A Golden Map is Useless Without a Destination in Mind!

A golden map is pretty useless without a destination in mind. With just a golden map and no goal, you can drive around wherever the roads may lead and admire the etchings in your golden map, but at the end of the day you've spent a lot of money on gas and are just as lost as you were when you started (but you continue to rationalize your journey on the basis that you know where you are on the golden map, right?). This would be just fine if you had all of the time in the world and you were the only one in the car, but unfortunately most lawyers take their clients with them. You see, when lawyers bill you by the hour they are not required to tell you where they are taking you (SCOPE -- you have a right to ask, you know!). Many of them gain years of specialized knowledge (golden maps) and they waive them in front of you so that you will get in the car. The most specialized ones take their golden maps and promise that they can get you there faster with their golden maps (and many clients believe them without asking the all important question "where is there?). What if your taxi driver told you the same thing? Would you get in a cab without knowing your destination (after all, they bill you by the 1/8 of a mile)? You see, without a destination you are lost. . . even if you have a golden map. The reason I worry about what roads my cab driver takes has everything to do with the fact that he is billing me by the 1/8th of a mile (when I want to get there faster) and nothing to do with whether or not he has a map handy! (If you think about it, I never chose a cab driver for his quality map because most of the time I am not going to the moon. Perhaps we shouldn't choose our lawyers that way either) At Exemplar, we recognize that our customers want and deserve to know where they are going and the price for the journey. We accomplish this by working with the customer to clearly define the scope of every engagement. They know and agree to the roads we will take on the way and are empowered with OPTIONS! They know where they are going and we are proud to take them there. Suddenly, customers realize that they don't need a rocket scientist of a lawyer with a golden map (sans destination) to complete 90% of the legal work that they encounter because it is more important to know where they are going than to know they have a genius working for them who makes more money the longer he takes. I don't get in a cab and let the driver drive me around aimlessly and I wouldn't let my law firm do it and bill me for it either. Fortunately, customers now have a choice in the marketplace. You would be surprised how much peace of mind you get when you know where you are going and are on your way (the Exemplar way)!

Fixed Pricing is Obvious. . . So Why Doesn't Everyone Do It?

One of the most amazing things about Exemplar's fixed-price model is that everyone finds it to be so intuitive. It is so obvious that customers prefer it (even lawyers -- just google the words "billable hour" and see what you get. . . everyone hates it. If you find a positive comment on it let me know!) that everyone asks me why everyone is not already doing it. I have had the pleasure of speaking with many attorneys in practice under the "old" model and I consistently hear them say "well, I just don't know how long it will take." Curiously, I ask them how much time they spend at the very beginning thinking about how long it might take so they can give their clients some guidance and most say "well, none really, because then I would not have the time to get the work done and plus, I can't bill them for my effort!" I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty lazy to me (not to mention a feeling of entitlement to get paid for every single minute of time spent on an activity). What kind of statements does that make about our industry? What does this say about how service minded we are if we operate under that model? Do you think I would ask you questions I did not know the answer to already?

The next most frequent response I get is "what if it gets out of hand or the project goes in a different direction. . . I can't price something if I don't know where it might go." This is where I take the axe to the linear thinking log and remind them that customers do not expect their attorneys to have a crystal ball and tell them the future. They are not asking us to put a price on all of the uncertainties. They DO expect a price on the things that are certain and even likely to happen. They would not be hiring you unless there was at least a certain amount of legal work that is certain or likely to happen. Therefore, there is no excuse for being lazy and billing by the hour when you know that a certain amount of work will occur, and you need only care enough about your clients to actually take a moment to tell them how much that will cost (it is the least you can do, really!). Then, there are no surprises. If the work goes outside the scope of what is known, your customers will understand that more action needs to be taken at an additional charge. With good communication and clarity as to the work being performed, you can give your customers what they deserve (clarity) and free yourself from counting every 6 minutes of your life. Exemplar Law Partners has not had a single customer ask us to bill them by the hour (that is telling) and our people certainly enjoy focusing on building relationships rather then building a timesheet.

