TYPES OF LAW FIRM

Ibukun Awosika of the SOKOA Chair Centre made a comment about how building a business was not just enough for success, contribution and meaning. The type , character, nature and features of the business you build matter very much. Pushing this idea into law land and compacting it to mean; building a law firm is choosing to build a type of law firm just like giving birth to a child inherently means giving birth to a boy or girl. There are no other choices. The law firm you build is either one thing or the other it is not just a law firm. One stock of Berkshire Hathaway is worth 70,000 dollars and you get given the shares really, you don't buy into the company. This is a type of company, one whose value is very, very clear.

 

Type of law firm means, what are you doing? After slaving away to pay the rent and light bills what is left on your table. What do you have to do to make your dreams come true? You hear and read a lot about management so now you need action, to execute. How do you want to be seen by the world leads to, what do we have to do to achieve it? Say you want to be a thought leader (whatever that means) in renewables and alternative energy you must actually enjoy the matter and think upon it for yourself, for your government, for your clients and especially, for your competitors. You will not get by with showing up for client raids or pitches and then slinking off into the night after lining your pockets. Thought leaders do not do this kind of thing and neither will you.

 

Choosing your type of law firm hasn't too much to do with current reality however mediocre and Spartan your practice is. It is about looking at that reality and thinking of what you can be and then getting into the ring to make it happen. The entire legal services space is built up of individual firms like yours and the legal services chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

 

Is that you?

 

OUR WORD.

There is nothing we can say or do on our business platform that will single handedly or automatically transform your law firm into a global behemoth. That will only happen as you put your hand to the plough with us and together we will both accept responsibility for and carry the weight necessary to become a global behemoth of a law firm.
Stick with us and we will get there...

Think these ideas through put them to work and let us know how you do. This is it.

Success as a leader is dependent on calling on behaviour that is appropriate to the situation.
Jumping on each management fad without taking the time to digest the evidence which supports it.
That LSE or INSEAD or HBS puts it out there don't mean you should go for it.
If you take these thoughts as narrow prescriptions to follow then you are restricting their application to your affairs.
Understand that no one can tell you what to do and only you will know what to do with what you have and read and this is why your intent and the levels of desire and motivation that you bring to this platform matter very much.
In the days to come there will be shifts in the legal landscape and the business world and you will have to make shifts.
Welcome to figure it out on your own, the key word being figure it out.
This is not , even slightly, a wild card to rationalize and justify doing what you want or are currently doing because we have shown you the reality that you have to add you to the thoughts we offer. It is the placing of a duty on you.
For example, if some other chap uses these same thoughts who will come out on top? Only you can answer that.

ENTREPRENEURIAL LAW

A few years ago the idea of entrepreneurship exploded into the public space and everyone was itching to have a go at it. This was the solution to the unemployment problem, the low wage problem, the bad boss problem. But what on earth did it really mean? And what can law firms do with it?

A simple definition of this term entrepreneurship: is the absence of a safety net, there is a real risk of failure, of exposure and the relentless pursuit of opportunity. It is throwing oneself upon the seas for a chance at profit alone.
Entrepreneurs deliberately chase risk they use intuition, practice creativity, have to be extremely resilient and quite frankly lawyers live in another world with their focus on conservatism, being cynical, skeptical.

Do any of these law features make for good entrepreneurs and does the law need them? The history of legal entrepreneurship is not a particularly long or varied one. No media reporting in it, no awards for it and no marketplace buzz touting legal entrepreneurship.

So who dares claim up be entrepreneurial?

I DID IT, YOU SHOULD TOO

Senior to Junior: This is the idea, when we started out in practice things were terrible, money was terrible, opportunities were terrible, life was terrible and : IF I WENT THROUGH IT, YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT YOU HAVE NOW. Basically compared to my time, you my friend are having it great.

This is about what the senior partner or whatever is supposed to do for the junior. I truly cringe at the word, supposed. Is anyone supposed to do anything for the junior? Well, it is out there and is causing drama so chipping in a word would help.

First there is the mentorship issue: This part can be confusing because for the junior he really has to find his feet on his own but there is a lot of talk about receiving guidance from a senior chap who knows the rules and is willing to give this to the junior. The junior also has to be reasonable and not expect sponsorship or someone to basically pave the way for him.

Then what are the duties of Senior and Junior: The senior offers what he can and the junior takes it with a smile. If there are deficiencies the junior makes up for it using his own ingenuity.

