‘Tis the season again of big law firm financial reporting. Am Law Daily’s doing a great job this year of collecting and collating Am Law 100 and 200 firms’ FY 2011 financial results by maintaining an interactive chart of results as those are reported.
Thank you, Am Law Daily.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Monday, March 14, 2011
FY 2010 Update: 52 US Law Firms Report Financial Performance
Below are some preliminary basic 2010 financial performance data for 52 large US law firms, as their results have been reported in the legal and mainstream press. The firms are ordered by profits per equity partner (highest to lowest).
The American Lawyer will publish the final 2010 performance data for the Am Law 100 on May 1 and for the Am Law 200 on June 1. Before then, I will try to revise and publish here at least once more the preliminary results for as many firms as I can locate.
As always, if you find any errors in the table below or would like to add a firm’s performance data, please let me know by commenting here or at agibson@annleegibson.com.
Final point -- I realize the following table looks fuzzy, but if you click on it you will see a clearer version.
The American Lawyer will publish the final 2010 performance data for the Am Law 100 on May 1 and for the Am Law 200 on June 1. Before then, I will try to revise and publish here at least once more the preliminary results for as many firms as I can locate.
As always, if you find any errors in the table below or would like to add a firm’s performance data, please let me know by commenting here or at agibson@annleegibson.com.
Final point -- I realize the following table looks fuzzy, but if you click on it you will see a clearer version.
Friday, March 4, 2011
FY 2010 U.S. Law Firm Financial Performances ... Trickling In
Like many law firm watchers, I’ve been gathering information about US law firms’ financial results from reports in the legal press. To date, I’ve collected the following info about gross firm revenue and profits per equity partner and am sharing it here with readers. The firms are ordered by profits per equity partner (highest to lowest).
If you find any errors in the table below or would like to add a firm’s performance data, please let me know by commenting here or at agibson@annleegibson.com. I will continue to review press reports and update these results from time to time.
If you find any errors in the table below or would like to add a firm’s performance data, please let me know by commenting here or at agibson@annleegibson.com. I will continue to review press reports and update these results from time to time.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Intelligence blind spots, failures and excuses
Twelve days ago at this blog, I said the U.S. intelligence community’s failure to predict the pan-Arab democratic rebellion was evidence of our common, human reluctance to recognize tipping points.
The ongoing public discussion about these events invites us to consider also how blind spots and cognitive biases can lead to intelligence failures in any field, including law firm intelligence work.
Today’s New York Times offers a panel of six Sunday morning intelligence quarterbacks who trot out some reasons why the U.S. intelligence community failed to predict the pan-Arab democratic movement and its recent tipping point. Their reasons for this failure and their other comments about intelligence blind spots include some I find useful to ponder about my own work in law firm CI and a few I find merely comical:
1. The intelligence community has failed to appreciate the power of social networking.
2. The intelligence community roots out analysts with good instincts.
3. The intelligence community punishes and silences those who say the unpopular.
4. Specialists find it difficult to see broader trends.
5. Immediate challenges crowd out long-range thinking.
6. Intelligence based on inputs from those in the seat of power will fail to appreciate the power of those forces that oppose seated power.
7. Some changes, no matter how large, do not require a new or immediate response.
8. It is unwise to focus only on events in those spaces where we have invested the most; events in other spaces may affect us as much or more so.
9. A single, dramatic event can quickly convert widespread, dormant awareness into widespread, sympathetic action.
10. Foreseeing events is much easier than predicting when those events will happen.
11. Intelligence never has and cannot forecast revolutions.
12. The President did not tell the intelligence community to focus on the possibility of a pan-Arab rebellion.
Yes, intelligence work is difficult. But the New York Times panelists do little more than describe some of the many blind spots that all high-end intelligence units are expected to understand and navigate. In fact, blind spots are an old and dangerous enemy to intelligence workers.
Richards (Dick) Heuer, the legendary CIA analyst, described in the now out-of-print Psychology of Intelligence several dozen biases that afflict intelligence analysts. This book’s central tenet is that “people tend to see what they expect to see, and new information is typically assimilated to existing beliefs.” Ibid. p.153.
Although Heuer learned his craft within the CIA, the insights he shares in his 1999 classic are universally relevant to business intelligence workers, including those of us who work in and for law firms. We law firm intelligence workers don’t have to predict political revolutions. But we are expected to identify and forecast many forces and movements that will affect the prospects of individual clients, client industries, labor forces, technologies, and other factors that, in turn, will affect our firms’ own prospects.