Herding Cats Part 2: Building a Brand Requires People Who Care More About Team

I met with an in-house attorney who refers about $2 million in legal work to large firms who told me "I don't have a favorite law firm, I just have some attorneys that I like." One thing became clear when I heard that and connected it with much of the market research our there: The problem with branding a law firm is that most attorneys want to do things "their way" and have their own ideas about what serving the client means. From the customer's perspective, this means a completely inconsistent customer experience from lawyer to lawyer within a firm. What is so amazing about the Starbucks brand is that my 15-syllable latte tastes the same at the Starbucks in Vienna Austria (really, it does!) as it does right here in Boston. While it is easy to train a barrista to make a latte in a consistent way, it is very difficult to get lawyers to provide a consistent experience because they don't like to be told what to do. It begs the question then: Can firms truly claim they care about serving the customer when they allow each of their attorneys to do whatever they want and not what equates to good service in the mind of the customer? Exemplar Law Partners brings attorneys together who understand that service is in the eye of the customer, and that providing a consistent and reliable experience for our customers is what makes them confident in our ability to deliver of good product time after time. It is building the brand of Exemplar through the selection of service-minded attorneys that allows us to stand behind it with a satisfaction guarantee. . . a move which few firms in this nation have made and one which signals to each of our customers how much we care about them. I don't know many business that I purchase products from who do not stand behind their products either. . . it is simply a statement of belief in what you do and who you are. Ironically, I rarely return any products becuase most companies I purchase from care enough about their product to make it well (which is why they guarantee the product in the first place). Our industry seems to have a long way to go, but the professionals at Exemplar are happy to be leading it in the right direction!

Exemplar and the 80/20 Rule: What Other Firms are Missing!!

I speak to lawyers all of the time who live in constant fear of not being busy. They think it is a reflection on their self-worth if they don't have a stock of clients in the "waiting room" to fill their schedules. This represents a very backwards type of thinking compared to how most businesses are run. Let me explain. Let's say that we sat a bunch of airline executives around a conference table and showed them a diagram of a 747 and said "Ok folks, here is a plane with hundreds of seats and we want to make money. What is our goal?" If you asked attorneys this question they would say it is to FILL THE PLANE! The airline executives would say "To get the right customers on the plane." You see, partners at most large firms have the incentive system of salesman since partners get a commission called "business origination credit." They are not doing an analysis of whether or not you are the type of customer that would value what they have to offer more than any other firm within a 10 mile radius. So long as you say you can pay their hourly rate, they want you as a customer.

In business, this violates the well-known and well-respected rule called the 80/20 rule. This rule states that 20% of your customers produce 80% of your business. Put another way, the bottom 20% of customer produce 80% of your complaints, headaches, and chargeoffs. The only way to avoid violating this rule as a law firm is to actually care about whether your customers value your services and not simply how deep their wallet is. Assuming it is reasonable to expect lawyers to "care", then let's talk about why most clients of law firms don't feel like their firm "cares" about them. If law firms really wanted to send the right message to both their attorneys and their customers, why would the single most important factor in a partner's compensation be a sales commission? With legal services in particular where each customer has so much on the line you'd think that it would be important to consider whether each and every customer is likely to walk away happy having had a positive experience with their firm. The actually surveys of in-house counsel show overwhelmingly that the opposite is true. Exemplar, on the other hand, will refer customers to other firms if we do not feel that we can achieve excellence for them. We do not have a "commission" nor do we attribute each dollar to a single-individual's efforts. Our team gets paid for having happy customers.

It is time for firms to put their money where their mouth is and compensate the right behaviors. You see, the power to care must come from the top, a message that continues to ring hallow in the board rooms of firms across this nation, and one which is loud and clear at Exemplar.

Managing Lawyers is Like Herding Cats - Here's Why You Care!

David Maister, a well-known author of books for the professional services industry, wrote in his book on managing a professional services firm that "managing lawyers is like herding cats." He was describing how attorneys are often difficult to deal with, impossible to manage, and are terrible at working together for a common goal. We recently interviewed the former Executive Director of two large firms in Boston who told stories about attorneys whom all had their own forms, processes, and quirky ways of utilizing their support staffs. From an executive's perspective, he expressed great frustration with the inability to manage the efficiency of the organization when all of the attorneys were doing things "their way." This leads me to the obvious question from a customer's perspective, which is "Why do I care?" Well, in a normal business you wouldn't care because once you pay the price you are done! Your law firm, on the other hand, charges you for their time (unless you are our customer), which means you are paying for every bit of inefficiency in the system. Do you think they have an incentive to be efficient? Think for yourself: If they have processes that allow them to do your legal work better and faster what happens to their revenues? (yes, they go down because they bill less time). What about profits? Well, they make a fixed margin on every hour that they bill, so of course they make less money when they are efficient. You can probably also understand that lawyers don't like to be told what to do even if it is in the customer's best interest, right? Now imagine a meeting of the partners of a large firm with the Operations Director that goes something like this:

PARTNERS: Mr. Ops, what do you think we can do to make our customers less frustrated with our bills and service?

