Category: General musings

  • White space?

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    Intelligent Challenge
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    I’m always looking to improve my blog, and one of the areas I look for inspiration and guidance is on other blogs, particular those with a big audience. One of the most popular is called “Zen Habits“, a blog about using zen principles to simplify life and slow down which has been going since 2007.…

  • What’s your agenda?

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    Intelligent Challenge
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    My friend Ross, an in-house attorney in the U.S., is known for his personal crusade against unproductive meetings. We’ve all been in them: the time-devouring, pointless meetings that swallow time and achieve little (if anything). The book “Rework” by Fried and Hienemeier Hansson gives a great explanation of why there are so many meetings of…

  • You do what?

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    Intelligent Challenge
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    Reading another interesting discussion on the Interweb last week, which was urging lawyers to ask their clients the simple question “so what do you do?”. The basis of the article was that this would give a client or a prospect the opportunity to talk about their business, and thus provide a deeper level of insight…

  • The Great Commodity Debate

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    Intelligent Challenge
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    Fascinating debate over the last month on the Linkedin group “Leadership for Lawyers” on Mike Ames’ discussion “Is the law becoming a commodity, and if it is, what can be done about it?”. One of the things that immediately struck me about the comment, was the implication that commoditisation was a bad thing, and something…

  • Inside out lawyers?

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    Intelligent Challenge
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    An inside out lawyer would be messy, no question. I’m not sure exactly what lawyers are made of, but I bet the middle is pretty gooey, and you certainly wouldn’t want that stuff on your carpet. But law firms are different, in fact I think they are usually inside out….. Over the past few years…

  • The curse of knowledge?

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    Intelligent Challenge
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    But knowledge is power, right? How can it be a curse? The answer, is when it prevents simplicity, which is key for lawyers in both their professional practice and their business development. The inspiration for this post came from an intriguing little book called “Made to stick” by Chip and Dan Heath. The book is…

  • Smarter business development?

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    Intelligent Challenge
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    One of my former commercial colleagues from corporate life was telling me the other day about an analysis they did of their business development spend. A huge proportion of their annual budget went into the team that responded to RFPs (requests for proposals) and yet their win rate for these opportunities was actually very low.…

  • Your training was useless. Discuss.

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    Intelligent Challenge
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    I asked an experienced law firm partner recently what percentage of his academic training he had used in his career as an outsourcing lawyer. The answer? Less than 10% Now I know that here in the UK, there has been debate for a number of years as to whether the vocational training given on the…

  • Making better decisions

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    Intelligent Challenge
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    Good management information is at the heart of the outsourcing industry. Having worked directly in this field, both as a lawyer and a commercial animal, for six years, I have seen plenty of spurious arguments and assumptions but to the sword by solid data. Where margins are slim, and operational efficiency is a must, having…

  • Purple law firms

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    Intelligent Challenge
    in

    Not green law firms (sustainability is for another post), but purple law firms. The concept at the heart of Seth Godin’s excellent book “Purple Cow” is about being remarkable. I think that’s a great word, and today’s post is designed to make you think about how your firm, team or law department can be remarkable.…