In merely eight pages, the authors discuss a trend and present brilliant strategies to exploit the trend.

The trend toward commoditization of certain legal services is driven primarily by “an oversupply of service providers [and] technological change,” the authors say. Commoditized services are those that are form-intensive, cookie-cutter services that can often be handled by junior associates or even non-legal staff. According to the authors, those may include residential real estate, workers’ compensation, foreclosures, collections, small employment cases, general negligence and simple tort cases, and such banking work as basic loan documentation.

Clients shop for a law firm to handle their commodity work based on price and delivery; not necessarily based on partner involvement or the size and depth of the firm.

At a higher level, “expertise work” is higher-risk work from the client’s perspective. So they feel more comfortable if they’re served by firm partners, rather than by associates. Of course, they will pay a much higher price for that comfort. Expertise work includes, according to the authors, intellectual property, complex litigation, white collar criminal matters, and big M&A deals, for example.

The strategies that the authors advise include the following:

• Pursuing higher-level expertise work (and dramatically raising your rates for that work) by developing new services or positioning your practice to focus on those services

• Adding value to commodity services through greater personalization, the use of technology, and a unique understanding of an industry niche

• Making commodity work more profitable by relegating it to lower-paid staff

I'd like to see these authors expand this section and use examples, case studies, and anecdotes to flesh it out and make it more instructive.

Central theme
Otherwise, this book is just another undistinguished volume on law firm management and marketing. The central theme is that law firms should “align” their central management strategy “with the operation of the firms’ primary business units – their practice groups.”

To implement this strategy, your practice management plan needs four elements:

• A clear vision of the market position your firm wants to occupy in order to differentiate it from its competitors and gain a substantial competitive advantage

• A governance and management structure that reflects and complements the strategy. The authors recommend a more vertical management structure, as found in most corporations, rather than the horizontal structure found in most law firms. The latter tends to result in Balkanized organizations of autonomous groups and individuals.

• A compensation system that supports and reinforces the strategy

• Buy-in for the strategy by a majority of the partners

These strategic elements will require most firms to change (the C word!) their culture and the mentality of their leaders. The authors counsel that persuading partners to implement such change “can be a difficult sell in many firms.” Sorry, they offer no suggestions on how to overcome that difficulty.

With respect to compensation, the authors insightfully point out:

In many firms, the biggest challenge in changing the compensation system to reward practice group related activities arises when a major rainmaker refuses to be a team player or, worse, works actively to undermine the authority of practice group leaders. The firm must clearly strike an appropriate balance between keeping its major rainmakers happy and…rewarding behavior that is [consistent with] the firm’s best interests and strategic direction.

How can the firm strike an appropriate balance? Lambreth and Yanuklis offer no suggestions.

Dogma
That brings me to an exposition of this book’s three major weaknesses. First, it is full of generalizations and platitudes, with hardly any examples, case studies, or anecdotes to show how any firm has ever implemented or could implement the principles described.

Second, it is dogmatic in its prescriptions for effective practice management. The authors don’t allow that their recommended strategy and approach, even if you think it’s brilliant, might not exactly fit every firm. Like most law marketing books, their point of view is based on their own experience as consultants to a limited number of firms in a narrow range of sizes and types of firms (usually those whose primary clients are corporate general counsel). They present no dissenting or alternative points of view, and they do not urge you to study other authors' viewpoints.

Third, this book tries to cover a very broad subject in only 128 pages, making it extremely superficial. In many instances it offers some insightful advice, but without any clues whatsoever about how to implement the advice. In that sense, the subtitle on the book's cover – “A Practical Handbook” – is a joke. Here are two examples (in addition to the two mentioned above):

• “A firm typically needs one practice leader for every 25 to 40 lawyers. Coming up with that many talented and effective leaders can be a challenge even in the best firms.” Any suggestions as to how a firm might develop such leaders? Not even a hint.

• “To implement a successful lawyer development program, a practice group leader must also develop effective feedback mechanisms that help group members (partners and associates) learn from their own successes or failures or from those of others in the group. Such mechanisms must provide candid feedback in a context that encourages growth and improvement….” Any clues as to what such feedback mechanisms might look like? None.

Another weakness of this book is the use of complex, nearly incomprehensible charts, graphs, models, and matrices.

Finally, the book is obviously self-published and amateurishly produced. It has no title page, no copyright notice, no price, no ISBN bar code, awkward typesetting, and darkly tinted sidebars.

Here’s my advice: Offer Hildebrandt $24 for Appendix 1. That’s $3 per page, and it’s worth it.

About the authors
Susan Raridon Lambreth has more than 19 years of experience as a consultant to the legal profession. Amanda J. Yanuklis has more than 11 years of experience working in the legal profession. They are members of the Hildebrandt International consulting firm (www.hildebrandt.com)

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David M. Freedman
Law Marketing Bibliography
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