legal sanity

The other day, I was on the phone listening to a caller I didn’t know talk about a banking service I didn’t need.

As my mind wandered to my long todo list, I started losing patience and getting annoyed with the caller and the person who had made the introduction. I decided to cut the conversation short by thanking the caller and extending an invitation to a fundraiser I was hosting to support relief efforts in Haiti. 

Suddenly, everything changed. 

The caller, Jefferson Crowther, responded to the invitation by telling me about his life commitment to The Welles Remy Crowther Charitable Trust, which he formed in memory of his son, who was his “closest friend in the world.”  For the next 30 minutes, I listened with rapt attention as Jefferson shared the story of Welles’ extraordinary heroism on September 11, 2001.  

A 24-year-old equity trader, Welles was working at the World Trade Center as the horrific events of the day started to unfold. Instead of fleeing the building, he spent the last hour of his life saving others. As chronicled in the New York Times, his courageous acts were characteristic of a man dedicated to being the best person he could be and helping others do the same. 

I’m sharing this with you for two reasons.

First, it’s just one more reminder of the importance of truly getting to know people. Because of my own busy-ness and impatience (among other not-so-good qualities), I had quickly sized up Jefferson as someone who was irrelevant to me and my work in the law. Of course, he proved to be an immense inspiration. But, beyond that, he helped me reconnect with myself as a human being and a lawyer who wants to serve people in meaningful ways. 

Second, I’m sharing this because the Red Bandanna Skate, an annual hockey fundraiser held in Welles’ memory, is coming up on March 20, 2010. It runs from 5-7 pm at Sport-O-Rama Ice Rinks in Monsey, NY. Proceeds from this event go to wonderful causes. Your contributions will mean a lot to Jefferson and the many people who will benefit from your generosity.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In my last post, I mentioned that I was participating in a Haitian earthquake relief fundraiser organized by my brother, Steven Herz, and his team at New York’s If Management.  

On only 48 hours notice, over 200 people attended the event last night and raised more than $3,500 for relief work being done through the nonprofit Esperanza International Foundation. NBC News correspondent Jenna Wolfe spoke poignantly about her experiences covering the disaster. She left us with a deep impression that the images we see every day can’t possibly capture the real human toll and devastation in Haiti.

The evening’s tremendous success is a tribute to the generosity of many. It also evidences the importance and power of building and nurturing a vibrant business network. My brother has always been a skilled networker. But, much more than that, he’s always channeled this talent to benefit and uplift others.

If you’re interested, you can learn more about Esperanza’s Haitian disaster relief initiatives here and can make an online donation here.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Dear Legal Sanity Community: 

In light of the recent tragedy in Haiti, Legal Sanity^® is joining IF Management (a NYC media management company owned by my brother Steve Herz) to co-host a fundraiser tomorrow, Thursday, January 21st, to help support the victims of the earthquake.

The cocktail evening will take place from 6 pm - 9 pm at the World Bar located at 845 United Nations Plaza (Between 47th Street and 48th Street) New York, NY 10017.

Guests will be invited to make a $10 donation at the door, and encouraged to continue to make donations throughout the night. 10% of all drink proceeds from the evening will be gifted to the Haiti relief effort.

If Management clients involved with the event include Jenna Wolfe, national correspondent for NBCs Today and weekend Sunday Co-Anchor, Midwin Charles with Tru TV and Dr. Jeff Gardere, television psychologist, all of whom were personally connected to Haiti and will be present to show their support.

All are welcome to come and support so please feel to forward the invitation along to family, friends and colleagues.

We hope to see you all this Thursday. Your contributions will be greatly appreciated!!

Arnie Herz

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The other day, I attended my son’s holiday celebration in his third-grade classroom. To capture the true spirit and meaning of the season, the kids took turns standing up in pairs and reading narratives about one another.

These weren’t fill-in-the-blank recitations. They were insightful and moving reflections. With their teacher’s guidance, the kids had taken the time to see and chronicle the world through their classmates’ eyes. This, of course, left nary a dry eye among us parents.

In my last post, I suggested that lawyers can benefit from seeing matters through our clients’ eyes. This requires us to set our own preconceptions aside. As John Baldoni notes in his recent post at (the just-revamped) Harvard Business Review, it also requires us to keep our egos in check.

Adding to the conversation, Seth Godin comments that gaining and keeping this other-focus can be tough when we’re so used to trying to get people to see things our way. (Lawyers are, after all, in the persuasion business.)