Although our blinders and biases cannot excuse intelligence failures, when failures do occur we must try to appreciate how our blinders and biases kept us from doing a better job, to reduce their negative impact in future assignments.
We can also learn from others’ intelligence successes and failures. Stay tuned.
The ongoing public discussion about these events invites us to consider also how blind spots and cognitive biases can lead to intelligence failures in any field, including law firm intelligence work.
Today’s New York Times offers a panel of six Sunday morning intelligence quarterbacks who trot out some reasons why the U.S. intelligence community failed to predict the pan-Arab democratic movement and its recent tipping point. Their reasons for this failure and their other comments about intelligence blind spots include some I find useful to ponder about my own work in law firm CI and a few I find merely comical:
1. The intelligence community has failed to appreciate the power of social networking.
2. The intelligence community roots out analysts with good instincts.
3. The intelligence community punishes and silences those who say the unpopular.
4. Specialists find it difficult to see broader trends.
5. Immediate challenges crowd out long-range thinking.
6. Intelligence based on inputs from those in the seat of power will fail to appreciate the power of those forces that oppose seated power.
7. Some changes, no matter how large, do not require a new or immediate response.
8. It is unwise to focus only on events in those spaces where we have invested the most; events in other spaces may affect us as much or more so.
9. A single, dramatic event can quickly convert widespread, dormant awareness into widespread, sympathetic action.
10. Foreseeing events is much easier than predicting when those events will happen.
11. Intelligence never has and cannot forecast revolutions.
12. The President did not tell the intelligence community to focus on the possibility of a pan-Arab rebellion.
Yes, intelligence work is difficult. But the New York Times panelists do little more than describe some of the many blind spots that all high-end intelligence units are expected to understand and navigate. In fact, blind spots are an old and dangerous enemy to intelligence workers.
Richards (Dick) Heuer, the legendary CIA analyst, described in the now out-of-print Psychology of Intelligence several dozen biases that afflict intelligence analysts. This book’s central tenet is that “people tend to see what they expect to see, and new information is typically assimilated to existing beliefs.” Ibid. p.153.
Although Heuer learned his craft within the CIA, the insights he shares in his 1999 classic are universally relevant to business intelligence workers, including those of us who work in and for law firms. We law firm intelligence workers don’t have to predict political revolutions. But we are expected to identify and forecast many forces and movements that will affect the prospects of individual clients, client industries, labor forces, technologies, and other factors that, in turn, will affect our firms’ own prospects.
Although our blinders and biases cannot excuse intelligence failures, when failures do occur we must try to appreciate how our blinders and biases kept us from doing a better job, to reduce their negative impact in future assignments.
We can also learn from others’ intelligence successes and failures. Stay tuned.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
This is not what I meant by law firm competitive intelligence
Prologue
I have long considered, lectured and written about law firm competitive intelligence from the perspective of CI prepared and used in service to the firm’s goals as a business entity. However, CI can also be conducted by law firms and its vendors in service to its clients’ goals. Today’s post addresses that use of CI by law firms.
This post also addresses the counterintelligence challenges of a post-Wikileaks world, where law firms and their vendors can be targeted by disgruntled employees, hackers and social engineers. Today’s professional culture encourages us to communicate via email, texting and social media, which are so familiar we forget they are susceptible to revelation – on purpose and through carelessness, through both legal and illegal means. Even sophisticated people ignore these dangers, as today’s post illustrates.
The events described below read like they were lifted from Stieg Larson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” novel series. However, they were all reported during the past two weeks by the Financial Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Observer, American Lawyer Media, Wired, Salon and dozens of other publications, blogs, online chat rooms and message boards.
I apologize if I have failed to insert the word “allegedly” everywhere it should appear in the following severely summarized account. Therefore, I hereby stipulate it has been alleged that …
What has been reported?
Last fall Hunton & Williams invited three data security companies (HBGary Federal, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies) to work with the firm to prepare a joint new business pitch for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a firm client. This pitch related to some of the Chamber’s political initiatives and investigations and handling of its antagonists.
H&W also invited the same three security companies to help prepare a second new business pitch for Bank of America, also a firm client. This pitch related to a BoA internal investigation into documents that Wikileaks had obtained, possibly from one or more BoA insiders, and threatened to publish on the Internet.
As these events were unfolding, HBGary Federal’s CEO, Aaron Barr, wanted to strengthen his street cred to support the H&W and other business development efforts HBGary Federal was involved in.
