Walker Clark Worldview

A new wave of interest in transatlantic mergers is forming in the waters between the United States and the United Kingdom.  (Living in Florida, I am always drawn to hurricane metaphors.)

Anthony Notaras has posted a good summary of recent and likely future developments at the International Bar Association website:  “Transatlantic mergers 2.0 – just don’t call them defensive.” There are several other similar  possible matchups that are currently being considered in Europe and North America, but which I cannot discuss at this time.

I would not necessarily call some possible transatlantic law firm combinations “defensive.” As noted previously in this blog, the merger that created Hogan Lovells made a lot of strategic sense in terms of moving each of the two excellent antecedent firms up to the “next level” of international capabilities.

But one also has to wonder whether there is a subtle herd mentality now at work among some excellent second-tier firms, on both sides of the Atlantic, that has contributed to this urge to race to the seashore.

Norman Clark

P.S.,  If you have not visited the IBA site in the past year, you have not had the opportunity to discover that it is now one of the best sources of reliable information (not rumors) about developments in the law and in law firms throughout the world.  We recommend to our clients that they visit the site at least once each week.

After you read Anthony Notaras’ article, click on the links to learn more about the IBA Law Firm Management Committee and its programs at the IBA Conference in Vancouver on 3-8 October 2010.  (In the interests of full disclosure, the author of this blog is currently the Chair of the IBA’s Law Firm Management Committee, which has 3,300 members worldwide.)

If you have clients with business interests or investments in Africa, Legalbrief Africa is required reading for you.  This detailed and highly informative newsletter is a sponsored initiative of the International Bar Association.

It also serves as an information network for African lawyers and other legal professionals in the fields of the law, human rights, governance, constitutional issues, and legislation.

You can visit the Legalbrief Africa website for more information or to register for their electronic newsletter.

Norman Clark

While attending the mid-year officers meetings of the International Bar Association last week in Copenhagen, Denmark,  I had an opportunity to conduct my informal, unscientific semi-annual survey of some of my  colleagues in the IBA Law Firm Management Committee. I relied on the time honored methodology of casual conversations among professional friends.

Although it was expressed in a variety of ways, the top concern of these law firm managers and leaders was how to protect — and maybe even improve — the profitability of a law firm’s internal operations in increasingly price-sensitive markets. This concern prevailed among law firm managers and leaders from law firms on every continent, from small firms to some of the largest in the world, and in a broad range of practice specialties.

There was also a recognition that one of the most cost-effective methods of managing the profitability of internal operations is through an increased emphasis on quality assurance. This was expressed in a number of interesting and insightful ways.  For example:

Clients are no longer willing to pay us to fix our own mistakes.

Clients won’t subsidize our learning curve.

We have to start looking inward to improve our profitability; continuing to raise fees no longer works.

We have to find a way to avoid making mistakes in the first place, rather than relying on fixing them after we make them.

We get only one chance to get it right.

Quality assurance is Walker Clark terminology for the application of Total Quality Management to the practice of law. It affects both back-room and support operations, such as clerical support and billing, and the actual delivery of legal services by lawyers and paralegals. Members of our firm, including me, have been advising and assisting law firms, corporate law departments, and government legal agencies about quality assurance concepts, tools, and methods for more than 20 years. Our experience demonstrates that quality assurance is the most cost-effective profitability tool that a law firm can use; because it works in the core operations of a legal practice, where the great majority of waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary costs are to be found.

For more information about quality assurance programs, please contact me by email or telephone at +1.239.466.8370.

Norman Clark

The Law Firm Management Committee of the International Bar Association will participate in two outstanding legal management conferences in South America in June.

• Contemporary Management Issues in International Arbitration and Dispute Resolution Practices – Saturday, 12 June 2010, in Asunción, Paraguay.  This is a half-day roundtable conference aimed at the special challenges in the management of international arbitration and dispute resolution practices in law firms.  It is presented in association with CEDEP (Center for Studies in Law, Economics, and Politics), one of South America’s premier continuing professional education organizations.  It is part of the annual multi-day conference on international arbitration, which organizers expect to draw approximately 1,000 lawyers from Latin America and abroad.
• Managing a Modern Law Firm - Monday, 14 June 2010, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  This one-day conference, co-sponsored by the IBA Latin American Forum, will investigate four key challenges for law firms in the decades of the 2010s:  (1) a business approach to strategic development of the firm; (2) marketing; (3) associate career management; and (4) management of knowledge and know-how.

For more information, please click on the two links above.

Norman Clark

Save the date!