But, it can be done.

Pamela Slim offers us some pointers in a recent post on creating a client-centered, natural business model. Like Kathie Conway of Brains on Fire, you might also find that sharing personal stories is a direct route to learning about the people we work with and want to work with.

On the flip side, some suggest that you can’t really know others if you don’t have a strong sense of who you are. Those in need of some guided self-reflection can start with Seth Godin’s engaging 8 questions and a why.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

My longtime client, artist Pamela Lawton, recently showed her abstract paintings of New York City's modern architecture at an exhibit called Liquid City. Describing her work, Pamela says: "It's almost an 'intervention,' that's sort of an art term that people use to talk about taking something ordinary and conventional and altering it in some way. By noticing something obscure and distant and beautiful, I think it gives a different dimension to the neighborhood."

Taking something ordinary and conventional and altering it in some way.

These words really strike a chord with me since I’m always considering how lawyers can add a different dimension to the profession’s ordinary and conventional mode of client service. I’ve posted before that this kind of intervention requires us to see things through our clients' eyes and get to the heart of what they want and need from us and the law.

But, like other kinds of real-world interventions, this isn’t a simple or an easy proposition. Most lawyers and law firms are set in outmoded ways. Blogger Jim Hassett – who regularly posts on the topic of alternative fees - frames the problem out nicely in a series of posts on the profession’s addiction to the billable hour. At his blog, Patrick Lamb adds some insight in posts on firms raising their rates and being blind to fundamental market shifts.

For lawyers willing and able to shift perspectives, there’s a lot of inspiration out there. I first learned about William Kamkwamba, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, from a moving segment on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Blogger Carolyn Elefant picks up the story to encourage lawyers who are “put out by the economy” or otherwise “feeling trapped in the [ ] lawyering grind.”

Seth Godin provides some more fuel for our client service intervention in his recent post on Boundary Makers. Finally, we can tap into the possibility of taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary by viewing this Fast Company slideshow on innovation in materials.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

This isn’t a post about politics. It’s about human relations.

As I’ve written here before, as lawyers, we’re in the business of human relations. To do our job well, we have to connect with the people behind the legal matters we take on and provide meaningful solutions to their problems.

Connecting with clients in this way is not an opt-in exercise in cutting-edge legal service delivery. It’s what our savvy community of consumers expects and demands. As blogger Patrick Lamb recently posted, when these expectations and demands go unmet – when there’s a breakdown in human relations - the fallout can be pretty significant. The lines of communication are wide open thanks to Social Media channels and it doesn’t take much to spread the word.

President Obama experienced this fallout in the wake of the recent shooting at Fort Hood. He’s been roundly criticized for his insensitivity-in-action on the day of the tragedy and lack of compassion and emotion while addressing mourners at the memorial service. Online columnist Nick Morgan frames the issue beautifully in a Harvard Business post titled Why Obama Needed to Speak From the Heart.

Like the rest of us, President Obama needs to be more conscious of the vital importance of relating to the people he serves on an authentic, emotional level. This is human relations 101; a course of action – or, really, a way of being - that’s no longer optional in politics or in business.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

When it comes to continuing legal education (CLE), most of us think in the very black and white terms of meeting our state’s mandate. But, my thinking has been colorized a bit by the convergence of three forces:

• A Ms. JD post on extending legal education
• Recent coverage of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s new ACC Value Index (allowing/encouraging its members to "share ratings of law firms based on client satisfaction")
• Dispute resolution expert Diane Levin’s compelling look at self-awareness.

As I’ve been exploring here for a while, the recession-driven shake-up - along with other changes in the legal profession and larger cultural shifts - have created an unprecedented opportunity for us to remake our legal services. The first step in this redesign process is to set our foundation. This is a composite of our own interests, skills and strengths and the interests, needs and concerns of the people we want to help.