Barr was already hanging out online with members of Anonymous, a highly secretive, loose collective of activists and hackers. He believed he could elevate his sleuthing reputation by analyzing information on internet chat logs, Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere to identify Anonymous’s secretive leaders and key players. Barr planned to describe his unmasking methodology in a presentation at a February 2011 security conference and was able to publicize this presentation in a news story published on February 4, 2011, in the Financial Times.
For a day or so after the February 4 Financial Times story came out, Barr and Anonymous traded online insults. Anonymous then retaliated by hitting HBGary Federal’s corporate network, eventually taking down the company’s site, extracting 70,000 emails and publishing them online. To insult Barr further, Anonymous said their takedown team included a 16-year-old girl who had social engineered an HBGary Federal company IT admin into revealing another HBGary Federal admin’s logins and passwords.
Among the thousands of HBGary Federal emails that Anonymous published were those emails HBGary Federal had exchanged with H&W lawyers while the law firm and three data security companies were preparing the Chamber of Commerce and BoA pitches. Anonymous also uploaded the PowerPoint presentations the three security companies had prepared in consultation with H&W for use prior to or during H&W’s pitches.
Those PowerPoint files described the services the three companies would perform, including investigations and possible actions to be taken against lobbying groups, union employees, journalists and others whose allegiances and interests were counter to those of H&W’s clients. Those actions included developing fake personas, preparing and leaking fake information to H&W clients’ adversaries to discredit them, and discouraging commentary by journalists who are “... established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause, such is the mentality of most business professionals.”
Where do things stand now?
1. HBGary Federal’s web site is still down.
2. Palantir and Berico have apologized for their involvement in these events and severed all ties with HBGary Federal. Palantir also suspended the 26-year-old engineer who worked on the PowerPoint presentations.
3. The Chamber of Commerce denied hiring any of the three companies or H&W.
4. Bank of America said they have never seen the presentation described in the emails, have never evaluated it, and have no interest in it.
5. H&W has refused to comment.
6. Some of those named as the Chamber’s adversaries in the hacked emails and PowerPoint files have announced their intention to file ethics charges next week with the DC bar association against three of H&W’s lawyers.
Lessons learned?
Whether the activities allegedly contemplated in the HBGary Federal hacked emails and PowerPoint files were competitive intelligence or corporate espionage or worse, they violated the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals’ Code of Ethics. As I have said many times before, including here, law firm competitive intelligence workers should all read that brief code of ethics, take its seven elements to heart and agree to abide by it. I now recommend that lawyers do so, too.
These events also have sobering implications for law firms’ own network security challenges. If a data security firm can be hacked and all its emails and attachments posted online, how well would most law firm networks stand up to such an assault? And if the firm’s network were breached in this way, what would be the costs to the firm and its clients and prospects? This law firm counterintelligence challenge requires not only technological safeguards, but also full recognition that lawyers and law firm employees are just as susceptible as anyone else to social engineering.
I have no doubt that everyone associated with this dog’s breakfast wishes it had never happened. Some blame the mess on security carelessness. Others see the leaked emails and PowerPoint files as evidence of ethical lapses and possibly criminal intent.
Optimistically, I view these events as an opportunity to remind ourselves, once again, of the ethical limits of competitive intelligence activities. Above all professions and industries, lawyers and law firms cannot be ignorant of or ignore these ethical limits.
I have long considered, lectured and written about law firm competitive intelligence from the perspective of CI prepared and used in service to the firm’s goals as a business entity. However, CI can also be conducted by law firms and its vendors in service to its clients’ goals. Today’s post addresses that use of CI by law firms.
This post also addresses the counterintelligence challenges of a post-Wikileaks world, where law firms and their vendors can be targeted by disgruntled employees, hackers and social engineers. Today’s professional culture encourages us to communicate via email, texting and social media, which are so familiar we forget they are susceptible to revelation – on purpose and through carelessness, through both legal and illegal means. Even sophisticated people ignore these dangers, as today’s post illustrates.
The events described below read like they were lifted from Stieg Larson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” novel series. However, they were all reported during the past two weeks by the Financial Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Observer, American Lawyer Media, Wired, Salon and dozens of other publications, blogs, online chat rooms and message boards.
I apologize if I have failed to insert the word “allegedly” everywhere it should appear in the following severely summarized account. Therefore, I hereby stipulate it has been alleged that …
What has been reported?
Last fall Hunton & Williams invited three data security companies (HBGary Federal, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies) to work with the firm to prepare a joint new business pitch for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a firm client. This pitch related to some of the Chamber’s political initiatives and investigations and handling of its antagonists.