OPS Director: Well, if you adopt efficient processes as a partnership and all behave consistently to provide a positive customer experience then I'm sure we can make great things happen at this firm

PARTNERS: Wow, that sounds great. What do we need to do?

OPS Director: Well, each of you are doing things "your way" and you need to start utilizing resources consistently so we can make sure you are not overcharging the customers by billing them for your quirky work habits.

PARTNERS: Why would we do that? Customers don't know the difference anyways and they still pay the bills, and plus: How much more money can we make if we were 20% more efficient anyways?

OPS Director: I hate to say this, but if you all worked 20% more efficiently you would bill 20% less time, reducing your profits per partner by $200,000 per year. You will have to lay off 30 associates and 25 support staff leaving one floor of the building empty with no revenue generating associates to help pay the rent in this place, which will probably cost each partner another $50,000 per year Your customers will be ecstatic though, and will appreciate your integrity and be loyal to you for at least another couple of years.

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE PARTNERS ARE GOING TO DO?

Since Exemplar was built from the ground up with our customers in mind, we don't have to correct 100 years of operational inefficiency because of attorneys who insist on doing things "their way" at your expense. With a fixed price, we do not make our customers the victims of inefficiency. Our incentive is to provide a great product in an efficient manner.
So the next time you get a bill (and the simultaneous heart attack) from a law firm that is billing you by the hour you might just be hearing the echo of the Partners singing Sinatra's tune "I did it my way!" while toasting with a glass of Dom Perignon in the ivory tower of autonomy.

Note To The CFO: Lighten Up A Bit, Will You?

As someone who has served as a CFO and holds two degrees in finance you would think that I am a person that lives by the numbers. What I have come to realize in my professional experience as a Chief Financial Officer is the true limitations of numbers in providing guidance for running a company. We have all heard that numbers can tell you whatever you want to see in them. I remember reading in Ron Baker's Book "The Firm of the Future" that "according to numbers, everyone in this country has one testical" (half of us are women). With technology and data capacity so great, it seems like we collect data just because we can and not because someone sat down and did the math and determined that the cost of keeping such vast amounts of data and creating hundreds of jobs to interpret it actually produces a positive return on investment. Take law firms, for instance. They measure their entire operation in 6-minute resolution, forcing their entire workforce to adhere to a regime that by all accounts "changes the way you live your life." The partners who operate the firm actually believe they need to count this way to be profitable in spite of the fact that the most profitable companies and industries in the world operate just fine without knowing where every minute went. In the meantime, countless hours are spent just counting time instead of actually doing something productive with your life.

The biggest question that skeptical and fearful attorneys ask me is "how do you know you are profitable if you do not count every 6-minutes." After a moment of internal giggling (because I have worked the real world and understand quite well that no other business runs this way) I answer "Lighten Up A Bit, Will You? You don't need to know whether every single project you did made you a profit. What you need to know is that your business is operating profitably." The savvy questioner understands what I just said while the not-so-savvy one just sits there with a blank look on his face as if to say "Huh?". For those of you finance people out there, it is called portolfio theory. An investor has a portolio of stocks (just like a law firm does clients) and the job of the portfolio manager is not to make sure every stock goes up, it is her job to make sure that the portfolio is profitable as a whole. This entails managing the portolfio as a "big picture," eliminating non-performers and increasing the investment in the winniners (in law firms, this is called forced churn) Clearly, every organization has metrics that help guide you in making informed decisions for the organization, but Exemplar recognizes that myopia will not make the firm more profitable; that making thousands of highly educated people count their lives in 6-minute increments and sending them home to their loved ones trained to think of personal time as an "opportunity cost" is not just cruel but inhumane. At Exemplar, we are happy to come to work every day because of the opportunity to use every bit of our intellectual capital on activities that help our clients achieve success in the marketplace. We recognize that there is a high correlation between happy people and customer satisfaction (See Southwest Airlines), and thus profitability. My message to those who live by the clock is to "Lighten up a bit. Let your hair down. Manage your portolfio and stop driving your people crazy. They will love you for it and your clients will notice the difference. Ours certainly have!"

