Legal Business Community

Title	Views
1	Martindale-Hubbell Connected to Host ‘Pro Bono and Your Career’ Webinar on April 22	7309
2	Forms of Organization: Centralized vs. Decentralized	6753
3	Martindale-Hubbell Connected Celebrates One-Year Anniversary	5943

“Data Driven”: In a Car, Is the Driver a Bug… or a Feature?

Driver: Bug or Feature? "The fact that you're still driving is a bug," [Google's Anthony] Levandowski says, "not a feature." I'm sure there'll be the inevitable responses about computer crashes vs. auto crashes, but Levandowski has a point. Read the sentence

Published Wed, Feb 8 2012 10:03 PM by Steven B. Levy

Facebook IPO | A Take-away Idea for Law Firm Strategy

Potential buyers got their first look at Facebook financials yesterday, which showed the company produced a $1 billion profit last year from $3.71 billion in revenues. The company derives 85% of those revenues from advertising, with the rest from social

Published Wed, Feb 8 2012 9:07 PM by Jayne Navarre

Required Viewing: Paddy Ashdown on the “Global Power Shift”

My colleagues at Walker Clark and I frequently stress the critical importance of informed strategic planning. Part of that information should include an in-depth understanding of the major trends that are shaping our changing world. Although global in

Published Sun, Jan 22 2012 8:28 PM by Norman Clark

Project Leadership and Motivation

What does science know about motivating employees that businesses too often ignore? That's the topic of an 18-minute talk by (nonpracticing) lawyer Dan Pink . He frames it as an argument to the jury of the audience. In this 2009 talk, he describes the

Published Sun, Jan 22 2012 8:22 PM by Steven B. Levy

Can Lawyers Learn From Best Buy?

Larry Downes in Forbes has an article on the decline and (they presume) fall of Best Buy . Other than the hagiography of Amazon.com, 1 there are some very interesting points in the article. Before you read it, though, consider what you think intuitively

Published Mon, Jan 16 2012 9:17 PM by Steven B. Levy

"2012 CFO Outlook" - A survey by Merrill Lynch and Bank of America - What does this mean for law firms?

Now that the holidays are behind us, let's get down to some serious business - and some prognosticating about what law firms' business and financial lives might be like this year. The bottom line is that the CFO respondents (600 of them from corporate

Published Mon, Jan 16 2012 9:06 PM by Loretta Ruppert

Inspiration for the New Year | Bringing great projects to life

There are two fatal errors that keep great projects from coming to life: Not finishing Not starting -Buddha A DEEP BREATH OF LIFE Early last year I took a yoga class at Florida Keys Community College. While I was far from a good student, having missed

Published Mon, Jan 16 2012 8:29 PM by Jayne Navarre

A Lesson in Leadership from Aon’s Litigation Counsel

Mark Herrmann, Chief Litigation Counsel for Aon, writes about his first 360 review here . A 360 review is common in many corporations for mid-level and senior managers. An HR consultant (usually) helps you map your self-assessed strengths and weaknesses

Published Tue, Nov 8 2011 2:59 PM by Steven B. Levy

The Hobgoblin of Foolish Consistency

(I should have posted this yesterday, when hobgoblins were out and about in the neighborhoods. And the first half wanders far afield before returning to project leadership concepts. You can skip the intro and jump right to that point .) I was working

Published Wed, Nov 2 2011 10:52 AM by Steven B. Levy

“Dead files” — but do they need to smell bad?

One of the best sources of entertainment about professional ethics is the monthly newsletter of the Disciplinary Board of the Pennsylvania (USA) Supreme Court. Because I cannot begin to approach the wittiness of their writers, I beg their pardon for quoting

Published Wed, Oct 26 2011 1:30 PM by Norman Clark

Everything you need to know about legal business development (in seven words)

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post called "Everything you need to know about legal marketing and sales, in nine words." (The nine words were: identify prospects, get meetings, listen, get advances, don't stop.) But lawyers don't have time for nine words

Published Wed, Oct 19 2011 3:20 PM by Jim Hassett

Steve Jobs, Teamwork, and Legal Project Management

Jonah Lehrer writes in Wired and The New Yorker about Steve Jobs using architecture to inculcate teamwork when he took over Pixar. He insisted that Pixar's headquarters be designed so that disparate groups of employees were forced to come together for

Published Tue, Oct 18 2011 11:14 AM by Steven B. Levy

Everyone’s Trying to Get in on the Act

I saw an ad today for a university-sponsored legal project management 1 course for in-house counsel. I checked out the instructors, figuring that a reputable university would of course engage one of the specialists in this area. In this case I assumed

Published Mon, Oct 10 2011 10:18 AM by Steven B. Levy

The Steve Jobs of Law?

Larry Ribstein has a great short post over at Truth on the Market reflecting on the future of law, titled Waiting for the Steve Jobs of Law . He notes, "Law is waiting for its Steve Jobs (or Bill Gates)." Actually, the computer market needed both Steve

Published Thu, Oct 6 2011 1:36 PM by Steven B. Levy

Steve Jobs

I knew the day was coming, and I knew it would come for him sooner than for most of us, it's still a shock to hear of the death of Steve Jobs. Apple was a love-it-or-hate-it company, and within the technology world there are many who fall into the latter

Published Thu, Oct 6 2011 1:33 PM by Steven B. Levy