The Dialog on Value - The (R)evolution Begins
I'm sitting here in a meeting room set for 150 in the Seattle Convention Center at the ACC Annual Meeting praying that the fire marshall doesn't come to Room 612. There are so many people in this room - standing in rows lined up against the walls, in lines sitting on the floor in the aisles (in full business regalia), every single seat taken - heck, the moderator took his chair off the podium to offer it to a registrant since he's getting all the exercise he needs just passing the microphone around. There are easily 300 people in this room. Inside and outside counsel.
Why are they here, and why is everybody having such a good time?
They're here for the ACC Value Challenge program to talk about the prison we're all locked in and how each of us has a piece of the key that would allow us to break out. We are talking (r)evolution: how to free ourselves of billable hours business model, and re-discover what it was that we all wanted to do for a living when we went to law school. How to collaborate, rather than argue over bills. How to align what it is that we do with what it is that clients want to purchase. There are CLOs of Fortune 50's, managing partners of AmLaw 200's and legal products vendors in this room laughing and talking about the future and how they can prepare to meet its challenge: it's value challenge, that is. There are folks talking about how to completely re-invent and re-align what it is that we do, and they're so excited to get started, that the energy is palpable. I wish you were here ... if you aren't, I'm going to make it my personal mission to find ways to bring you the solutions, the passion, and the intellect that's flowing in this room. You ready? The (r)evolution has begun.
