Vacation
Dennis Kennedy is taking a firm retreat. I'm taking a vacation. My wife and I are heading up to Chicago for almost a week to spend some time with her family. We'll be in the Glenview, Illinois area. If anyone is close and wants to grab a drink or something, shoot me an e-mail.
More LegalMatch News
Found this article today in ABA's e-Journal Report on the indictment of LegalMatch's founder and (former) CEO, Dmitri Shubov. Some excerpts:
Two days after his indictment, Shubov resigned as CEO, and Stuart Gross was named as his replacement. On May 24, another change of leadership occurred when Randy Wells, the company’s vice president of membership, officially took the helm.One of Wells’ first projects is to contact every LegalMatch subscribing attorney about the change in management. Most attorneys are being contacted by phone, and a few clients (especially local attorneys) have had face-to-face meetings with LegalMatch management.
Wells expects the process of calling attorney-clients may take about three weeks. So far, he says, the reaction from most of the company’s subscribing attorneys has been similar to the Utah bar’s reaction: "Clients have been relieved that we took immediate action and are ready to move forward," Wells says. "Believe it or not, it really hasn’t been a major issue."
The person in charge of the marketing tactics of LegalMatch now appears to be running the whole show. Great!
Monkey Business at the Zoo
I don't post a lot of personal information on this blog, and I rarely let my sometimes sick sense of humor out in public, but I went to the St. Louis Zoo this weekend and happened upon this statue. I was laughing so hard, I could hardly snap the photo. Warning, unintentionally mature content.
Comment from Former Legalmatch Salesperson?
This comment showed up today as a response to my original LegalMatch post, Why I'll Never Use Legalmatch. I express no opinion on the comment's validity, but food for thought if true:
Unfortunately, I was one of the salespeople at Legalmatch. For a very short time. (There are hundreds of us, and most of us were lied to as much or more than the attorneys.) Most attorneys did not have great success with the service, although they hid that from the sales people. The reason? People shop for free advice or post their cases for fun. They rarely hire an attorney. Yet, there is enough volume of these non-cases being posted to keep justifying the demand for "more attorneys" - i.e., more "allocations." With high volume/high pressure sales tactics, extreme turnover of commission-only salespeople, and the real difficulty many attorneys have in getting clients, Legalmatch keeps getting people to sign up and hand over thousands of dollars. (Non-refundable once you've used the system - read the contract. And just try to get your money back from them if you're unhappy.) Not a big surprise to me that Shubov was indicted.
Trapped by Overwhelming Demands?
In this HBS Working Knowledge article titled The Trap of Overwhelming Demands, authors Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghosha take on a problem most lawyers face. Does this sound like you?
[Y]ou deem some aspects of your work important, but you can never find time for them. Or you might feel under constant pressure. The most dangerous of all is believing that you are indispensable
If so, read the article, an excerpt of the authors' book, A Bias for Action: How Effective Managers Harness Their Willpower, Achieve Results, and Stop Wasting Time.
LegalMatch Founder in Trouble?
I thought I was done talking about LegalMatch (see here, here, and here, and here) but several readers e-mailed me with news that LegalMatch's Founder and CEO, Dmitry Shubov was indicted. Here is the story from the AP:
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- The founder of an Internet-based service that matches lawyers with clients was indicted for allegedly hacking into the voicemail system of an Irvine competitor and deleting messages.Dmitri Shubov, 31, of San Francisco was charged with three counts of unlawful access to store communications and one count of making false statements, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Stolper said Wednesday. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Shubov is the founder of LegalMatch.com, which matches lawyers with potential clients, Stolper said, and one of his competitors is Casepost.com. Shubov allegedly telephoned the company, used an access code to hear messages and then deleted them, Stolper said.
He also allegedly lied to FBI agents about the activity during an interview earlier this year, Stolper said.
At least he won't have any problems finding a good lawyer.
Specialist v. Generalist
Jennifer Rice, at What's Your Brand Mantra, has an interesting post on specialization:
Trying to be all things to all people is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to attracting and keeping customers. Choosing a target market is tough. It means eliminating entire groups of people from your messages. But without focus, you risk a bland, diluted message that means nothing to anyone.
She has lots more great thoughts, so go to the full post to read them.
50 Coolest Song Parts
This has nothing to do with the law, marketing, my daughter, or whatever else I write about on this blog, but I've just spent the last thirty minutes reading RetroCrush's "The 50 Coolest Song Parts." He's counting down and has twenty yet to go. Really fun.