H&W also invited the same three security companies to help prepare a second new business pitch for Bank of America, also a firm client. This pitch related to a BoA internal investigation into documents that Wikileaks had obtained, possibly from one or more BoA insiders, and threatened to publish on the Internet.
As these events were unfolding, HBGary Federal’s CEO, Aaron Barr, wanted to strengthen his street cred to support the H&W and other business development efforts HBGary Federal was involved in.
Barr was already hanging out online with members of Anonymous, a highly secretive, loose collective of activists and hackers. He believed he could elevate his sleuthing reputation by analyzing information on internet chat logs, Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere to identify Anonymous’s secretive leaders and key players. Barr planned to describe his unmasking methodology in a presentation at a February 2011 security conference and was able to publicize this presentation in a news story published on February 4, 2011, in the Financial Times.
For a day or so after the February 4 Financial Times story came out, Barr and Anonymous traded online insults. Anonymous then retaliated by hitting HBGary Federal’s corporate network, eventually taking down the company’s site, extracting 70,000 emails and publishing them online. To insult Barr further, Anonymous said their takedown team included a 16-year-old girl who had social engineered an HBGary Federal company IT admin into revealing another HBGary Federal admin’s logins and passwords.
Among the thousands of HBGary Federal emails that Anonymous published were those emails HBGary Federal had exchanged with H&W lawyers while the law firm and three data security companies were preparing the Chamber of Commerce and BoA pitches. Anonymous also uploaded the PowerPoint presentations the three security companies had prepared in consultation with H&W for use prior to or during H&W’s pitches.
Those PowerPoint files described the services the three companies would perform, including investigations and possible actions to be taken against lobbying groups, union employees, journalists and others whose allegiances and interests were counter to those of H&W’s clients. Those actions included developing fake personas, preparing and leaking fake information to H&W clients’ adversaries to discredit them, and discouraging commentary by journalists who are “... established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause, such is the mentality of most business professionals.”
Where do things stand now?
1. HBGary Federal’s web site is still down.
2. Palantir and Berico have apologized for their involvement in these events and severed all ties with HBGary Federal. Palantir also suspended the 26-year-old engineer who worked on the PowerPoint presentations.
3. The Chamber of Commerce denied hiring any of the three companies or H&W.
4. Bank of America said they have never seen the presentation described in the emails, have never evaluated it, and have no interest in it.
5. H&W has refused to comment.
6. Some of those named as the Chamber’s adversaries in the hacked emails and PowerPoint files have announced their intention to file ethics charges next week with the DC bar association against three of H&W’s lawyers.
Lessons learned?
Whether the activities allegedly contemplated in the HBGary Federal hacked emails and PowerPoint files were competitive intelligence or corporate espionage or worse, they violated the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals’ Code of Ethics. As I have said many times before, including here, law firm competitive intelligence workers should all read that brief code of ethics, take its seven elements to heart and agree to abide by it. I now recommend that lawyers do so, too.
These events also have sobering implications for law firms’ own network security challenges. If a data security firm can be hacked and all its emails and attachments posted online, how well would most law firm networks stand up to such an assault? And if the firm’s network were breached in this way, what would be the costs to the firm and its clients and prospects? This law firm counterintelligence challenge requires not only technological safeguards, but also full recognition that lawyers and law firm employees are just as susceptible as anyone else to social engineering.
I have no doubt that everyone associated with this dog’s breakfast wishes it had never happened. Some blame the mess on security carelessness. Others see the leaked emails and PowerPoint files as evidence of ethical lapses and possibly criminal intent.
Optimistically, I view these events as an opportunity to remind ourselves, once again, of the ethical limits of competitive intelligence activities. Above all professions and industries, lawyers and law firms cannot be ignorant of or ignore these ethical limits.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Our Reluctance to Recognize Tipping Points
“The past is the best predictor of the future” is one of humankind’s most reliable decision-making aids. It’s a highly useful heuristic, except when it collides with sudden changes in the status quo – what we popularly call tipping points and which can be biological, political, cultural, technological or emotional.
Today’s New York Times offers a compelling review of the two-year pan-Arab youth movement culminating in the 18-day revolution that unseated the 30-year reign of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The revolution’s outcome was a tipping point that formal intelligence channels didn’t predict. “…[T]he American intelligence community and Israel’s intelligence services had estimated that the risk to President Mubarak was low – less than 20 percent ….” But according to the Times, President Obama interpreted the information differently and acted in accordance with his own analysis of events.