NOT for Sale!

When I meet with executives and attorneys to talk about how our firm has a positive, supportive culture with eight core values which are living and breathing I am often asked what I would do it we were approached by a firm who wanted to buy us out. I know where they are going with this question, because history shows that companies that grow by merger and acquisition often merge themselves out of being able to differentiate and are victims of what I call the "lowest common denominator effect." Our industry has seen extreme M&A activity in the past 15 years that has caused just that, which explains the difficulty that firms are having in differentiating their services from other firms as well as the perceived commoditization of legal services (after all, this business is about people). Just look back at the historic marriage of Coopers and Lybrant with Price Waterhouse. Coopers was larger by far than Price Waterhouse and Coopers had a positive and unique culture than was second-to-none. Price Waterhouse had a very competitive and distrusting culture. When they combined, which one of the cultures do you think infected and spread in the new organization? Of course, the negative one. This is the lowest common denominator effect at work. That being said, our firm is being built on a better way of doing business starting with a team of people who are happy, team-oriented, business savvy, and supportive. They are counting on their leaders to make decisions that preserve the culture of the firm they are integral in building. My first duty, above all, is to the great people that make Exemplar what it is today and which will no doubt continue to shape its future. For them and for you, I put the sign out in our yard that Exemplar is "NOT For Sale!" Money cannot buy the teamwork that happens when delivering on a complex client engagement, or the interest we take in advancing the personal lives of the people that make us "real." Perhaps the most important lesson is that money cannot buy the most important things in life . . . the things that make all of the difference. Money certainly can ruin it. As guardians of the vision, it is our promise not to lose sight of this reality as we continue to grow and expand.

Pour Your Heart Into It: How Exemplar is Building the Firm of the Future One Customer at a Time.

I was on the phone last night with a colleague at until about 3am talking about philosphies and principals that have shaped the Exemplar that exists today and that will continue to guide our future. She was exmplaining that her reasoning for joining Exemplar was, in part, because of the way I have "poured my heart and soul" into the business of building a better law firm than exists today. I also learned that another colleague was asked in an interview last week what the best thing about Exemplar was, to which she responded "Our People." I am reminded of the book "Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time," where the story of Starbucks is told from the beginning. I often reflect on the role and significance of passion in business. Before Starbucks, the coffee market was fully commoditized and there was no premium market for the beverage. The story of Starbucks is one of passionate businesspeople who poured their heart and soul into building a premium business in an commoditized industry that was suffering from intense competition, low margins, and a failure to competitively differentiate. As an interesting aside, I hosted a couple of European engineers at my home last week and after tasting coffee in America (not Starbuck, but Dunkin) they commented that "the reason American coffee is so terrible is because it is not made with any passion." Are you beginning to connect the dots? The legal industry is a maturing market that is facing more competition than ever, is perceived my many as a commodity, and suffers from a failure to competitively differentiate in the areas that made the great companies like Starbucks the success it is today (service, quality, and consistency across the organization). It is the passion for the product that keeps Starbucks customers (including myself) coming back again and again to pay premium prices for the Starbucks "experience."

I recall a critic arguing that people only care about price. If that were true, I probably would eat Sbarros "cardboard tasting" pizza. I was told by a famous author and dear friend of mine that "It is possible to make pizza so cheap that nobody wants to eat it." I cannot agree more. I went to a true Italian restaurant and watched a lifelong chef make a pizza from scratch. . . his playful and happy demeanor as he flipped and spun the dough in the air. . . his attention to every fine detail . . . his determination to make that round lump of generic ingredients into a masterpiece. . . I will tell you from the bottom of my hear that when I ate that very pizza I could taste the smile on his face, the passion for his product, and the heart and soul that turned mere dough into a masterpiece. When I go to Starbucks I "experience" the passion in the product, and it is because of these truths, so telling about life and the role of passion in business, that I am driven to pour my heart and soul into Exemplar. With passion I have never felt more fulfilled and driven to create an Exemplar Experience that will keep customers coming back for more. I look forward to having our customers fill in the blanks on the warning label in our engagement letter: "Warning, the passion in this legal product may cause . . . ."!

