I see that Chris Brogan has started a subscription service for bloggers where each week he puts out a series of ideas for you to work on. So far I have not been tempted to join. Danny Brown does something similar, albeit his are free.
There are some incredibly gifted bloggers in the legal space and a few of these were mentioned on Friday by Jordan Furlong of Stem Legal. The only blog I read every day is Seth Godin‘s and I have also been very impressed lately with Liz Strauss‘ blog which like Seth’s is put out every day (sometimes with a guest post thrown in).
Far from me to tell others what to write, but there are a number of areas that I have in mind to cover and I would love to see others lend their brilliance to the debate.
In no particular order:
- The lack of emotional intelligence amongst lawyers. I wonder why lawyers all look and sound the same (mind you much the same can be said amongst most professions).
- Why law firms are fixated with the billable hour? Is this in the client’s best interests? Do you care?
- Why people seem to care about the study of law but not the business of law – or at least they don’t yet seem able to work out which comes first.
- The lack of leadership amongst partners. How many of them I wonder have even read a book on the subject (John Kotter would be a good place to start).
- The disparity in pay between senior equity partners and junior fee earners. My point is this: how do you equate their value when so many good people are not given an opportunity to shine.
- Why the lack of promotion holds people back. How long is too long to make partner?
- Why so few partners, much like politicians, bring outside experience to professional practice?
- The lack of collaboration between law firms, even if it is over such simple issues like buying stationery.
- The poor internal communication. Emails have added to the problem.
- Why does branding assumes such low priority? How can a firm have one logo/colour scheme on their website but something completely different for their printed material?
- Why law firms spend so little time updating their websites? If they show so little interest how can they expect their clients to be interested?
- Why partners forget where they have come from? It’s amazing how they assume a collective messaging when they get to the top table, which makes a nonsense of all the angst and criticism before they were made up. Talk is cheap.
- Why lawyers think they have all the answers and don’t like to ask for help? As I have said before, words like “What do you think” are incredibly powerful (see The Little Big Things by Tom Peters).
- The fact that so few people are willing to refer their friends, family and acquaintances to others within the firm. This goes to the ultimate question as posed by Fred Reichheld.
- Why social media is not the number one priority now for all firms?
- Why lawyers spend so little time sharpening the saw (see the 7th Habit in Stephen Covey’s book).
- Can lawyers change from seeing each client as a commodity to a lifetime proposition?
- Is there a place for the Freemium model?
- How much is too much when it comes to partner profits? At what stage or in what amount should profits be automatically reinvested?
- Should all firms have to do a certain amount of pro bono work?
And the list could go on and on.
What topics do you think are top priority right now? ABS, Tesco Law or outsourcing seem of the moment but I wonder if the debate around these is distorting the picture in other areas?
It would be great if you post your comments here or perhaps send me an email with your thoughts.