, it is insignificant in comparison to the compensation received by incompetent CEOs and others in the C-suite offices. Why don’t the tabloids focus on the cause of the bankruptcy? Why not focus on the compensation of the management team, which often is at astronomically higher multiples compared the lowest paid employees of the company? Why not seek redress against the management that is responsible for bringing the company to its knees? Although this focus may have more positive economic impact, it clearly is not sexy enough to sell many papers.

The U.S. Trustee is proposing, according to the writer, several new approaches to control lawyers’ fees, including:

•    Though the lawyer applicant must disclose his/her hourly rate now, the Justice Department wants the lawyer to disclose the lowest, highest and average hourly rates the law firm charges in all its matters.

•    The Department wants the lawyer applicant to create and disclose to the Court a budget for legal expenses. This budget would, necessarily, disclose to all involved, including the creditors who are adversaries of the bankrupt, the client’s planned legal strategy.

In the 1960s, the Supreme Court ruled that it was anti-competitive for bar associations to maintain a listing of suggested fees for different types of work. Such a listing, in particular, helped younger and newer lawyers set their fees at rates that were more in line with more senior lawyers. Not having such a list would compel lawyers to set their own fees, the theory being that lawyers would then be more competitive with one another to the consumers’ benefit.  The Trustee by its first proposal ignores this. The existing disclosure already provides information that tends to be anti-competitive. Law firms can see what others are charging and price their own services accordingly, causing rates to slowly increase in lockstep over the years.

Intruding into the fees charged for practice areas, such as general business matters, estate planning, tax work, and other areas of work performed by the firms who also do bankruptcy work has no bearing on the special expertise of large company bankruptcy lawyers. No area of law other than bankruptcy requires such disclosure for court approval. Fees are left to be negotiated between attorney and client. Other than precedent, there is no reason disclosure should be made here either and the process should not be extended. “Transparency” is a bogus issue. There is no backroom conspiracy on how bankruptcy fees are charged. All the proceedings are public and must be approved by the Court before attorneys are paid anything.

Budgets are good. I recommend them to my attorney-clients with whom I consult. Budgeting is a process, however, between the client and the attorney. By requiring that bankruptcy budgets, which reveal legal strategy, be made public, the U.S. Trustee is saying that bankrupt companies have no rights. They have no right to advocacy; they have no right to develop a strategy that might affect creditors' claims; and they have no right of confidentiality. This is clearly contrary to the U.S. Constitution and our entire judicial system. While the bankrupts, and their inept management, may have proceeded down an economically unwise path, they still have rights to seek the best windup of affairs in their economic environment.

Don’t worry about the lawyers’ hourly rates once the bankruptcy petition is filed. They are regulated first, by the client, and second, by the Court. Who is watching the compensation of the management team before the company entered bankruptcy? Why are inept executives not punished with fines, or worse, for malfeasance and negligent management tactics? Why are they allowed to benefit so expansively at the expense of their workers? Why don’t the tabloids focus their sharp light there? Oh, I forgot, the tabloids need to sell papers, they are part of the industrial complex that both Presidents Washington and Eisenhower warned us about as they left office.  Perhaps the fact that quite a few newspapers and newspaper chains (Tribune Co. and papers in Detroit, Denver, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and many other cities) have been mismanaged and had to file for bankruptcy has something to do with it, too.

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