How to Recognize Successful Coaching
• There is no arbitrary regimen or number of steps involved. A customized, individualized approach is created around need.
• Behavioral objectives are established that can be measured in terms of progress and ultimate success.
• The coach is proactive, holds the client’s feet to the fire, insists that deadlines are met, doesn’t accept excuses.
• The engagement is relatively short-term.
• The coach can demonstrate the skills and behaviors required, and has been successful individually employing them. The coach exemplifies success, and doesn’t merely wave certifications and initials.
• Tough love is applied. Failure is recognized and analyzed. The objective is to be effective, not to be liked.
• Responsiveness is impressive. The coach meets deadlines, provides time, returns calls within three hours and email within a day.
• The client is never “upsold” with additional services and products.
• Confidentiality is strictly observed.
• The client can confidently engage in the desired behavior, and others can attest to observing it, at the conclusion of the engagement.
All of this assumes the client wants to be helped, otherwise all bets are off. I’m still aghast at the number of people over the years who wanted to give me money to tell them they were fine, the rest of the world was wrong, and they were victims. To accept that money in return for those lies is reprehensible.
Of course, I had a lawyer berate me on Twitter the other day that what I was claiming as unethical billing practices were nonetheless legal! I won’t be coaching him.
© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.
Maxime Cloutier
Let’s clarify in more than 140 characters:
Alan’s opinion is that hourly billing is unethical. I don’t know if he’s right or wrong, but please note I’m highly interested about alternate fee structures. Only a few large law firms have truly efficient AFS billing policies in place.
There is no debate between Alan and me on the unethical nature of hourly billing. He thinks it’s reprehensible and I respect his opinion.
Alan, however, wrote that hourly billing MUST lead to “padding” and double billing. Those practices are illegal in most, if not all, states and provinces. I don’t pad, I don’t double bill. My colleagues don’t. I’m sure some lawyers do these things (there are crooks in every profession), but to imply that all lawyers use unlawful practices is wrong.
I learnt a lot from Alan’s books and articles and continue to learn from, and be inspired by, him. Even the best can be wrong once in a while.
Now, I hope that Alan will return my call if ever I seek his help for coaching even if we have a minor disagreement….
Max
Rene' Vidal
Challenging those with manifest body of work never ends well for the challenger(s). Look at Usain Bolt at the Olympics. Athtletics, consulting, law, etc. no different.
Jeffrey Summers
Let’s clarify the clarification.
Leave it to a lawyer, where drawing out or preventing an outcome is a legitimate strategic act, to not be able to come to the simple understanding that the speed to which you fix and solve problems or innovate either processes or products is critical (read: in their best interest) for business.
Hourly billing does lead to padding, whether it’s a conscious thing or not, simply because you’ve made the decision to start and then stop working on the client’s situation at your discretion, not theirs, or their best interest. IMO this is too arbitrary to ignore as an ethical failing of an hourly fee structure.
Jeffrey Summers
Great post btw!
Alan Weiss
A lot has been going on since I’ve been at the beach for the last few hours.
I don’t recall writing anywhere that hourly billing MUST lead to padding and illegal acts. If I did, I’d appreciate being pointed to where I printed that, since I don’t believe it to be true. I DO believe it’s unethical, because the client is always served by a rapid response, while the biller is best served by a slow response/resolution. The chief justice of the supreme court in Western Australia, with whom I’ve corresponded, actually has a video on YouTube about this, feeling lawyers are cheating themselves by not charging for their true value.
In listening to a couple of attorneys who were liberal with their liquor unabashedly tell the table about how THEY padded their bills as a policy of their law firm—prescribed by the senior partners, presumably cold sober—I was appalled at the manipulation and lack of ethics in the profession, which I’ve heard and seen elsewhere, as well.
Most lawyers are honest and professional. Very few are good business people. And virtually none know how to bill well, either using hourly fees or becoming a part of the case by using contingency fees.
If you want to join my Coaching or Mentoring Programs, I’ll happily return your call!
Maxime Cloutier
Alan,
Thank you for understanding my point, and thank you for clarifying yours. Please note that you actually did write that hourly bill must lead to padding in one of your tweets. It was a simple tweet and I replied with a simple tweet. Then a few more followed on each side. In our twitter exchange I was obviously not questioning your entire body of excellent work but rather challenging (i) the dangerous generalization that could be made from the tweet that initiated my original reaction (the drunk confession) and (ii) the claim that hourly bill must lead to padding.
Some of your followers were prompt (as per the replies above) to make the aforementioned generalization and short cut, and I’m glad to read you do not make such generalization and short cut. I’m also glad to read that you don’t believe hourly billing must lead to padding. You have issues with hourly billing, but you don’t think that all of us who bill by the hour use illegal practices. This was the only point I was trying to make. Whether hourly billing is unethical or not is a different issue. While I can’t completely adhere with your opinion, I am highly interested in alternate fee structures for lawyers.
I will continue to read you for learning and inspiration. I agree that most of us lawyers are not good business people. We need to change this.
***
Now one word to Chad. I know you will find this even more obnoxious and preposterous, but what you wrote is spectacularly wrong. Alan himself built his reputation by being contrarian and expressing conflicting opinions. If Alan had devoted his first book to explain why everybody was right and his first article to outline why he agreed with everyone there may not have been a second book or a second article! Of course I’m allowed to disagree with Alan even if I didn’t write any books yet. And so are you (I hope you disagree with at least one of his opinion!) I’ve written less books than Alan, and I also written less books than Tony Robbins! Should I agree with everything each of them has written? Should I walk on hot coals or not? Just for fun: if we follow your logic it means that Danielle Steel is the best novelist of our times! Disagreements are healthy as long as they are made in a respectful fashion. I never attacked Alan’s integrity, but I politely highlighted one item of disagreement. You, on the other hand are trying to personalize this by reacting more about me as a person and as a professional than about my point of view, which is unhealthy and unnecessary. It would be tempting to continue on your path but I won’t fall in this trap. No offense Chad, but your post was dead wrong. And by the way, since you asked how am I qualified to talk about lawyers’ billing practices please note that I am a lawyer, partner with one of Canada’s leading law firm, I’m chair of my firm’s ethics committee and I recently moderated a panel on Alternate Fee Structures for the American Bar Association. So to comment on your last point, I disagree with you again. There are several ways for someone who bills by the hour to increase revenue: becoming more valuable to the market place and thereby command higher hourly rate; getingt more clients and have qualified professionals do the work for you (this doesn’t apply to solo practicionners, but bear in mind I’m not); and, yes, working more (I want to get away from that). I never wrote on this blog not on Twitter that hourly billing was perfect, and I won’t debate with you or others who think that it is unethical. I am genuinely interested in learning how alternate fee structures can be effectively used by larger law firms. Very few law firms have been able to do this so far. So Chad, if you know anything about AFS for large law firms please let me know.
Best to all of you (even you Chad).
Max
Maxime Cloutier
Alan,
Too bad if you felt I was emotional, I am not. Life is too short to get emotional on a blog! I don’t usually write much on twitter or blogs. I’m travelling to Vancouver and wrote my last “epic post” on the plane. Perhaps the fact that I write in my second language conveys emotions or feelings I don’t wish to convey.
And you are right, I am writing with a totally positive attitude.
You wrote on several platforms that success trumps perfection, and I totally agree with you. The comments I made were not meant to imply that Ms Steel or Mr. Robbins were not successful. They are, indeed very successful. Yet I don’t follow their work. I’m sure you understand the point I was trying to make.
Now for the more important stuff. I agree that talking for 2 minutes about a file and then billing a lunch is wrong. Moreover, I am not trying to justify unthetical, yet legal, billing practices (please bear with me on this before writing “ah ah”!).
The ACC (Association for Corporate Counsel) has issued a few years ago a manifesto entitled “The ACC Value Challenge”, inviting lawyers to bill for value rather than for mere hours. I am up for that challenge, as are many of my peers in national and intertional law firms. As a matter of fact, the Program I moderated for the American Bar Association was titled “The ACC Value Challenge: what works and what doesn’t “. Unfortunately the outcome of the program was that few large law firms are up to that challenge. Yes there are some exceptions (law firms working with Pfizer, for instance), but generally speaking law firms have a hard time to adapt to “value based fee”.
I am not saying traditional law firms are right. I’m saying that we have not found an efficient way to go beyond hourly billing. With all due respect, just saying that lawyers should bill for value does not solve lawyers’ problems and, might I say, lawyers’ clients problems. Between the statement “bill for value” and implementation of a different system, there is a long way to go.
The implementation creates concerns for our clients and, yes, for my partners. How will they bill and how will they get paid? It is a complex situation that most law firms are trying to figure out, but few have openely admitted being successful at it. Again, there are some exceptions. But please don’t think “ah! ah! it’s just to make the partners happy!” It is not true. Many clients struggle to find the right balance between low cost for commodity work and full value, high end, “bet the farm” type of work.
I don’t have all the answers and I agree my industry is heading for a change. And I am interested in getting meaningful advice on alternate fee structures.
Now for the record the tweet I was referring to was sent by you on Aug 8 at 8:42am.
Be well.
Max
Alan Weiss
What I said in the Tweet I believe was that hourly billing leads to classic padding. I think those were my words. The FACT is that if you call to question a legal bill, most lawyers will bill you for the time you are questioning the bill! There is a desperation in law firms to raise revenue, and they do so by finding any excuse to bill. Talking two minutes over lunch about a client and then billing the lunch to the client may not be illegal, but it’s unethical and classic padding.
Where you and I don’t see eye to eye is that I believe law firms should act ethically, and you seem to feel that as long as they act legally they are fine, and hourly billing, even at its extremes, is legal. My point is an ethical one. The intrinsic conflict between the fast resolution for a client and the maximum fees of slow resolution are abominable.
Lawyers should charge for their value. What’ s the value of a successful divorce or saved marriage, or an effective irrevocable trust, or a partnership established or dissolved? The average attorney in the US makes less than my Bentley service manager, and probably less than some of her top mechanics. That’s appalling, and worse, ignorant.
Chad and anyone else are capable of defending themselves, and I’d just remind you of this: No one would claim that Danielle Steele is NOT a highly successful popular novelist, or Tony Robbins not a brilliant marketer. My body of work, my rather vast intellectual property in my area, would indicate that I probably have more substance and intelligence than people who choose to randomly question my positions. I’ve already built the battleship. If you’re curious as to whether the guns really work, you can take my word for it or ask to be fired upon.
I think you’re trying to adopt a positive tone, and that’s good. But I knew I had hit a nerve, you are an attorney, and I think you’re reacting more emotionally than logically. I appreciate your interest and your comments are welcome here.
Alan Weiss
This is getting tedious, you keep repeating yourself. New comments welcome. Rehash, not so much.
Jared Lazaro
If one is seeking an effective alternative for current billing, there’s analogues of law firms that bill at value add or ‘by the job’ – the Valorem Law Group in Chicago being front of mind. In point of fact, there are ample examples of it everywhere; one merely needs to find such alternatives appealing instead of ‘weird’ or ‘distasteful.’
I’ll submit that the distinction isn’t just that there’s an ethical conflict: It’s that defending the billable hour position is archaic. The argument lacks merit in so many instances because exactly *how* it’s going to play out has been pretty well established.
Criminal law is a great example: a P.D. and a defense attorney (who in many cases cut their teeth by doing grunt work as a P.D. for the experience) know how the plea bargain and sentencing will go. They discuss a case for a few minutes, and then it’s all paperwork. Yet most defense attorneys still use billable hours, as do injury attorneys et al.
In my business I only use attorneys who are first capable of encompassing the challenges that may arise, don’t set the box they’re going to put me in *before* I can explain any of the eccentricities, and – most importantly – don’t bill by the hour.
This is primarily a defense mechanism on my part. I interview the people I work with, and attorneys who don’t use billable hours are – in my experience – demonstrably more capable of lateral thinking and uniquely tailored solutions.
I recognize that is not normal thinking for most people. But consider –
The average person who who walks into an attorney’s office already has three strikes against themselves: They’re intimidated by all of the ridiculous jokes and clichés about lawyers, they all think they should fight whatever comes up, and they know they’re going to get screwed on billing.
Defending the institution by saying “hourly billing is legal” isn’t helping with any of those problems; it’s only exacerbating them.
My current (and last, before he passed away) attorney is a value-added advisor; he bills for access to both him and an army of credible people in his rolodex. We look at what my current needs are, and he adjusts accordingly. There’s been an entire quarter where he insisted I keep the money I actively wanted to give him.
When does THAT ever happen..?
I’ve thankfully never had to utilize his services for litigation or defense, as he hands that sort of work off anyways. He knows his limits, and doesn’t pretend to fake expertise he doesn’t possess so he can bill more.
He’s my advise and consent voice of choice, and I refer him to clients and peers shamelessly. He’s brought me good business that I want and ask for.
After all: Good attorneys should *make* you money.
I’ve gotten all of this premium level of service without a single billable hour.
Be proactive in that regard, and you wouldn’t have to spend so much time trying to simultaneously defend and decry billable hours.
Maxime Cloutier
Jared,
That’s a great post, thanks. Not just on fees but also on your expectations about what a lawyer should do for you. I like to read comments of that nature as I always aim, as most professionals, to serve my clients better and increase the value I deliver to them.
There are a lot of situations where alternate fee structures can be used successfuly, as those you describe in your post (as well as commodity litigation work, trade-mark registration, regulatory and compliance advice, standard lending, just to name a few). There are other areas where AFS have been more difficult to implement, mostly where neither the lawyers not the client can reasonably anticipate neither how long will the matter take before completion nor how much time will be required (for instance complex litigation or cross-border M&A). For the latter areas, very few large firms working for large clients have developped successful AFS.
Again, thanks for your post.
Max
Maxime Cloutier
Fair enough, I just ordered it. I won’t make further comments on this subject until I have read the book.
Max
Alan Weiss
You ought to read Value Based Fees and understand that how long something takes doesn’t matter UNLESS you’re hooked in to time based billing. Chicken and egg.