The True Meaning of Success

Success is an interesting word. We all seem to understand what it means, yet everyone I ask to define it uses a different description. As pioneers of a new model, albeit intuitive and proven in business, I recall lawyers asking questions about whether or not the model will be a success. This has prompted me to think deeply about the meaning of success. I cannot help but to think that the "success" as defined by the people posing the question is quite different from the definition from within the walls of Exemplar. The corporate legal industry tends to attract and retain destination-oriented talent (money, success, power). This model is perpetuated by firms that compete for talent on price and incentivize competitive individualistic behaviors, making the journey pure misery, but the destination a gold mine for the few who make it up the "up or out" pyramid scheme. Over time, journey-oriented attorneys leave seeking more fulfillment, meaning, and a better working environment. Since Exemplar is a journey firm, it would be incorrect to define success in destination-oriented terms. To the rest of the industry success may be defined as reaching $3 million in profits per partner or having the highest billable hour rates or even billable hour "quotas." Without a doubt, Exemplar has a different definition of success. For us, success is embracing the best practices that earned corporations "Employer of Choice" awards, setting the standard for customer service in a service industry where service is know to be lacking, creating a world-class work environment that puts the incentives in the right place and motivates the right behaviors, by leveraging our diversity of talents, knowledge, cultures, and interests to approach and serve markets that are inaccessible to a traditionally organized law firm, and (most important) making sure that every day our people wake up in the morning they know that there is no other place they would rather be serving clients than at Exemplar. By destination-oriented metrics Exemplar may have a long way to go, but by the metrics that mean everything to our people that get up every day and do what they do, sucess is not nearly so far. To some, we have already arrived.

The Hearts and Minds of Our People

This week at an interview with an attorney candidate I distinctly recall a comment that he made about our people at the end of the interview. It was the end of the business day and, one by one over a 20 minute period, several of our team members passed by the conference room as they were leaving for the day. As usual, all passed by with a smile, a brief introduction to the candidate, and we exchanged our best wishes for the evening. The candidate told me that he hasn't seen so many happy people together in a very long time. I think deeply and often about why we wake up and do what we do every day at Exemplar. I think about the challenges of market leadership, understanding quite well that it involves swimming upstream (after all, only dead fish go with the current, right?) There are so many easier paths to take than to set out to change a paradigm. Why do we do it? Because of the hundreds of letters we get from people saying how refreshing it is to see a firm that cares enough to face, head on, the problems in our industry. . . because of the bloggers who write about how long they have been waiting to see such a change. . . because of the acknowledgment by Supreme Court justice, Stephen Breyer, that the billable hour system has "in many ways . . . diminished the practice of law," saying "I can't think of a more important problem facing the profession.". . . because of the hundred' s of attorneys I have met who know how an environment that frees you from accounting for your life in 6-minute increments is life-changing . . . because of in-house counsel and legal consumers who tell us regularly that they support what we are doing as a firm. To everyone out there who "gets it," it is because of you that our people have made a choice to dedicate their careers to this mission. You are everyday in the hearts and minds of our people. I somehow believe that we all set out to find true meaning in what we do as professionals. With the vision of Exemplar and your support, we are never more than a heartbeat away from the "true meaning" we seek . . . the kind that puts smiles on the faces of our team members when the arrive at the office every day and depart in the evening. That is a kind of happiness which you cannot buy, and which we will never sell.

To the Intersection of Market Need and Exemplar Leadership

I am always intrigued by how often I am asked the question "What market is Exemplar going after as a firm?" At first blush, it sounds like a perfectly reasonable question. In fact, many people ask me "What practice areas are you looking for people to fill?" By these questions I am reminded of the difference between "Good" companies and "Great" companies. Good companies decide where the bus is going first and then gather a whole bunch of people to go along for the ride. Great companies start by getting great people on the bus. . . then. . . they look around at the talent and say "Where should we go?" So, what does all of this mean? This means that Exemplar Law Partners is headed to the intersection of Market Needs and Exemplar Leadership. Are you confused yet? Well, in business it would be a great mistake to set off to penentrate a particular market only to realize on your way that the target market no longer exists and now you have the wrong people to change course. I find it far more compelling to surround myself with leaders who have their ears to the market and can adapt and change to the growing marketplace. You see, if you focus too much on a destination you forget to enjoy the journey. Exemplar Law Partners has a model that allows our people and our customers to enjoy the journey, because with excellence as a core value we know that our destination is never truly reached.

