The ‘Moneyball’ Lesson for Firms

As originally published in the National Law Journal on October 10, 2011

I convinced my wife to go watch the new Brad Pitt movie, Moneyball, with me. The movie is based on the true story of an Oakland A’s baseball team that, with a payroll of $30 million, had to compete with teams like the New York Yankees, which spent more than $120 million. Many regional law firms face a similar dilemma, lacking money, advertising and name recognition. What lessons can they learn fromMoneyball?

Ask the Right Questions

Pitt’s character, Billy Beane, realizes that he can’t beat teams like the New York Yankees by playing their game. He is told by a recent Yale economics graduate that baseball teams are asking the wrong questions. They are locked on three statistics: runs batted in, home runs and batting averages, while overlooking the on-base percentage that takes into account when a player is walked. Beane changed the focus from whether a player will be an all-star to whether he would increase the odds of winning games. At law firms, instead of asking new recruits about law review and class ranking, we should be asking, “Can you bring in business?”

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Blogging levels the playing field

Originally posted on the National Law Journal on October 5, 2011

Late in September, in what can only be described as a David-vs.-Goliath battle, the New England Patriots came to Buffalo, N.Y., with all the swagger in the world. They had beaten the Buffalo Bills 15 times in row, boasted the leading offense in the NFL and showed up ready to extend the winning streak to 16.

Then the unthinkable happened. The Patriots lost the game on a last-second field goal. What happened?

In football, they have an expression: “On any given Sunday, anything can happen.” Which means that the team that should win can lose. Is this true in the legal industry? Is there a chance for small firms to compete with Big Law?

Social media and blogging are helping the smaller firms to do just that. This is due in part to “information democracy,” Dion Algeri of Great Jakes Marketing Co. explained recently during a conference in New York City organized by Hildebrandt Baker Robbins. Online, the content you create — whether blog posts, newsletters or alerts — speak for themselves. Good information is passed along, while poorly written and unhelpful information is ignored.

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BigLaw: Facebook Doesn’t Make Sense for Lawyers, Right?

Originally published in Technolawyer on July 07, 2011

The prevailing wisdom among law firms regarding social media goes a little like this: “LinkedIn is a great professional network so we should have as many of our lawyers on there as possible. Twitter has only minor relevance, and Facebook we should avoid altogether.” I hate these broad sweeping statements because they show little thought for how people — clients and prospective clients in particular — use these tools on a daily basis.

Facebook Is a Dinner Party, Not a Billboard

Facebook is extremely useful to help build existing relationships. Is it too personal? Absolutely. But that’s the point. When you have worked with a client for years don’t the relationships tend to get a little more personal? Don’t you want to know when your biggest client’s children graduate from high school or perform in the school play? These types of relationships are incredibly valuable and go beyond business. It is likely these people send work to you in part because they sincerely like you and you sincerely enjoy working with them.

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Why you can ignore Google+, for now

Originally published in the National Law Journal on September 19, 2011.

A couple of weeks ago, I traveled to Memphis, Tenn., to participate in the International Legal Technology Association’s national convention. During a discussion called, “What your lawyers need to know about social media,” we panelists were asked what we thought of Google+.

There was some serious backlash when I suggested that Google+ might fizzle out, just like Google Buzz and Google Wave (Google’s previous attempts to play in the social media sandbox) before it. The other panelists adamantly disagreed, and my poorly received comment was tweeted and re-tweeted across the Internet.

For those unfamiliar with Google+, it is kind of like Facebook but with more intuitive privacy settings. Each connection on Google+ is assigned to a circle — “friends” circle, “business people” circle, “strangers I haven’t seen since grade school” circle, and so on. This is really a great feature, and it makes it so easy to keep your business life separate from your personal life. The only problem is, there is already a very easy way to keep those two separate. It is called Facebook and LinkedIn.

I know what you’re thinking — wouldn’t it be better to have it all in one site?

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Richard Susskind on Social Media, Legal Marketing and “Irrational Rejectionism”

As originally published in the National Law Journal on September 01, 2011

I had the chance to interview Richard Susskind, author of the bestseller, The End of Lawyers (Oxford Press 2008). I asked him about his perceptions of social media, marketing for law firms and the future of the legal industry.

Susskind is one of our leading futurists, keeping busy as a lecturer and consultant on information technology to large law firms and legal departments. Since 1998, he has served as adviser to a series of chief justices of England and Wales. He teaches at Oxford University and writes for The Times of London.

When Susskind began sharing his ideas 30 years ago, he felt like a “voice in the wilderness,” he said. Things have changed a lot in the last few years, but “it’s very hard to walk into a room full of millionaires and tell them they’ve got their business model wrong.”

This wasn’t the first time I’d heard this sentiment. During a meeting at a white-shoe law firm earlier this year, a frustrated marketing expert complained that the lawyers were making too much money to be interested in changing the way they did things.

“Do firms really need to change?” I asked Susskind.

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