Trick or Treat?
Listening to NPR on the way home last night, I heard a rather depressing story about folks affected by the financial meltdown who were planning to release some of their anger and frustration by dressing up as zombie bankers, lynched financial investment strategists, or donning themselves with copies of plunging 401K account statements. These happy bands plan to join Halloween fetes, from the Greenwich Village parades to burst-bubble parties Missoula, Montana, where they can publicly vent their anger and frustration.
So my question is: What's Joe the Lawyer wearing tonight for Halloween?
Is Outside Counsel Joe wearing something terribly basic and girdled in an effort to minimize the obvious fat at his firm and appear as if he's cutting back on unnecessary expenses? Is In-house Counsel Joe donning something transparent” in the effort to join the accountability culture? Perhaps Joe In-House might be better off wearing something non-descript in an effort avoid attracting any attention from management as a cost center in a time of fiscal crisis?
Here's my advice to both Joes: don't focus on the costume, focus on the trick or treat. Folks who don't take the downturn seriously are in for the trick; but those who are actually looking at the downturn as a great opportunity to re-assess the way they work and how they can do it better are likely to get the treats.
Fortunately, guidance is right here at your fingertips. There's all the material we are posting on ACC's Value Challenge (ACC's effort to help the legal profession re-align the cost of legal services to the value of the service provided).
But there's a great new tool for you to consider, too, whether you're in-house or outside and looking into the financial crystal ball: we've just released the 2008 version of the ACC/Serengeti Managing Outside Counsel Survey (PDF).
More than 2,000 law departments have completed the ACC/Serengeti survey since its inception in 2000, vividly and practically drilling down deep to describe their experiences working with outside counsel. While the comparatives from year to year make this survey the best of its kind since it tracks more than snapshots of activity (allowing you to discern trends in the profession), I think we can all agree that this year may not be as easily informed by past years activities: instead, we have to see what the trends tell us about how eclipsing change in the next year might be platformed and shaped based on where we've been going and what we're geared up to leverage.
The current survey details increases in in-house cost control activities such as convergence, RFPs or competitive bidding for new work, requiring minimum levels of experience for associates working on their projects (as well as bans on first and sometimes second year associates billing entirely), discounts for early bill payment and increased evaluation of outside counsel performance. In my next post, I will tell you my predictions on the 2009 survey.
In the meantime, tell me: What do you think Joe the Lawyer is going to be wearing next year?