Centralized Pricing is Key

The most common question I am asked about our model is how we actually price out legal work. Most people ask "How can you price when you don't know how long it will take?". The error in the reasoning that the question implies is that there exists a relationship between time and value to the client. The basis of a value pricing model is that there is, in fact, no direct relationship at all. (Karl Marx' Labor Theory of Value was refuted long ago) In fact, most clients want the work done faster, not slower. I do not meet many passengers on airplanes who think they should pay more because it took longer to get to their destination. . . . . yes. . . even though delays cost much more to the airline in fuel and missed connections. Most passengers want one thing: to get to their destination as fast and safely as possible. Last year I paid a lot of money for a new car and did not think to ask how long it took the engineers to make it! hmmmm.

At Exemplar our interests are aligned with the client and we have an incentive to get them to their destination as safely and promptly as possible. We have a pricing committee of professionals who are dedicated to understanding value from the customer's perspective. They make sure that the intake process is effective at getting the right information so that we understand how to design our services around exactly what the customer wants. What's more, centralizing the pricing function in an organization is critical to providing a consistent customer experience. This also allows us to communicate, learn, and correct any errors in the process that would not otherwise be discovered if attorneys priced individually. Why not have attorney's price individually? Well, what other businesses let technicians price the product? Still trying to think a one? After all, what does technical expertise have to do with pricing expertise. The engineers at Ford focus on making a good car. The people who price the cars focus on giving the customer what they want at the right price. The finance experts focus on the relationships between pricing and costing from a portfolio perspective (not a per-car anaysis). At Exemplar, we are inspired by models of success that work. Centralizing the pricing function is therefore a natural step for firms that want to improve client service.

Service Is In The Eye of the Customer:

Today I had the distinct pleasure of hearing the most gratifying remarks I could possibly hear as an attorney: "you guys are great, and I am so thankful for your help today." These remarks came from a client that we helped through an emergency situation this afteroon and they were left on my voicemail after the matter was satisfactorily resolved. It made realize why I am in this business and how wonderful it really feels to be able to help clients. The remarks left on my voicemail were actually longer and so enthusiastic that I forwarded the message to several of our team members just so they could hear it. At the same time, three businesspeople who are forming a company together that aims to have a national presence from the start decided, after meeting with us, to ditch their old attorney from Chicago and take the Exemplar plunge, citing that they really felt that they could connect with us on a personal and business level. Exeperiences like these confirm that the business of law is truly about relationships and helping people and businesses. Those who think it is just about where you got your diploma or technical skill have missed the point. The ability to deliver is a minimum requirement, but I believe that servicing the customer by fostering open and long-lasting relationships is the key to success. Time will tell, but so far our customers have been very satisfied. . . a satisfaction that makes me believe everyday in what we have set out to do as a firm.

More People Seem to '"Get It" Than Ever Before

I have noticed in the past few months (and especially in the past few weeks) that many more of the candidates applying to Exemplar really "get it" and are in a position to take the plunge! Over the past year and a half we have received more than 600 applicants. About half of them were just looking for jobs. We ended up speaking with about 300 of them, half of which were risk tolerant enough to meet for in-person interviews. Only half of those had social skills (that brings us to 75), and only half of those had ambition (37.5). About half of that group had business sense (18.75) and of the rest only half were humble enough to roll up their sleeves and build a firm. We are now 9 and growing about 1 per month and I have noticed a dramatic increase in both the number and percentage of applicants who really "get it!" We had our first Fortune 50 in-house counsel apply to our firm this week and will be flying in to meet with us. From being in-house and knowing how attractive fixed-priced offerings are, he had a unique niche that he believed would do well on a fixed-price model and contacted us. As usual, I will be interviewing about 6-7 people next week to see if there are any leaders among them, but the moral of this story is that visibility has increased and with it comes a higher comfort level that we will be successful. One of the most rewarding life experiences has been speaking with several hundred attorneys and learning about how you view your industy; your dreams; your gripes with the billable hour model; and your interest in a better way of doing business. Most attorneys I know are not happy. The opportunity to build a firm that can be a win for the attorneys by creating a great work environment and at the same time be a win for clients who are endlessly disappointed with law firm service and billable hours is what drives me to get up every day and do what I do. People who think Exemplar is about a pricing model have missed the point. Exemplar is about changing lives. . . one by one. . . until we're all done!

