If you're going to do it, do it properly

I have spent some time over the last few days looking at a number of websites for both legal providers and for small charities. It has been an interesting exercise, and some interesting things became very obvious to me.

The first of these is that many law firms - and regional law firms do seem to be rather worse in this respect - seem to have spent a very small amount of money on their website, and to have spent this some time ago. Since that small expenditure they have obviously not felt it necessary to either spend any more keeping it up to date, or even to have visited it recently. The shining star in this regard was the site of Connell Associates (http://www.connellassociates.co.uk/). Until very recently, they had a spectacularly bad web site, full of typographical errors, spelling errors, and sentences that made no sense at all. They have now, as you will have seen if you clicked on the link above, put a new "holding" page in place which is, at least, in English this time. Congratulations on doing something about the mess that was your last site.

Sadly they are not unusual. Many of the sites I have been visiting appear to have been written by someone's 14 year old nephew who has spent many minutes learning to write HTML or to use Dreamweaver. Few have given any thought to their design and many are so badly put together that they are difficult to read. This from a profession which professes to be concerned about the details.

What is more interesting, however, is the amount of space spent on profiles of the partners and lawyers and copies of things they might have written. The sites appear to be based on the principle of "they [the clients] will want to know about us". As a client, I'm not sure I care about the lawyers - I'm more interested in what they will do for me. A remarkably small number of law firm websites had any form of recommendation or review from clients.

Contrast that with many of the small charity sites I have been looking at. An almost equal number of them appear to have been designed by amateurs, but what is really interesting is their focus. It can be hard to find profiles of the people running the charity. Instead the sites focus on the activities of the charity and often have quotes from the beneficiaries - the "clients".

This is all by way of continuing my theme of placing the client at the heart of what your organisation does. The law firms were remiss in that they seems to avoid even mentioning their clients - which certainly gives the impression that they don't really care that much and will expect a client to fit in with what they do.

This is not complicated. It's quite a simple exercise to sit down and think about what the clients want. You could even ask them... Personal clients of law firms who are looking at a web site for the first time will have two main concerns - neither of which are usually addressed. The first is - can this firm do the work properly. This can be addressed by client quotations, recommendations and, perhaps, by a survey ("80% of our clients were delighted with this service in our recent poll", for example). The issue of cost can be addressed by showing fixed prices on the web site. Most sites I viewed went very far out of their way to avoid this. As a prospective client who is shopping around, I do not want to visit a web site to be told that I need to phone someone to get a price.  Nor does saying that the first meeting, or first half hour, is free - I still want to know how much it will be after that.

So - both types of organisations can improve. Expenditure on a web site is an investment. Have a professional design and professional implementation - it does not need to be vastly expensive. Secondly - address the concerns of your clients. If you don't know what these are, then ask!

I will now declare an interest - I recommend the following site as a good example of an effective web site. It is the site for The Living Rainforest - and my interest is that I am the Chairman. Notwithstanding this - the site addresses the key audience and gives out the required information. It is simple, easy to use, gives good information - and, vitally so far as I was concerned - was excellent value for money. Have a look and see if you agree with me.

Leadership & Ownership vs. Management in Law Firms

I have just read "Dealing With the 'Leadership Vacuum' in Law Firm Management" by Joel A. Rose.

In general I like the article since it speaks well about the tasks required to lead a firm. Where I differ is in the tasks he seems to allocate to the Senior/Managing Partner. Let me just quite one of his lists:

The following are some of the functions that the managing partner should perform:

1. Maintaining the morale of the lawyers, as a group and individually.
2. Anticipating management needs and making recommendations for fulfilling them.
3. Supervising the administrator.
4. Making decisions concerning matters that do not warrant consideration by the management committee, such as implementation of personnel policy.
5. Implementing the management committee's decisions by informing the proper attorneys and by following up to see that the decisions have been implemented.
6. Coordinating all management activities.

Ok - point 1 is well made and is one of the most important tasks for a Managing Partner. Point 2 - well, yes, but not on his/her own. The firm's management must be trusted to bring these things to the managing committee or Partner early enough too. Point 3 is a "no brainer". It's the rest I have serious problems about.

