leverage

5 steps to take when your client becomes your biggest competitor

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One of the more interesting take-outs from an article (‘The Rise of in-house counsel: What does this mean for law firms?‘) published on the Australasian Lawyer website today – on the rise of in-house counsel numbers in #Auslaw – is the following comment by Katherine Sampson – managing director of Mahlab Recruitment:

“It’s not necessarily that they’re [in-house] going to a competitor firm, but they are going in house…”

To me this statement rings alarm bells and reads:

“your client has just become your biggest competitor!”

So, what steps should you be taking when your client has also just become your biggest competitor for that work?

Here are 5 things you should be putting in place immediately:

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Leverage and the 10-20-30-40 Rule

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Today’s Australian Financial Review Legal Affairs section has an interested article – ‘Junior lawyers bring in the money‘ – reporting what we all already essentially know: that law firms make their money from their junior lawyers.

What spiked my interest in the article was despite reporting the fact that “the conventional profit-driven pyramid model is still the dominant method adopted by most of Australia’s top-tier law firms” the percentages where the work is done has changed over time.

Early in my career we followed what was known as the 10-20-30-40 Rule, whereby [roughly]:

  • 10% of a matter’s work was done at partner level,
  • 20% of a matter’s work was done at senior associate level (there was no special counsel level in those days, but they would be included today),
  • 30% of a matter’s work was done at associate and senior lawyer level (in times when there was a difference between an ‘associate’ and ‘lawyer’), and
  • 40% of a matter’s work was done by the junior lawyers / trainees / graduates / paralegals (i.e., everyone else).

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