Nothing goes up forever, and nothing goes down forever. A straight, uninterrupted line in any direction will fail to predict the future. The simple fact that a condition continues and continues will eventually produce new events that lead to a new condition which produces new events that … you get it.
Which leaves intelligence workers with the usual questions: What are the cycles and patterns of change? When will the tipping points happen? How and where and when can we position ourselves to benefit most from events we can never completely control?
These are also some of the most compelling questions for decision makers.
Today’s New York Times offers a compelling review of the two-year pan-Arab youth movement culminating in the 18-day revolution that unseated the 30-year reign of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The revolution’s outcome was a tipping point that formal intelligence channels didn’t predict. “…[T]he American intelligence community and Israel’s intelligence services had estimated that the risk to President Mubarak was low – less than 20 percent ….” But according to the Times, President Obama interpreted the information differently and acted in accordance with his own analysis of events.
Nothing goes up forever, and nothing goes down forever. A straight, uninterrupted line in any direction will fail to predict the future. The simple fact that a condition continues and continues will eventually produce new events that lead to a new condition which produces new events that … you get it.
Which leaves intelligence workers with the usual questions: What are the cycles and patterns of change? When will the tipping points happen? How and where and when can we position ourselves to benefit most from events we can never completely control?
These are also some of the most compelling questions for decision makers.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The New York Times vs. Assange
The New York Times's weekend magazine article, “Dealing with Assange and the Wikileaks Secrets,” by Bill Keller, The Times’s executive editor, is a delicious, dishy apologia for the newspaper's handling of Wikileaks information released last year about the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan and US diplomatic cables.
It is also a fascinating take (from one point of view, as all takes are) on how journalism continues to be as relevant as ever – in fact, even more necessary – to interpret the huge amount of information now available via the Internet in today’s tell-all culture.
Another observation I offer about journalism relates to its threatened future funding. I was so entertained by the Keller article that I purchased for $5.99 The Times’s e-book: Open Secrets -- WikiLeaks, War and American Diplomacy: Complete and Expanded Coverage from The New York Times.
My conclusions: Content is still king. Analyzed information (intelligence) is more valuable than information. Dishing always outdraws boring facts.
It is also a fascinating take (from one point of view, as all takes are) on how journalism continues to be as relevant as ever – in fact, even more necessary – to interpret the huge amount of information now available via the Internet in today’s tell-all culture.
Another observation I offer about journalism relates to its threatened future funding. I was so entertained by the Keller article that I purchased for $5.99 The Times’s e-book: Open Secrets -- WikiLeaks, War and American Diplomacy: Complete and Expanded Coverage from The New York Times.
My conclusions: Content is still king. Analyzed information (intelligence) is more valuable than information. Dishing always outdraws boring facts.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Two confessions
First confession -- My name is Ann Lee Gibson, and I am an imperfect and intermittent blogger. Work, family, life, sleep and fun all conspire to keep me from being a daily, weekly or even monthly blogger. It ain’t ever gonna happen, and I’ve now accepted it.
Second confession -- I wanted this blog to be only about law firm competitive intelligence, hence the blog title. However, sometimes I also want to talk or vent about other law firm marketing topics that are only peripherally related to law firm CI. Therefore, I’ve decided that from now on I will unleash myself here on any law firm marketing topic I find I’m obsessing about, that has raised my blood pressure, or that tickles my funny bone.
Live with it.
And now, on to the next post.
Second confession -- I wanted this blog to be only about law firm competitive intelligence, hence the blog title. However, sometimes I also want to talk or vent about other law firm marketing topics that are only peripherally related to law firm CI. Therefore, I’ve decided that from now on I will unleash myself here on any law firm marketing topic I find I’m obsessing about, that has raised my blood pressure, or that tickles my funny bone.
Live with it.
And now, on to the next post.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Be more precise about uncertainty
Note: The following is the latest in the current blog series about analysis and CI. It is excerpted from my new book, Competitive Intelligence: Improving Law Firm Strategy and Decision Making. You can learn more about the book and purchase it here.
The CI discipline has spawned some pithy maxims, one of which says intelligence does not predict the future. Another one tells us that intelligence need not survey every tree in the competitive forest to understand how the forces within that forest may affect our ability to perform there.
