General
Cross-border energy law program way of the future
If lawyers don’t think that specialization and globalization are key to their future success, one need only look at law schools for some direction. The University of Houston Law Center and The University of Calgary last week announced the formation of the International Energy Lawyers Program.
The program allows students to earn both a Canadian and American law degree in four years. Students spend two years at each school and take courses that will enable them to apply for admission to bars in the United States and Canada.
The program, of course, will focus on producing energy lawyers, a much coveted skill in today’s environment. The two universities are known for their energy teachings.
“Our two countries’ futures are intertwined economically, and one of the most important issues facing both countries is energy security,” said Ian Holloway, dean of The University of Calgary Law School.”Training the next generation of lawyers who are leaders in energy and natural resources law will help us in our quest for sustainable, rational, continental energy policy.”
“This is just the beginning of a collaboration that will extend beyond this program between two of the best law schools and two energy capitals in North America,” said Raymond T. Nimmer, dean of the University of Houston Law Center.
More and more law schools are becoming centres of excellence in specific legal categories. It’s a way for schools to differentiate themselves and make their mark with students. The same for lawyers when it comes to clients.
The day of the general practice lawyer is coming to an end, if it isn’t already over.
Singapore opens doors to foreign firms
I see that Singapore is willing to let foreign firms take a stake in local firms.
Maybe this will prompt Canadian firms to take more interest in South Asia?
Globe column advocates return to the past
I found this Globe and Mail article by law firm recruiter Carrie Mandel somewhat humorous and a throwback to what has been tried before and not always worked at law firms.
Mandel advocates that law firms reach beyond their current hiring practices and bring in people from industry to run their firms. I am not going to debate that a fresh eye is welcome.
Mandel praises Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and McCarthy Tétrault LLP, (clients perhaps?) for hiring COOs from outside the legal business and suggests it’s something new.
Not even close. It’s a cycle that law firms have been going through over the past 40 years. In 1980s and early 1990s, law firms often had a chief administrator who was usually an accountant or management consulting professional. Then the trend in the early 1990s was for law firms to hire CEOs from outside the legal industry. That was an abysmal failure and most leadership structures today at the big firms have a partner at the helm.
Why? Because lawyers own the business and most lawyers are not prepared to take marching orders from non-lawyers nor should they as business owners.
Mandel argues that firms reach outside for things like marketing directors. In 20-plus years of writing about the legal profession — starting when there were only a handful of marketing directors at law firms — I’ve seen that with mixed success. (I remember one firm that hired someone from the cosmetics industry. The person lasted maybe six months. There are many others who have stopped in for a cup of coffee before moving on.)
Making the leap from a business with a CEO structure, with one person in charge, to an environment where you have multiple owners is a challenge that many cannot handle.
Mandel is right when she says law firms can learn from people who come from other industries. But it’s just not that simple. Their success will depend on their ability to juggle the challenges that come with working in a partnership model. It’s not for everyone and it is not a panacea.
Canadian law firms fail to make the China grade
Maybe Prime Minister Stephen Harper should have taken some law firms on his trip to China this week. The China Briefing Magazine and Daily News Service reports that only one Canadian firm has a presence in mainland China. That ranks us right up there with the UAE, population 7.5-million.
Belgian, Spanish, French, Swedish and Brazilian law firms have more offices in China than Canadian firms. Pathetic! Meanwhile, law firms from the U.S. have 90 or more offices. Only Blake, Cassels & Graydon was mentioned on the list as having a representative office. It’s in Beijing.
China is poised to become Canada’s second largest trading partner. Chinese investment into Canada’s energy patch is in the billions. You would think that Canadian law firms might be interested in establishing local relations. Apparently not.
Yet, law firms from foreign countries that are smaller than some of our biggest firms have made such an investment.
Canadian law firms have been reluctant to invest in bricks and mortar abroad, choosing instead to focus locally and fly lawyers into foreign hotspots and build relations with local firms on the ground. That works in a world of independents. But the world of law firms is rapidly consolidating.
The Norton Rose merger with Macleod Dixon and Ogilvy Renault has no doubt prompted many Canadian firms to reassess their international strategy. Expect more mergers. If you’re a Canadian firm, chances are those merger partners will come from the firms on the China Briefing list. They are the ones with vision and the willingness to invest in the future and take on risk. Canadian firms are totally playing a defensive strategy focused on protecting the home market.
Sadly, it’s unlikely there will be many stand-alone Canadian law firm brands in the future. Like many of our companies, our legal industry will simply be branch plants of a bigger organization run offshore. It’s the Canadian way.
