iHouston will host the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms Annual conference September 14-17th. This event is an opportunity for NAMWOLF members and In House Counsel to meet, network, and attend sessions designed to share knowledge and experiences. This year the Emerging Leaders will have a session entitled: The Art of Rainmaking: Do’s and Don’ts to focus on best practices for growing business with in house counsel. The National Law Review was able to interview session leader Lisa Love, Managing Partner of Love and Long LLP with some questions ahead of the panel.
When pitching a potential client how can you and your firm demonstrate that you can effectively manage their company’s legal needs?
First, our firm must demonstrate that our firm attorneys have the keen knowledge, expertise, skills and past experience to manage the particular legal need of the company. In other words, we must demonstrate our qualifications and skills supported by our past experience and performance.
Second, our firm must demonstrate that we have the capacity or in the jargon of in-house counsel the “bandwidth” to handle their legal needs. This often is more of a perception than a reality situation. Because the perception is that if a company has retained a larger firm, then the hundreds of attorneys that are employed by the firm are handling their matter. When in reality, typically only a select few attorneys are actually performing the legal services on behalf of the company. This is especially true given the recent trend of companies to require that firms designate the particular attorneys who will handle their work and to not compensate for work performed by attorneys other than those designated by the firm and approved by the company.
Third, we must demonstrate that our firm has a process to manage and perform the work. Here we engage in a workflow analysis. We designate a client relations partner, a project manager partner, several levels of staffing, and a model for managing and performing the work. Depending upon the type of work involved, our model includes kickoff meetings, regular client updates, status reports, time management calculations from receipt of the matter to disposition of the matter, and management of the oversight process required by client.
Do you have a process for learning about a client and their business in order to serve their needs? How do you educate yourself on the client’s business so you can tailor your legal advice to their specific situation?
To learn about a client and its business needs, we usually review all of the public information about the client including annual reports, periodic filings with regulatory agencies, reports of news services, and other publicly available information. We also review reports prepared by various companies that provide a synopsis of the company, its pending and past litigation and other pertinent information regarding the potential client. In addition, we will speak to in-house counsel prior to pitch meetings to determine the exact needs of the client so that the legal services that we pitch are specifically tailored to the legal needs that the client requires. It is important that we have a firm understanding of the client’s business in order to highlight the alignment of the client’s needs to the services that we provide and to demonstrate the added value of retaining our firm.
How do you make your clients / potential clients aware of legal / regulatory issues that may impact their companies?
To make our clients aware of legal/regulatory issues, we serve on bar committees in our practice area and attend continuing legal educations seminars to stay current with recent developments and best practices, review notices of proposed regulations of agencies that regulate or impact our clients, and provide lunch and learns to our clients, in each case to provide our clients with an overview of new laws and regulations or changes in the law that require a modifications or adjustments to the manner in which they may be conducting business. In addition, when we have recognized a business process that a client is considering in which the client or our firm may not have particular knowledge and expertise, we have offered to become subject matter experts and provide information and advice to our client without charging our client.
In your experience, what are some law firm practices that are frowned upon by In-house counsel?
In our experience, clients frown upon any law firm practice that results in a surprise to the in-house counsel. Some of the surprises that in-house counsel particularly detest are:
(a) surprises in billings (i.e. billings that rapidly approach the amount budgeted for the entire matter in a very short time or billings that are projected to exceed the budgeted amount for the services without discussion and proposals to handle the situation),
(b) surprises in anticipated outcome, and
(c) surprises resulting from changes in assigned staff without consultation or approval.
Our firm has found that the best way to mitigate these surprises is to have a good relationship with our in-house contact so that we can discuss these situations and jointly agree upon the best way to handle the situation before it becomes a surprise.
How does a younger lawyer get the experience needed in order to be in the best position to bring in new clients? How do you manage introducing lesser experienced attorneys to clients, and assure them they have the experience required to handle their legal issues/justify their fees?
This is a very interesting question that really highlights the manner in which the practice of law has evolved over the past 20 years. No longer is it sufficient for the young attorney to simply do great work but she or he must also understand the business of the practice of law. One way for the young lawyer to get experience is to participate in rain making and business development activities, i.e. researching prospective clients, participating in pitch meetings, taking leadership roles in bar committees and associations, and becoming active in specialty counsel groups and chambers of commerce. In addition, the young attorney must be incentivized to develop business in order to appreciate the value, not only to the firm, but to the attorney, of bringing in the work.
Our firm is primarily comprised of seasoned attorneys who already have achieved high levels of expertise in their practice areas. Therefore, we have not had the experience of having to justify the fees of young attorneys. In addition, we have some clients that require that junior attorneys (one to three years of experience) not be assigned to their matters because they do not want to incur the cost of education and training of less experienced attorneys.
What are some ways that law firms can appear attractive to In-House Counsel? Is there anything helpful to include on your biography or law firm’s website?
We highlight fairly recent significant or complex transactions in which the firm has provided representation and continuing legal education seminars at which attorneys of the firm have presented. We highlight, to the extent acceptable to the client, Fortune 100, federal agencies and other major clients that we have represented. We also highlight the fact that the firm is a member of NAMWOLF.
In your experience, what are some things In-House counsel care about when looking to hire outside counsel?
In looking to hire outside counsel, in-house counsel care about the qualifications, past performance and bandwidth of the outside counsel, the lack of surprises and being able to justify and withstand scrutiny when their decision to hire a particular outside law firm is questioned.
Thank you Lisa for taking the time to share your experience with us!