Heeding the spirit of these two maxims, intelligence analysts develop high tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty. Consequently, intelligence reports tend to reflect these ambiguous environments by the inclusion of qualifier terms like certainly, almost certainly, highly likely, good chance, probable, likely, improbable, unlikely, highly unlikely, may, maybe, most, few, some, we doubt, we are confident, we believe, etc.
Although these qualifiers reflect analysts' inability to make crystal ball predictions, unnecessary confusion develops when analysts and decision makers fail to agree -- sometimes without realizing they disagree -- over the meaning of terms like "probable." One often-cited study about the interpretation of intelligence revealed that 23 decision makers interpreted the likelihood of a "probable" event's occurrence ranging from 25% to 91% (by Sherman Kent, "Words of Estimated Probability," in Donald P. Steury, ed., Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates: Collected Essays, published by the CIA, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1994).
Other common qualifiers found in intelligence reports are phrases having to do with time, e.g., soon, often, usually, seldom, infrequent, at this time. An analyst who knows what she or he means by these phrases should replace them with more specific judgments, e.g., during 2011, before the economy turns around, by 2Q 2012. More specific opinions like these improve the intelligence and its usefulness.
Analysts must offer conclusions that are as precise as but no more precise than their analyses will permit. Therefore, a good way to further reduce uncertainty is to highlight all the qualifiers in a nearly final intelligence report. Then ask your colleagues with fresh eyes (those who did not work on the report) to tell you what these terms mean to them in more specific terms. If you learn from this exercise that the intelligence they received was not the intelligence you thought you had provided, edit your report accordingly.
Another opportunity to reduce uncertainty in intelligence reports appears as you prepare your findings to decision makers. Anticipate their most likely questions, but do not wait for the questions to be asked. Include the questions and your best answers in the report itself. By such simple means, intelligence reports can become more meaningful and useful to law firm CI clients.
The CI discipline has spawned some pithy maxims, one of which says intelligence does not predict the future. Another one tells us that intelligence need not survey every tree in the competitive forest to understand how the forces within that forest may affect our ability to perform there.
Heeding the spirit of these two maxims, intelligence analysts develop high tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty. Consequently, intelligence reports tend to reflect these ambiguous environments by the inclusion of qualifier terms like certainly, almost certainly, highly likely, good chance, probable, likely, improbable, unlikely, highly unlikely, may, maybe, most, few, some, we doubt, we are confident, we believe, etc.
Although these qualifiers reflect analysts' inability to make crystal ball predictions, unnecessary confusion develops when analysts and decision makers fail to agree -- sometimes without realizing they disagree -- over the meaning of terms like "probable." One often-cited study about the interpretation of intelligence revealed that 23 decision makers interpreted the likelihood of a "probable" event's occurrence ranging from 25% to 91% (by Sherman Kent, "Words of Estimated Probability," in Donald P. Steury, ed., Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates: Collected Essays, published by the CIA, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1994).
Other common qualifiers found in intelligence reports are phrases having to do with time, e.g., soon, often, usually, seldom, infrequent, at this time. An analyst who knows what she or he means by these phrases should replace them with more specific judgments, e.g., during 2011, before the economy turns around, by 2Q 2012. More specific opinions like these improve the intelligence and its usefulness.
Analysts must offer conclusions that are as precise as but no more precise than their analyses will permit. Therefore, a good way to further reduce uncertainty is to highlight all the qualifiers in a nearly final intelligence report. Then ask your colleagues with fresh eyes (those who did not work on the report) to tell you what these terms mean to them in more specific terms. If you learn from this exercise that the intelligence they received was not the intelligence you thought you had provided, edit your report accordingly.
Another opportunity to reduce uncertainty in intelligence reports appears as you prepare your findings to decision makers. Anticipate their most likely questions, but do not wait for the questions to be asked. Include the questions and your best answers in the report itself. By such simple means, intelligence reports can become more meaningful and useful to law firm CI clients.
Friday, October 29, 2010
CI insights are actionable, relevant, external
Note: The following post is taken from my new book, Competitive Intelligence: Improving Law Firm Strategy and Decision Making. You can learn more about the book here.
If you have spent any time studying or developing CI, you will have noticed that experienced CI practitioners spend more time discussing analysis than any other component of the intelligence cycle.
While all steps of the cycle are equally important and mutually dependent, analysis turns what all firms have -- information -- into actionable insights that are uniquely relevant to your firm. If you follow all other steps in the intelligence cycle, but skip the analysis, the best your firm can hope for is to be on par with the majority of its competitors, rather than enjoying a competitive advantage.