Jacoby & Meyers tackles law firm ownership restrictions
In a follow up to yesterday’s blog, I see that U.S. plaintiff law firm Jacoby & Meyers is taking a run at ownership restrictions on law firms in New York. They argue that state laws prohibiting non-lawyers from participating in law firm ownership are unconstitutional. This Thomson Reuters story suggests the firm is not going to prevail. But its arguments are interesting. In the lawsuit filed last May, the firm argued that the rule unfairly cuts them off from private equity funding and restricts individuals from getting help from law firms.
The Slater & Gordon advantage
Canadian law firms are privately held organizations owned by the partners. But that’s not the way it works everywhere in the world.
Take Australia, which has allowed its law firms to tap the capital markets and raise money from investors. One of those firms is Slater & Gordon. It has shareholders and trades on the Australian Stock Exchange.
On February 6, 2012, the firm made a notable move. It announced that it was “acquiring” a UK law firm, its first overseas move.
By tapping the capital markets, Slater has been able to acquire capital and begin to build out a world-class law firm. Granted, Slater & Gordon is far from a corporate law firm. It’s a class action plaintiff firm.
That is neither here nor there. The point is that Canada, by preventing its law firms from being able to raise capital in a similar fashion, puts its law firms at a competitive disadvantage to their global counterparts. Why can’t a Siskinds or a Koskie Minsky be allowed to pursue a similar strategy in pursuit of justice for their clients. (Class action practices require hefty capital to carry cases.)
Other jurisdictions, such as England, are loosening restrictions on who can own a law firm and now supermarkets are entering the legal game. Canada is falling behind and needs to reconsider who can own a law firm. Access to justice is too precious to let stodgy concepts or regulation and old ways of doing business get in the way.
Canadian law firms and web strategies
My latest column in Canadian Lawyer looks at the top 20 law firms and their internet presence and Klout scores. Klout is a web site that measures online influence by using algorithms to gauge activity and influence in social networks, measuring things like “re-tweets,” “mentions,” “likes,” and “comments.” Klout uses a scale of 1 to 100. For simply existing, you get a 10 and build from there. An average Klout score is about 20, and those who achieve 50 or more sit in the 95th percentile, according to a recent tech podcast.
I ranked the firms according to size and contrasted that with their Klout scores. It clearly shows that size doesn’t matter, since Canada’s biggest firms scored down the list when it comes to building influence in an online world.
The chart accompanying the story shows which firms are using LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and youtube. Clearly, Canadian law firms are at the early stages and there is lots to learn.
Blogging and using Twitter can allow practice groups and individual lawyers to build a community and become thought leaders in their area of expertise. The race is on. Stikeman Elliott is well down the path of creating blogs for their practice groups, with eight blogs.
The gaunlet has been laid. It’s now up to the other law firms to strut their stuff.
Legal Marketing Association conference
Ad gurus Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin of SWIM say that law firms need to take a chance in their marketing collateral and it is up to the legal marketing department to drive the bus.
Speaking at the Legal Marketing Association annual meeting in Toronto, the women, formerly of Ogilvy, gave kudos to Torys LLP mergers and acquisitions .
They says law firms are too focused on details, things like their rankings and deals, rather than trying to build a brand that tells the market what they do and how they are different from their competitors.
Blogs are too boring and web sites too similar. You can simply cut and paste one law firm name over another.
But some firms
The women say law firms need to be thought leaders and share knowledge and information. Tell your market about trends. Steal from packaged goods marketing and tell a story.
You need to put a “stake in the ground” and tell the public about your service. It’s not about the case you won. “Generic isn’t the way to go. Identity matters.” Differentiate yourself and tell a story.
Amazing Fact on Web Video’s Impact
The three U.S. TV networks took 60 years to produce the amount of programming content that is uploaded to YouTube in just 60 days.
Issues of programming quality aside, the key point in this amazing and recent fact is that video creation is now available to everyone. Whether self-produced or working with the right professionals, the take-away message is that anyone can now broadcast to their own targeted audiences, and deliver sophisticated and informative programs via the Internet without requiring the “green light” from any middleman. This and other interesting facts can be found in our recent brochure on video webcasting, which can be downloaded by clicking here.
Someday your Printz will come…
A rather interesting video marketing campaign is underway these days via The Printing House (TPH) in Toronto and its The Printz series, which demonstrates how an organization can use short video productions to amuse its clients, build corporate profile and promote services.
The recurring medieval character (The Printz) appears to work in a modern-day office and dishes out stoic advice promoting the outsourcing of photocopying. TPH uses YouTube as its hosting platform for the series and lets customers know via email and other means when the latest installment is available. You can watch a recent episode below:
The execution of the campaign’s various videos is capable, though the comedic writing may not be to everyone’s taste. The most interesting aspect of this campaign, though, is the company’s dedication to the concept (they’ve done numerous episodes) and its efforts to create a “viral” series. At the very least, it shows that organizations are warming to the idea of using video as a means of “telling their story.” Good on you, TPH.