The Law Firm Management Committee of the International Bar Association, in association with the IBA Latin American Regional Forum, will present a one-day conference on contemporary issues in law firm management in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 14 June 2010.

The conference will focus on four timely subjects, each of which has a profound influence on the business performance and profitability of law firms everywhere:

• How to write, implement and measure results of a marketing plan
• Applying a business approach to strategic and tactical development of a law firm
• Career management:  What do associates need?
• Know-how management in a small or medium law firm

My Walker Clark colleague, Fernando Moreno — one of the top experts on law firm marketing strategy and tactics worldwide — will be speaking during the session on writing, implementing, and measuring the results of marketing plans.  I will participate in the session on a business approach to strategy and tactics. Other participants will include highly successful law firm leaders and managers.

This conference is designed for managing partners, practice group leaders, and law firm managers and their advisors.  For more information go to the IBA website. It also will be one of the premier networking opportunities to meet and become better known among the leaders of leading law firms throughout the Americas.

Norman Clark

I think that it is very appropriate that South America will be the venue for three major international legal management events in the first half of 2010. During the past ten years, Latin American lawyers have emerged as global leaders of the legal profession; and some of  the best-managed, most progressive law firms in the world are based in the region.

Mark these three major events on your calendar, and click on the links for more information:

• Biannual IBA Latin American Forum Regional Conference , 17-19 March 2010, Santiago, Chile - This major international conference is produced by the Latin American Regional Forum of the International Bar Association. It  will include a showcase session on 19 March 2010 dedicated to law firm management issues, including interactive audience polling. I will be co-chairing this session with Jaime Carey, the managing partner of Carey & Companía, one of Chile’s leading law firms.
• Arbitration Practice Management, 12 June 2010, Asunción, Paraguay – This half-day program is produced by CEDEP, on of South America’s leading continuing legal education institutes in association with the Law Firm Management Committee of the International Bar Association. It is a special session of CEDEP’s annual Latin American Arbitration Conference, which attracts leading international lawyers worldwide. I will moderate this session, which will be a roundtable discussion focusing on the special issues in the management of an international arbitration and dispute resolution practice.
• Managing a Modern Law Firm, 14 June 2010, Buenos Aires, Argentina – This one-day conference is produced by the IBA Law Firm Management Committee and the IBA Latin American Regional Forum. It will cover four contemporary challenges for modern law firms: writing and executing a marketing plan; a business approach to law firm strategy; career management of associates; and know-how and knowledge management in a small or midsize law firm. My Walker Clark colleague Fernando Moreno will be one of the panelists during the session on marketing plans; and I will chair the session on law firm strategy.

Although these programs are being held in South America, I recommend them to any lawyer anywhere who is responsible for the management of a law firm or practice group, but especially for those from small and midsize law firms. Each one is also an outstanding networking opportunity, especially for lawyers from North America and Europe who are interested in meeting top lawyers from some of the best law firms in Latin America (and the world).

Norman Clark

It is efforts like the following that make be proud to be a member of the International Bar Association.

The President of the International Bar Association, Fernando Peláez-Pier, and IBA Executive Director Mark Ellis announced this afternoon an opportunity for our profession to help build a permanent, sustainable recovery in Haiti.

Like many of you, we wanted to contribute as soon as possible to the relief efforts, and with the Management Board’s encouragement and approval, a donation of £10,000 has already been sent to the Disasters Emergency Committee. We want also, however, to look beyond this initial period, to the task of rebuilding the judicial infrastructure of the country, which is certain to have suffered a shattering loss of people, as well as of facilities of every kind.

The IBA has a strong track record of helping to build judicial infrastructures in developing countries, which makes us confident in offering to play a role in the reconstruction of Haiti. In precisely which ways the Association can best contribute to this, and exactly when, are questions which of course it is still too early to answer. However, an essential part of how we answer these questions will be to assess the amount of resources we can bring to the task. For this purpose we are seeking your donations – individually, from your firm, your corporation or your bar – to an IBA Appeal for the Reconstruction of the Haitian Judiciary, which we are launching today.

Donations should be given to the IBA Human Rights Institute Charitable Trust, a charity registered in the UK.

IBA HRI Charitable Trust,

BIC/Swift Code: NWBKGB2L,

IBAN: GB05NWBK 56000320712146

Haiti Appeal, Accounts Dept, International Bar Association, 1 Stephen Street, London W1T 1AT, United Kingdom.

Please think what you can do to contribute to this urgent and essential work, so that we can ensure a response of which the legal profession can be proud.

I have finally found time to organize my notes and recollections of the brilliant Law Firm Management Conference sponsored by the International Bar Association’s Law Firm Management Committee, which was held on 19-20 November 2009 in Moscow. One of the most frequently discussed themes was the toxic effect that corruption has on the rule of law.

