Yesterday, a view of the last five years in the life of the Motorola legal department–raising revenues, lowering legal spending, and taking a RAZR to its roster of law firms.
Today, an idea about how managing partners could position their firms to “make the cut” in this new (law) world order. Here’s what you do:
1. Hold an event: an off-site brainstorming session that divides attendees into groups of 4 or 5 lawyers (include one associate in each group–and that means a few new ones).
2. Have a goal: increase firm profits (and profit sharing) over the next five years.
3. Tweak the scenario: you can’t increase hourly rates or billable targets during that period.
Serve good food and relevant spirits. Stand back and see what happens. (A rope course is optional; but a firewalk would be cool).
Each member of the group with the best idea as voted by all attendees gets one of these credit tickets that apply to their billable hours-to-date.
Take the top 6 ideas–and implement one a month starting the Monday after the event.