David Maister on business development
All writers have their favorite pieces, and while I wouldn’t necessarily elevate blogging to author status, I certainly have my favorite posts. One of them is Relationship or one-night stand: how law firms view associates(and clients). It’s a favorite for two reasons: first, it draws on an article about client development by David Maister to […]
Habit: the enemy of entropy
I’m not a physicist (I can barely spell the word) but as I remember it, the second law of thermodynamics is that entropy, which for purposes of this post only might be a synonym for chaos or disorder, tends to increase. Another way of saying this is that systems tend to move from a state of higher […]
Warning: first impressions linger!
I’ve been making a lot of calls this week, not only to lawyers and law firms but also to doctors’ offices and a variety of businesses, and I’ve discovered something disturbing. On a distressingly high number of these contacts (including some in-person contacts as well as phone calls), the people who greeted me and who […]
Maximum effect: change behavior, thought, or feeling.
Sometimes I work with clients who are caught in a pattern they want to break. It may be a behavior that doesn’t serve them (for instance, not completing time sheets until the morning they’re due and losing the details that would yield more billable time), a thought that produces an action that doesn’t serve them (such […]
Finders, minders, grinders, and binders
Have you heard this old saw? People used to say that law firms need four categories of lawyers: finders, minders, grinders, and binders. It’s still true to some degree, though today’s atmosphere requires lawyers to develop their skills in each of these areas, rather than simply selecting the most comfortable skill set and roosting there. […]
The Power of Nice
I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading lately (a by-product of not being able to work using my own computer) and I’m enjoying the diversity of ideas that are coming through my selections. From the point of view of the stereotypical lawyer or law firm, the most subversive of these books is The Power of […]
Independence Day: what does it mean for lawyers?
To those of you in or from the U.S., Happy Independence Day! Today’s a day that many celebrate with cookouts, fireworks, parades, and the like. I’ve had an interesting lead-in to the holiday through conversation with my husband’s parents. They live in England, though they spend a great deal of time now in the U.S. […]