July 02, 2007
A few interesting ideas and posts/news stories to share on this holiday-week Monday.
1. Howrey will switch to a “competency model” in January 2008, removing lockstep pay and billing rates for associates. Read Bruce MacEwan’s commentary at Adam Smith, Esq. on the news.
David Lat’s Above the Law has posted what purports to be a memo from a Howrey associate following a meeting on the program.
The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times report on Howrey’s news includes an interesting comment from firm chairman Robert Ruyak:
“I was happy with the positive feedback I got,” he says. “We think it would be a better system that, once people progress at different speeds, you can advance them at a different pace.”
Ruyak envisions the flexibility allowing women associates more freedom to spend time raising a family while remaining on track to make partner.
2. Think before you email. Many people send emails in lieu of phone calls, when the topic is better suited for writing (or when you want a record of the communication but still want a more casual tone) or when it’s inconvenient to call. Tim Sanders proposes not emailing “your people” (employees, customers/clients, vendors, colleagues) on the weekend: “Never let email cross a line that phones or face-to-face cannot. Never let technology erode relationship quality. Less is more.”
While I’m not sure that the no-weekend-email rule can hold for lawyers (at least not those in large firms), it’s worth pausing to consider whether an email is the appropriate mode of communication from a relationship perspective. Just as it’s far better to deliver news (especially bad news) to a client in a telephone call rather than via email, perhaps in-office relationships may be enhanced by considering in-person or telephone communications. To my mind, the message here is less don’t send email and more don’t send email without thinking about it first.
3. Use the summer to make career advances. Penelope Trunk, the Brazen Careerist, has a Yahoo! Finance column about ways to spend your summer vacation to enhance your career. I’d argue that each of the suggestions is well-applied year-round, on or off vacation, though of course vacation tends to facilitate some of them. The ideas:
a. Go for a run in the park, or swim in a lake at sunset.
b. Mentor a summer intern.
c. Curl up in the sun with a book.
d. Differentiate yourself by lying quietly in the grass.
Now, read the column (or the related blog post) for the commentary. I promise, it’ll get your brain moving.
4. More on how to differentiate yourself from other lawyers and law firms. Tom Kane, of The Legal Marketing Blog, has a great post on law firm differentiation (a topic I’ve previously addressed). His suggestions (which include treating clients with respect, being responsive to client requests, and keeping the client informed about her matter) remind me of the Albert E. N. Gray statement that “the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful — lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do.”
Welcome back!