This is not just an issue for developing economies such as Russia or Nigeria. (I select those two because of the impressive efforts that are now being made in each country to combat corruption.) It is a critical concern for every democracy.  Whether it is corruption in the courts, in government agencies, or — as has sadly become the case even in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom  – corruption in the national legislature, the wrongly motivated actions of one corrupt judge, government official, or legislator can outweigh a hundred inspiring anti-corruption speeches by political leaders.

Every lawyer has a professional and ethical duty to use one’s skills and knowledge to combat corruption wherever it occurs.  In my private discussions with delegates to the Moscow conference, I heard of a number of great practical examples of actions that lawyers can pursue to combat corruption and promote the rule of law:

• Refuse to participate in bribery of government and court officials.
• Withdraw from representation of clients who engage in corrupt business practices, even if they are tolerated in the jurisdiction in which the corrupt acts occur.
• Include anti-corruption policies in each engagement letter.
• Support legislation to provide financial transparency for elected and appointed government officials, especially judges, senior officials in the justice ministry, and members of the legislature.
• Demand legislation to restrict financing of political campaigns so as to end the risks of corrupt influence of private money on the actions of public officials.
• Demand fair and open judicial or regulatory accountability of any government employee suspected of corrupt practices.
• Demand clear anti-corruption rules for lawyers as part of a written code of professional responsibility; and insist on fair and transparent investigation of alleged violations, with appropriate sanctions.

This is not an academic or philosophical exercise in ethics, nor an attempt to impose a rigid morality on the profession.  As lawyers, we cannot expect credibility for ourselves or for our respective countries if we continue to tolerate or to participate in corrupt practices. Vigorous — and sometimes courageous — opposition to corruption is simply good business for lawyers.

Norman Clark

As part of my  preparation for a presentation that I will make at the International Bar Association Conference in Madrid on 9 October 2009,  I have been researching optimism as a competency of emotional intelligence and as a skill which can be an antidote to depression and underachievement.

Optimism is much more than positive thinking or simple cheerleading.  It’s learned behavior that can become a habit.  The essence of optimism is the ability to look at problems in a positive and realistic way.

The importance of optimism can’t be underestimated.  In the United States one of the greatest health threats to children is what many are describing as an epidemic of pessimistic thinking and depression. Research is showing even severe depression much earlier in children than in the past.  Unfortunately, much of it goes undiagnosed and untreated.

A common characteristic of pessimistic thinking in children is that they see the future as bleak.  They tend to see good events as temporary and bad events as permanent.  They tend to “catastrophize” their circumstances which leads to feelings of hopelessness and despair.  In addition, they tend to blame everyone else or themselves for everything bad that happens to them.  This emotional distortion of reality interferes with their ability to develop a realistic understanding of what they may have done to cause a bad event.  It leaves them powerless to respond constructively.

There is strong scientific evidence that teaching children new ways of thinking will permanently reduce their tendency toward pessimistic thinking. This may not alleviate depression in all cases; however, by improving problem solving skills and logical thinking, children are more likely to seek opportunities to meet and solve future challenges. This develops new patterns of self worth, self confidence, and self control in their lives and reinforces a more optimistic orientation to their experiences.

Optimism – at any age – is a kind of psychological immunization. Adults and children who develop a habit of positive thinking are more successful in school and in work based on a large body of research. They are also less frequently depressed.

All of us have learned the advantages of applying optimistic ways of thinking to our life experiences.  The challenge now is to teach these skills to the children in our  lives, who look to us as role models, especially during troubling and uncertain times.

Optimism is a critically important leadership skill for lawyers.  How do we explain problems to clients in realistic terms – where the cause is seen as specific and changeable – so they can master ways to address their challenges? How do we help our law firms to develop cultures that promote and reinforce contagious optimism as a psychological immunization against spiraling collective pessimism?

Lisa M. Walker Johnson

One of the few organizations that is actually doing something about human rights, rather than just “viewing with alarm,” is the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association.

They have just released their 2008 Annual Report, which should be required reading for lawyers everywhere.  Without their efforts, it is clear that the rule of law could disappear completely in many parts of the world, and with it many of the basic human rights to which all of us, regardless of nationality or political system, are entitled.

The HRI does not limit its work the countries in the underdeveloped world.  It has also been forthright in fighting against the hypocritical practices of developed democracies like the United States with respect to issues such as detention without trial, torture. and the death penalty.

For more information, go to http://www.ibanet.org/IBAHRI.aspx.

Norman Clark