A New Employee? Wheel Him In!

It is truly a mobile world, especially at Exemplar. We have a beautiful office in downtown Boston with roughly 4,200 square feet (in true capacity-first style). There is a big open space in the center and windowed offices on three sides of the building. What is different about us is that we work in project teams and have 3-4 people in each office. . . . with desks on wheels! We all work on laptop computers, on desks with wheels, with file cabines on wheels, and when you move into an office to work on a project team you just log into your phone and your extension rings wherever you are. We have a new team member starting tomorrow. He is from China and comes with a career in marketing and business development in China. He will be working with our Chief Marketing Officer to help create a strategic marketing plan for approaching the China market. Do we put him in the office with our attorney who handles China matters or in the CMO & Business Development pod? When our people are together in offices communication improves, relationships develop. and innovation is a natural product of the sharing of ideas that we see on a regular basis. What's more, not only are our poeple happy in this team-based environment, but our cost structure is one-third of a firm that isolates its people in big offices all alone. Our happy people not only provide great service, but the cost-structure savings is definately something that our customers can take to the bank. That is the type of win-win situation we look for when we evaluate how to improve the way we work.

Get Real Chris

After having sent my blog to my fellow team members for comment I received a good deal of teasing. They said that what people want to know are the day-to-day activities in the trenches of a firm that is pioneering and not the broad-stroke concepts that we are implementing. I was duly reminded of this when I was interviewed by David Maister today, who sternly and gently (all at once) reminded me that he has heard every concept out there and really wants to know the real details on what makes us so different at Exemplar.

I have always lived by the phrase "head in the sky, feet on the ground," but it hit me as I was responding to my team members and David that I much prefer to think and talk about the "sky-like" issues rather than the "ground-zero" issues. I am now learning that I must be able to do both well, so here it goes. It is time to get real folks! My team and I want to share with all of you the things that really happen on a daily basis to make this firm the best it can be. In order to satisfy my desire to communicate the philosophies and broader concepts that we have at Exemplar, I have decided to start another blog that I will link to at the top with the rest of the links!

So, the next time I blog it will be from me to you directly from the pit.

Exemplar's Zero Tolerance Policy for Negativity

Did you know that law is one of two professions of one hundred four professions where pessimists perform the best? This is no surprise because lawyers are trained to identify the problems with everything. What's more, those who perform best on law school exams are, in fact, those who identify and argue the most "issues" and those who offer solutions are graded down or offered no credit for their solution-orientation. This training seems to a bit backwards if you consider that clients really want solutions. After all, anyone can argue that our welfare system sucks. . . and I would not be impressed with such a conclusion. . . but I would be astonished if someone came up with a better idea. Do you think it would be any different for your customers? We don't think so.

Exemplar has a policy to only hire attorneys who are capable of seeing beyond the problems to a solution for our customers. We have something we call "solution-discipline" at Exemplar that permeates our culture. Being around a group of "positive" people on a daily basis creates a tremendous energy that helps us to provide the best service to our customers every day. In addition, it promotes a productive and happy work environment that is so severely needed in our industry. As a firm that is growing fast, though, we are also aware that a positive culture is very sensitive (see merger of Coopers & Lybrant with Price Waterhouse). It only takes one Grinch to ruin Christmas for a lot of people (disclaimer: the grinch has also been shown to ruin Hanukkah, Qwanza, and other important holidays). I think we all know a Grinch. Often, they are biggest producers in the office or those with the most power or egos. Now, close your eyes, imagine you are Donald Trump, and exclaim to that person with a grin of pleasure "Yer Fired!" Feels good, doesn't it? You see, at Exemplar we are all the guardians of our positive culture. You cannot buy a position at our firm with your book of business. In fact, we have turned several of them away. Your name will not be on the door no matter how many hours you can bill. If you need a power trip then you need a personality transplant, not a managing partner position. These people will not find an open door to Exemplar, and if one of them ever finds a side door (note: even Jack Welch only made the right hiring decisions 80% of the time at the height of his career), then our "positive" people will most proudly proclaim "Yer Fired." At Exemplar, the practice of law is not about our ego, it is about Excellence, Leadership, Integrity, Team, Trust, Respect, Communication, and Equanimity. . . the very values that will distinguish us well into the future.