And finally there is context: Juniors have been led to expect freebies but this is not real so they will have to learn to negotiate in the context of the real world where having an edge or an impregnable position will determine who will decide to partner with you.

And let us not forget human nature. It is so constituted that it cannot respect a helpless man but it can pity him and even that it cannot do for long if the signs of power do not emerge.
On the part of the senior, it requires a big man to determine in his life that he will be a giant upon who others can stand to see further. And this choice can only be impelled no matter how much railing or finger wagging we all have to endure.
Find me a law firm that has invested enough in its associates to put them in front of the GC of a major company. That's the kind of major thinking that pulls thee ahead.

If all this goes to bits, the junior can always break out with a direction or thought which he can out into play on his own. This has been the way of all rising stars

There are merits to this do-it-for-me mentorship point of view and it works for the lazy, the shirkers or those who just cannot cut it.

ACTUALLY RUNNING THY LAW FIRM

The total absence of management training from legal education is a significant contributor to the current holes that exist in legal services. Current reality is that a large number of lawyers hang out shingles from day one or step out after a few years to do so. The only skill and experience in their possession is their drive and what they saw at the firms they were in.

From the perspective of formal legal education, this hole must be filled BEFORE the pupil is released to the society so she goes in ready to contribute and to cut short her spinning-the-wheels time under the guise of pupillage. As long as the pupil is actually undergoing an apprenticeship then the length of time can be justified as she will come out as a master in her field to the glory of lawyers everywhere.

THE LAW FIRM REFINERY

One of the ways that the third world countries are able to have some meaning in the global economic space is through OPEC, the oil people and refineries are a really big deal in the industry. In fact, one of the chief means through which the Standard Oil company achieved leadership was that it positioned itself as a refiner and every oil find had to come through its system or else there was no profit for the driller. Refineries made it all happen.

Client Management is the law firm's refinery. The first task is to search for where oil is which is business development, generating a viable book of business and then the next step is to refine the oil so that it can be put to several uses and generate value through the international economy.
Another way of looking at it is eating. You cannot eat food that is not cooked because it tastes terrible for one and your body cannot digest raw food so over a while you will become sick or starve.

The way the oil industry works is that most of the value is actually gotten from the refining process, this is where magic happens and your law firm needs one for all the data information, ideas, issues affecting the client, her industry and the work that you do.

What on earth is a refinery? Since you are in the services and ideas business, here's a go:

Client management is that function at your law firm that develops a conscious plan of studying your clients and the revenue flow they contribute to your business, paying close and continuous attention to the trends in their industry and business and finally using this information to develop a plan for what levels of revenue and relationship you will have with the clients for the long term future.

All this talk of refining is not fear mongering. It is a statement of business fact that has been confirmed by pollsters, consulting people, market research and customer service people.
It is 7 times more expensive to get a new client than it is to make better with current clients, not every new client should come to your book of business, instead of endless line extensions you need to avoid watering down the value of your services offering.
You cannot keep going after new clients if you do not make the most of what you have. For example, Berkshire Hathaway stopped receiving new investors because it did not know what to do with the new money and could not guarantee any value for new money. Its shares are in a class by itself and are transferred from generation to generation while most companies are perpetually cheating the public and watering stock.

A regular refinery costs and maintenance costs are heavy as well so you have a clear idea for what you are about when you sign up for it.
This is a difficult task and an expensive one as well but it really is no more difficult than the burden of crap that is the alternative.

WHERE WHERE WHERE

Does your practice have a venue management plan? The idea is that as in real estate where we have been told that location is everything, the venue of the matter counts for a lot.
Say you are on the plane and some business comes your way but it is forever away? Do you let it go or try to hold on to it no matter what. Do you have a plan to bring the necessary resources to address this kind of problem even in your local practice space?
On another level the venue of the matter counts because of transportation time and costs for you and your client. Is it worth it and can you handle it and still do great work or will it be one of those situations where hide and seek leads the transaction to drag on and on.
Then looking at home court advantage, is the venue of the transaction a place you know well and know enough to be comfortable in? To some the home court means nothing but at least a little reconnoitreing will put your client in the 'My counsel has this issue locked down' zone.
For non-court matters, where the parties are coming from and where meetings will be held matters a great deal for everyone so that missed Arbitration sessions will not happen, contract negotiations will happen with relevant parties present and so on and so forth.
Here's a funny one. You just cannot forget or leave anything behind in Lekki if you are headed to Ikeja. It means you can't nip across Falomo bridge or take a speed boat to get it back.
Can't happen.