"Implementation of ... policy". That's why the firm should have professional managers. Note that I say "professional" - not lawyers performing the roles. In my experience, lawyers should not get very close to the implementation of any policy. Point 5 I could be persuaded about so long as we are talking about legal work. Point 6, though, really upsets me. Point 6 lies at the heart of many of the problems facing law firms. Coordination of management activities is an activity that should be performed by the Chief Executive or Chief Operating Officer - i.e. the non-lawyer who, operationally, runs the firm. This role can almost never be properly accomplished by a lawyer, unless they have (a) given up all legal work to concentrate on administration and (b) undertaken a good amount of education in management. Failing that a professional is needed. Someone with the knowledge, skills and experience to run the firm's administration while the lawyers do what they specialise in.

At the heart of this matter is often confusion amongst the Partners about the difference between ownership and management. I have often heard Partners saying "We own the firm and so want to be involved in the way it runs". Well, yes they do own the firm, but the only involvement in running the firm should be in the selection of a Chief Executive and setting strategy. Anything else is inefficient. Allow the lawyers to practice law and work with clients, allow the Managing Partner to run the lawyers and lead the firm, and allow the firm's management to get on an manage.

Time, everyone, please

No comment today about the Swine 'Flu - I've decided to take my own advice and wait for more data...

I have been reading "Management Today", as I sure have you all. One brief section caught my eye "Cope with Overload" (page 19 of the May 2009 issue, if you'd like to jump straight to it...). It quotes Alexei Miller, the CEO of Gazprom, as starting meetings with "You have 15 minutes...".

I have always tried to keep meetings short and sharp (and ideally sweet), but it can be difficult. Having worked with lawyers much of my working life (so far), I can confirm that, in general, they do like to talk... I have worked with a couple of CEO-level people about their techniques for managing meetings, and can offer the following:

• Schedule meetings for no more than one hour (unless really necessary for technical reasons). This means that most attendees will have another appointment 60 minutes after the start of the meeting and so will share the concern to move things along
• Start the meeting on time. This may be a personal thing but I find people who saunter into meetings 10 minutes late rather rude. Common courtesy suggests that you should be in the room at 14:58 for a 15:00 meeting
• Follow Alexie Miller's opening and state how long the meeting will last
• Outline an agenda or the reason for the meeting at the start (another point mentioned in the MT article)
• Possibly more importantly, outline the outcome you hope to achieve
• Manage the meeting. Don't just sit there and let people talk. If it is your meeting - or you are the chairman of the committee - you are perfectly entitled to stop others speaking. The phrases "Thank you, I think we see you point, but need to move on" and "Thank you, but I think we are going off-topic now and I'd like to bring us back to the subject of the meeting" are two I use and recommend
• If the outcome has been achieved, you are finished. If you manage it in 5 minutes, then congratulations. You do not need to continue the conversation in order to justify the meeting. You - and all the other attendees - are now at least 40 minutes ahead for the day. Enjoy it.

I have one example I should like to share with you. Some years ago I was a member of a board which had a new chairman every year. For 12 months we had sat through what felt like endless meetings with a chairman who both enjoyed long meetings and was not particularly efficient in controlling other members of the board. A two and a half hour meeting was not unusual and members would arrive late, read the papers (for the first time) through the meeting. All in all it was a bit of a mess. And then, the next January, our new chairman started. He too had sat through these long meetings and was determined that this would change. He decided to make a statement with his first meeting.

As the clock hit 5pm (the official starting time), he called the meeting to order and said "Right then, we're all very busy so let's get on. Item 1 - you've all read the papers, any comments of questions? No - right. Item 2 - you've all read the papers, any comments or questions? No..."

Half the members of the board were still helping themselves to coffee. Some were shuffling papers in a frantic attempt to catch up. Those (somewhat anal) members of the board who liked short meetings were smiling a laughing.

His first meeting took twenty minutes. A thing of wonder and beauty. We never again managed such a short meeting - but members of the board arrived prepared, and we never again had a two and a half hour meeting.