The Exemplarites - Making the Dream Real

I went to Easter services and I learned a wonderful way to think about what we are doing at Exemplar. You see, we normally use the saying "seeing is believing" to describe the fact that results are the only thing that will convince most people that new things can be done, and I am sure that some people feel that way about what Exemplar is doing. However, if that were true than it simply does not explain how humans with uncompromising conviction and passion for what they believe in can make things happen that, to most, would seem impossible. After all, if everyone waited to see in order to believe than there would be no leaders in this world. On the subject of faith, Dan Harrel continued his sermon saying that the opposite of this saying is responsible for changing lives. . . . "believing is seeing," he concluded. Finally, it clicked. It is absolute faith, belief without proof, that causes us to see the true potential in what we do. It is this faith that changes lives, industries, and cultures. As I sit and reflect upon this new-found wisdom I think about the Exemplar Team, all of which came together with a common mission and vision of the future of the professions , all of which sacrificed high-paying jobs, some with families and young children to feed, believing in and embracing the vision of Exemplar every day. I am everday surrounded by wonderful professionals from different generations and backgrounds who "see" the potential of Exemplar because they believe in what they are doing. As we grow and expand and mountains begin to move, it will be because of the great people that have "burned the ships" and come together in a statement of faith to build the Firm of the Future that will be responsible for our success. Looking back in time at the innovators and inventors who shape how we live today, it was their belief in the "impossible" that caused them to see the solutions that exist today. For the rest of the world, "seeing is believing." The only caveat to living by the motto "seeing is believing" is that you have live with seeing a lot of dust. Understanding the difference between the two viewpoints is an awesome lesson in faith.

Reinventing The (Square) Wheel

The great thing about reinventing a wheel that had not been examined for 50 years is that you realize just how square it really is. Our Executive Committee will be examining every discipline of management over the next several months to determine how the Firm of the Future should operate. Together, we will explore best practices (from outside the legal industry) in knowledge management, marketing, customer relations, operations, and human resources, among others. The implications of our discussions and subsequent decisions will be both broad and deep. Unlike most firms where the attorneys tell the management team what they can and cannot do, our organization will empower our executives to do what they do best. What enables Exemplar Law Parnters to succeed in this regard is a team of attorneys who respect the management function and do not pretend to be experts in every area of business by virtue of having a law degree. The level of trust and respect that is displayed amongst our professionals is the highest I have seen in my career. Our key challenge as we grow exponentially will be to maintain this culture that is based firmly on a set of eight core values. I will be pleased to report our progress as we make key decisions over the next several months.

Leadership Challenge

This week I had a visit from the father of the value-pricing movement and well-known author Ron Baker (author of Firm of the Future and Pricing on Purpose, among others). Over an extended meal we discussed the true leadership challenges in our industry. Experts such as David Maister agree that most law firms are over-managed and under-lead. This fine topic of leadership surfaced as we explored why such a logical and well-supported business model such as value pricing has not yet been done in the legal industry. After all, we are one of the only industries that operate under a model that nearly everyone hates, including the professionals who practice in it. (Google the words "billable hour" and see for yourself. If you find a single positive article on it, please let me know). The only logical conclusion is that there is no shortage of industry-changing ideas in this world . . . but there is a true shortage of leadership, specifically in our industry, to execute on such an innovative model. Pracititioners in the old model are too entrenched, their opportunity cost is so high considering the money they are making, and lawyers are risk-adverse by training. Lawyers spend their entire careers depending on precedent without questioning whether they are doing the right thing (cattle call -- can you hear the "moooing"). It is true that this is no recipe for leadership and innovation. However, we know that people lead at many different levels and that not all leaders are change agents. What I ask is for the true leaders in our industry to stand up. If you are passionate about positive change and innovation I would love to speak to you about how we can work together as leaders in a leadership-starved profession.