Law Day
For many years now, I've been in charge of the Highland (Illinois) Optimist Club's Law Day Program. Every year, we organize a "mock trial" for all of the eighth graders in Highland (from both the public and Catholic schools) at the Madison County Courthouse in Edwardsville, Illinois. This year, there were over 300 students, assorted faculty, and staff who attended.
The purposes of the program are two-fold: first, we want to give a realistic view of how a trial might work; and second, we want to impress upon the students the negative impacts of drinking and driving. A random selection of eighth graders make up the jugy, high school students play the roles of the defendant and witness, but everyone else involved is the real deal -- judge, prosecutor, criminal defense lawyer, police officer, court reporter, and bailiff. Nothing is scripted. The police reports and other evidence are as real as we can make them, including the tape from the breathalyzer. The trial takes about two hours and almost always results in a conviction of the "defendant." After the trial, the students ask the officers, lawyers, and judge questions about the law and legal process. After we finish, the kids are taken back to Highland for an assembly on drinking and driving (this year, time did not permit the assembly).
I estimate that we have presented this program to over 3000 kids since I've been involved with the Optimist Club, and probably 1000 more before then. Our annual cost is zero (except for the bus transportation). If anyone wants to know more how to run a similar program for your community, please contact me.
To Insure Prompt Service
Not sure how this fits in with legal marketing and client service, but I found a fascinating article over at Epicurious.com about one man's attempt to bribe/tip his way into New York's trendiest restaurants. Thanks to Marginal Revolution for the link.
April Fool's Came Early
Yesterday, I posted this about an anonymous lawyer blogging about his experiences as a large law firm hiring partner. Apparently, it was a hoax. The fact that some, like me, actually thought this could be a real lawyer surprised the blog's author:
It actually scares me that these stories are close enough to the realm of possibility that it's not obvious fiction. It's not a reflection on the people who linked to them, I'm sure. It's a reflection on either what these law firms really are, or, more likely, what their reputations are. Just the hours this imaginary guy works -- 6:45 on a Sunday morning I thought for sure would ruin all credibility.
The problem is that the stories the anonymous blogger made up are perilously close to the truth. I don't know if I am glad that this a-hole hiring partner doesn't really exist, of if I am disappointed that many of us thought that he could.
My reasons for Blogging
I write this weblog because it helps me think about the kind of lawyer I want to be, and the kind of firm I want to own. David at ethicalEsq. pokes some fun at my "overweening preoccupation" with naming my new firm and takes a not-so subtle poke at me for wanting to dump the billable hour and change the way I practice law. I admit to being rather hurt when I read David's post, but instead of taking his bait, I thought I'd take some time to articulate my reasons for reinventing my firm:
I want to be the kind of lawyer my daughter can be proud of (but also the kind of father she remembers). As a general practitioner, I am spending too much time trying to be too many things to too many people. I am not willing to do that any more. I have also grown tired of working for free for clients who don't (or can't) pay me. I would much rather donate my “unbillble time” to the causes I choose (teaching entrepreneural skills at the local high school, coaching a local school's trial team, and offering my mediation services for free to the local legal-aid agency) than to causes that choose me.
I want my clients to love the service they get from me and recommend my firm to their friends and family. I am convinced that billing my clients by the hour is not in their best interest or mine. Clients will know before I begin a project for them what the cost will be. If they are not satisfied with my service, I will refund their money.
I want my employees to love to come to work every day. I want them to work in an environment where they feel free to increase their skills.
More non-legal stuff.
I was surfing last night and came across a few more weird things. On Retrocrush, a site that bills itself as, "The World's Finest Pop Culture Website," I found this list (with photos) of the Fifty Coolest Apes of All Time. I can't believe Mon-ChiChi beat out Chim Chim.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Need more ideas?
Not sure if this goes under humor or not, but this site is a fascinating daily read. A new idea every day. Take a look at the archives and top ten. My favorite:
Allow voters in political elections to cast a vote against a candidate. Voters would still have only one vote each but each "against" vote would nullify a "for" vote. This system would give voters who are disenchanted with party politics, and perhaps unlikely to vote at all, at least the chance to express their feelings about a party they really do not want to be in power.
Only a few ideas have a political bent. Most are just interesting, or just plain weird. The one about a gun-shaped remote control you could aim at the TV to change channels by pulling the trigger was just like the idea I had in law school twelve years ago -- just ask my roommate.
I'll have what he's having.
This might not be the best reason to start your own business. Warning, may induce laughter.
Put a smile on your face.
My daughter is 14 months old, and when I can't be at home playing with her, I check out this link -- which puts a smile on my face every time.