So, what do we mean by analysis? Simply put, CI analysis is the process of drawing actionable, relevant insights from external information. All the adjectives in this definition are instructive, and you should keep them in mind as you plan and do your analysis.
Actionable - Information on its own is benign and only becomes actionable through analysis. For example, a client dossier or competitor profile that doesn't identify the opportunity for your firm to act is just static data, not intelligence. In addition, "actionable" means "forward-looking." If your firm is going to take actions in the future, your analysis has to provide insights about the future environment, e.g., new cross-selling opportunities, an emerging overseas market or the strategic direction of a potential merger partner.
It must also be said that the same information can be converted, through analysis, into different intelligence for two different firms in different circumstances that are evaluating different decision options.
Relevant - "Relevance" is closely related to "actionable" and means that as you plan and deliver your intelligence you understand the context in which the intelligence will be used, including which actions your firm can conceivably take. For instance, the identification of a potential new overseas location would be neither relevant nor actionable if your firm has just had its worst year on record, has no available funds for expansion and is losing key partners. Likewise, an analysis of new opportunities in commercial real estate work is unlikely to be either relevant to your firm's needs or actionable if the firm has just declared growth of its litigation practice to be the firm's top priority.
Obviously, the information you gather and analyze must be brightly relevant to the decisions at hand, not merely easy to obtain. Too often law firm CI practitioners rely overmuch on secondary information developed by information aggregators who sell the same information to all competitors. Too seldom, firms seek out primary sources with information your competitors do not yet have. For example, primary sources (clients, industry experts and others) can provide attitudinal opinion information (about changing needs, satisfaction, loyalty) and behavioral information (about hiring and spending behaviors, attendance, etc.). You can obtain primary information through interviews or by simply observing the marketplace.
Relevance also applies to timing the delivery of your intelligence. For example, if you were to provide one of your firm's partners with an analysis of potential cross-selling opportunities at Client X one week after that partner had pitched a different set of services to Client X, you are unlikely to get much of a response from the partner, at least not a positive one.
External - While you certainly must understand the internal dynamics of your firm to be able to provide relevant intelligence, your analysis should focus only on factors outside the firm. Law firms are notoriously introspective, so CI should be the objective voice of the external environment inside your firm. More to the point, a law firm's opportunities only take place outside the firm; inside the firm there are only costs.
If you have spent any time studying or developing CI, you will have noticed that experienced CI practitioners spend more time discussing analysis than any other component of the intelligence cycle.
While all steps of the cycle are equally important and mutually dependent, analysis turns what all firms have -- information -- into actionable insights that are uniquely relevant to your firm. If you follow all other steps in the intelligence cycle, but skip the analysis, the best your firm can hope for is to be on par with the majority of its competitors, rather than enjoying a competitive advantage.
So, what do we mean by analysis? Simply put, CI analysis is the process of drawing actionable, relevant insights from external information. All the adjectives in this definition are instructive, and you should keep them in mind as you plan and do your analysis.
Actionable - Information on its own is benign and only becomes actionable through analysis. For example, a client dossier or competitor profile that doesn't identify the opportunity for your firm to act is just static data, not intelligence. In addition, "actionable" means "forward-looking." If your firm is going to take actions in the future, your analysis has to provide insights about the future environment, e.g., new cross-selling opportunities, an emerging overseas market or the strategic direction of a potential merger partner.
It must also be said that the same information can be converted, through analysis, into different intelligence for two different firms in different circumstances that are evaluating different decision options.
Relevant - "Relevance" is closely related to "actionable" and means that as you plan and deliver your intelligence you understand the context in which the intelligence will be used, including which actions your firm can conceivably take. For instance, the identification of a potential new overseas location would be neither relevant nor actionable if your firm has just had its worst year on record, has no available funds for expansion and is losing key partners. Likewise, an analysis of new opportunities in commercial real estate work is unlikely to be either relevant to your firm's needs or actionable if the firm has just declared growth of its litigation practice to be the firm's top priority.
Obviously, the information you gather and analyze must be brightly relevant to the decisions at hand, not merely easy to obtain. Too often law firm CI practitioners rely overmuch on secondary information developed by information aggregators who sell the same information to all competitors. Too seldom, firms seek out primary sources with information your competitors do not yet have. For example, primary sources (clients, industry experts and others) can provide attitudinal opinion information (about changing needs, satisfaction, loyalty) and behavioral information (about hiring and spending behaviors, attendance, etc.). You can obtain primary information through interviews or by simply observing the marketplace.