Establishing this base involves a good amount of self-study. Beyond spending time in self-reflection, we can gather input from trusted colleagues and friends. We can also tap the wisdom of experts and influencers outside the legal profession (here a list to source courtesy of Inc.). For example, Seth Godin offers these insightful posts:

• Everyone is clueless
• Help your customers avoid taking responsibility
• The why imperative

We can also gain some perspective from this Fast Company article on redesigning the worst NFL helmet graphics and this NYT piece on reinventing America's cities.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

For the last few years, I’ve devoted a lot of space here to the idea and practice of client-centricity. You can sample my take on the topic via posts like these:

evangelizing legal service delivery 

client experience management 

legal service delivery: what controls the client experience 

are you remarkable?

client centered care 

(re)designing legal service delivery around the client experience (introducing my legal sanity mentor series

why it’s a great time to be a village lawyer 

I based these posts on insights gained from business and marketing experts outside the legal profession. But, client-centricity isn’t unknown in the law. To the contrary, our profession is firmly rooted in this kind of intimate, human-to-human service. Arguably, like the mom and pop shops on main street, it was a norm until larger market forces emerged in the form of BigLaw and the billable hour.

Given our rich history, I prefer to look at client-centricity as a lost art that’s poised for rediscovery now that the legal profession is shifting under the weight (or, jolt) of the economic downturn. As we reclaim this part of our past – and adapt it to a new generation of clients – we can take some tips from articles on creating client-centric services, including a recent one from Business Week on The Art of the Soft Sell.

The article discusses the customer-centric, or consultative, sales process that’s based on “showing how your product or service can help solve a customer's problem.” One of the quoted experts is my friend and colleague Adrian Miller, founder of Adrian Miller Sales Training. According to Adrian, "Consultative salespeople are problem solvers and conceptual thinkers and tend to look at the big picture."

If you want to learn more about offering client-centric legal services as an adept problem solver, stay tuned for my interview with Adrian Miller in the next installment of the legal sanity mentor

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Last week, I discussed why clients and prospective clients view lawyers as commodities. I suggested that we can avoid this type of identity crisis (yes, I think that being labeled a commodity is not a good thing) by taking some time to figure out what the people we help really want from us beyond fairly priced services.

I found some good guidance and inspiration on this front in a remarkablogger post titled Why You Are Not A Service Provider. In it, blogger Michael Martine notes that consumers of services “suffer from pain, but it’s more of a situational, logistical, or anxiety-based kind of pain. Our clients don’t necessarily want services. [ ] They want their problem to go away—preferably with as little involvement as possible on their part.” He goes on to suggest that we, and our businesses, will fare much better if we think of ourselves as “problems solvers” rather than “service providers.”

Martine adds some meat to this anti-commodity bone in a related post on How to Be a Godsend. He suggests that answering this “one simple question” can make our practices thrive: What is the painful and protracted problem you solve? When you solve this kind of problem (or, these kinds of problems) for your clients, you’re a godsend in their eyes.

For some additional insight into ways to avoid the commodity label, you can read Anthony Tjan’s recent Harvard Business post on the way small companies succeed by infusing their customer service with common sense and empathy.

If you’re in the NYC on November 5, 2009, you can gain practical tips on being the problem solver your clients need by participating in the New York City Bar’s Sixth Annual Law Practice Management Symposium. This year’s event offers a range of workshops on Jumping In and Staying Afloat in Your Solo or Small Firm Practice. I’ll be speaking as part of a plenary session on Cultivating Work-Life Synergy.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Through my daily reads, I tapped into an interesting conversation about the commoditization of design services. One point that stood out for me is how the traditional client-provider relationship gets flipped when the service and its offerer are seen as commodities. As one observer puts it: “Suddenly a client can define all aspects of a job from price to design, causing the designer’s role to change from that of a professional to that of a technician.”

This isn’t a wholly client-led phenomenon. It’s been fueled by the advent of online job boards and tournaments as well as a proliferation of designers who are quick to lower their rates in order to book the job.

Of course, this flip isn’t unique to the design world. As I’ve posted here before, a lot of people believe that lawyers are unremarkable and interchangeable. According to a Chicago Lawyer article on law as a commodity, there may be something to this since technology has taken the craft and nuance out of many tasks lawyers routinely undertake.

Some lawyers might not mind being considered commodities. Certainly, you can try to build and sustain a business on a platform of out-pricing the competition. But, my guess is that many more of us bristle at the commodity label. We want to be valued for more than just a competitive rate. We want to be recognized for the high quality of the services we provide our clients. So, what do we do to get the valuing and recognition we want and deserve?

One way is to get a better fix on what the people we help really want from us. Yes, they need fairly priced services. But, according to a range of experts, they’re also looking for service providers who share their interests, needs and concerns – who are part of their tribe. Putting his spin on the issue, marketing expert John Jantsch encourages us to pierce the commodity veil by giving clients what they’re hungry for: Community, experience, information and transformation.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks