If you happened to pick up this month’s Corporate Counsel magazine, you would have been struck–as we were–by the fact that it actually had three separate covers. Each featured a different large-corporation general counsel (FMC Technologies’ Jeffrey Carr; Cisco’s Mark Chandler; Sun’s Mike Dillon) who has become well-known as a advocate/evangelist/early adopter of change when it comes to how their departments conduct their internal practices and their relationships with outside counsel.
the early adopters
When it comes to changing the way that corporations deliver and purchase legal services, these guys are very, very well-known: Carr, for the design and implementation of his company’s FMC-ACES legal engagement management model and for driving rigorous process management throughout his department; Chandler, for his early advocacy of technology-based solutions to legal process inefficiencies; and Dillon, for his thoughtful and influential and blog.
So, it was completely unsurprising to see any of their faces (and only a little surprising to see all three) above the lead story title, “IS IT THEIR HOUR? Longtime Champions of Fixed Fees Recruit More Followers to Their Cause.” After all, the reformation of client-firm economic models has been a familiar theme in their collective speaking and writing for at least a few years now (two years ago, Dillon forecast the traditional model going, “the way of the mastodon“). If you’re going to write about champions of fixed fees, then these are the faces of your article, right?
Well no, actually. We were stunned (stunned I tell you!) to open to the magazine’s lead article and find Benjamin Heinemann and William Lee’s byline affixed to thought piece (re-posted in printer-friendly format here under the title “Getting Your Fix“) that bluntly advocates a rapid move from time-based to fixed-fee billing.
If you don’t know them, Benjamin Heineman is the former SCOTUS clerk to Potter Stewart and Sidley Austin partner who helmed GE’s legal department for the better part of two decades. And William Lee is the managing partner of Boston’s biggest, oldest, and most prestigious law firms, Wilmer Hale.
These guys are not (not, I tell you) edge-cases or outliers or bomb-tossers or part of the chasm-crossing vanguard. They’re not known for tilting at the windmills of the establishment. They ARE the establishment. And if they are throwing their impeccable reputations behind the Carrs and Chandlers and Dillions of the world, them some fundamental change is underway in the economic relationship between law firms and their corporate clients.
When the old school becomes the new school, things begin to change quickly.
Can law firms continue to make as much money in this new regime? We think they can actually make more.
How? Ask us.