Relevance also applies to timing the delivery of your intelligence. For example, if you were to provide one of your firm's partners with an analysis of potential cross-selling opportunities at Client X one week after that partner had pitched a different set of services to Client X, you are unlikely to get much of a response from the partner, at least not a positive one.
External - While you certainly must understand the internal dynamics of your firm to be able to provide relevant intelligence, your analysis should focus only on factors outside the firm. Law firms are notoriously introspective, so CI should be the objective voice of the external environment inside your firm. More to the point, a law firm's opportunities only take place outside the firm; inside the firm there are only costs.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
New law firm CI book published
As many of you know, I've recently written a book about law firm CI. It has now been published in the UK by the Ark Group / Managing Partner magazine.
My book is titled Competitive Intelligence: Improving Law Firm Strategy and Decision Making. You can learn more about the book and download sample sections here. You can also purchase it here.
This book is aimed at a broad audience -- partners and senior managers of law firms, CI practitioners and othes inside or outside law firms who want to understand how to apply CI in a law firm setting.
It takes a highly practical look at how CI is applied in firms. It also addresses how CI in the legal industry is similar to and distinct from CI in other industries, the challenges peculiar to law firms, typical law firm key intelligence topics and assignments, and more.
This report will surprise some readers when it describes how some firms are already executing the full range of CI activities as that discipline is practiced in the corporate world. As with other business disciplines once considered "not for law firms," the full spectrum of CI activities, legally and ethically executed, is rapidly being accepted by more law firm leaders.
The greatest demand in law firm CI these days is for sophisticated analysts with strong legal industry knowledge, business savvy and broad analytical skills. Without their eventual contributions, CI in law firms will not advance beyond information gathering, which, although useful, cannot offer decision makers the fuller benefits of actionable intelligence.
Whether your firm already has informal CI in-house capabilities and wants to upgrade them, wishes to engage the services of external CI consultants or hopes to learn how to utilize its existing CI resources to become more competitive, this book will help you decide where you should start.
Please check it out.
My book is titled Competitive Intelligence: Improving Law Firm Strategy and Decision Making. You can learn more about the book and download sample sections here. You can also purchase it here.
This book is aimed at a broad audience -- partners and senior managers of law firms, CI practitioners and othes inside or outside law firms who want to understand how to apply CI in a law firm setting.
It takes a highly practical look at how CI is applied in firms. It also addresses how CI in the legal industry is similar to and distinct from CI in other industries, the challenges peculiar to law firms, typical law firm key intelligence topics and assignments, and more.
This report will surprise some readers when it describes how some firms are already executing the full range of CI activities as that discipline is practiced in the corporate world. As with other business disciplines once considered "not for law firms," the full spectrum of CI activities, legally and ethically executed, is rapidly being accepted by more law firm leaders.
The greatest demand in law firm CI these days is for sophisticated analysts with strong legal industry knowledge, business savvy and broad analytical skills. Without their eventual contributions, CI in law firms will not advance beyond information gathering, which, although useful, cannot offer decision makers the fuller benefits of actionable intelligence.
Whether your firm already has informal CI in-house capabilities and wants to upgrade them, wishes to engage the services of external CI consultants or hopes to learn how to utilize its existing CI resources to become more competitive, this book will help you decide where you should start.
Please check it out.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Social psychology and alpha lawyers
The ABA Journal today blogged about a recently published social psychology experiment that found the apparent dominance / maturity of law firms' managing partners' faces (as rated by college students, the usual social science lab rats) correlated slightly (14%) with the managing partners' respective firms' profitability levels.
For a limited time you can download the study report here.
Even though I am a social scientist myself, I have a hard time interpreting this not-yet-replicated study as anything other than entertaining silliness. However, given that neither lawyers nor marketers are renowned for their statistical savvy (otherwise, they'd have become accountants and physicists), I'm a little worried about what some might do with this new-found information.
Below is an animated movie (created with my new favorite online toy, xtranormal) to illustrate the dangers of leaping into action after reading a headline that says, "Recent research finds that ...."
For a limited time you can download the study report here.
Even though I am a social scientist myself, I have a hard time interpreting this not-yet-replicated study as anything other than entertaining silliness. However, given that neither lawyers nor marketers are renowned for their statistical savvy (otherwise, they'd have become accountants and physicists), I'm a little worried about what some might do with this new-found information.
Below is an animated movie (created with my new favorite online toy, xtranormal) to illustrate the dangers of leaping into action after reading a headline that says, "Recent research finds that ...."
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