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.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
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 ...."
Say what?
I'm blogging again, thanks to Russell Lawson who emailed me and said, "Just do it." The following is the first in a series of posts on the topic of analysis -- that much too mysterious process that converts information into intelligence.
Last week, as often happens, I was on an airplane. I was seated next to a nice man, an intelligent man.
Early in the flight during light conversation, he proffered the news that young people are spending too much time looking at computer screens instead of books and that their brains are being rewired in new ways. Studies were proving this to be true, he said.
"Oh," I said, "What do the studies say is happening to their brains?"
"I don't know," he responded, "but it can't be good."
Several hours later, he offered me more information. "I read an article recently that said 80% of Americans did not read a single book last year."
"Wow," I said. "How many Americans used to read one or more books a year?"
He frowned and said, "I don't know."
The above anecdote suggests an autumn meditation for law firm CI practitioners and their clients: What would improve your own firm's decision making -- more information or more analysis?
Last week, as often happens, I was on an airplane. I was seated next to a nice man, an intelligent man.
Early in the flight during light conversation, he proffered the news that young people are spending too much time looking at computer screens instead of books and that their brains are being rewired in new ways. Studies were proving this to be true, he said.
"Oh," I said, "What do the studies say is happening to their brains?"
"I don't know," he responded, "but it can't be good."
Several hours later, he offered me more information. "I read an article recently that said 80% of Americans did not read a single book last year."
"Wow," I said. "How many Americans used to read one or more books a year?"
He frowned and said, "I don't know."
The above anecdote suggests an autumn meditation for law firm CI practitioners and their clients: What would improve your own firm's decision making -- more information or more analysis?
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
CI Pro Interview with Emily C. Rushing
Name: Emily C. Rushing
Title: Competitive Intelligence Specialist
Firm: Haynes and Boone, LLP
Since: September 2008
Profiles: You can find Emily at LinkedIn and Twitter.
Q: What is your job description at Haynes and Boone?
A: My role is primarily focused on developing and reporting strategic business and competitive intelligence. I support the Business Development and Marketing Departments, the CMO, the firm’s attorneys, and, most importantly, firm management.
Q: Who are your typical CI clients at Haynes and Boone?
A: My clients range from associates to the Managing Partner to marketing staff. My primary clients are the Business Development Managers who coordinate with me on behalf of their respective practice groups.
Q: What are three common KITs you’re often asked to address?
A: Topics for our intelligence frequently include: 1) profiling competitors’ practice areas and clients, 2) identifying business development opportunities for the firm among existing clients and developing strategic targeting programs, and 3) developing intelligence in preparation for business development meetings with existing or potential clients.
Q: How is the intelligence function organized at your firm? To whom do you report?
A: I am the firm’s only CI professional. I am directly supervised by the Director of Business Development, indirectly supervised by the CMO, and my role is situated within the Marketing department.
Q: What experience or training prepared you most for the CI work you do now at Haynes and Boone?
A: My years as a research specialist with King & Spalding were good training for the CI work I do for my current firm. I also developed technical skills with various softwares during my time working as a consultant and freelance technical librarian.
Q: What formal CI training have you had?
A: Very little CI-specific training. I studied social sciences and statistics in college and went on to achieve a Juris Doctorate and Master’s of Library and Information Sciences. These are highly analytical areas of study, and I feel that the training I received in those programs were wonderful preparation for my career in CI.
Q: Where do you go for ongoing CI training and mentoring?
A: Since accepting this position, I have attended webinars and tried to expose myself to the basic literature. I also have been mentored by colleagues via professional organizations like SCIP and SLA’s CI division, for which I am very grateful. From librarian to CI professional isn’t as jarring a transition as lawyer to librarian, but has required some adaptation.
Q: What specific adaptations have you found necessary in your transition from librarian to CI professional?
A: The most helpful adaptation I have made has been to change my patron/client focus from transaction-oriented (retrieve article, locate book on shelf, instruct on research techniques, build bibliography, perform catalog search) to results-oriented (find and understand the client, prepare for the meeting, get the business, maximize the relationship). My new, CI perspective looks less at the question "What is the patron asking me to give them?" or even "What do we need to know?" than it looks to the question "What should we do and how can intelligence help us make a better decision?" Once I really understood my present role in terms of the latter phrase, rather than either of the first two phrases, CI made sense to me and I was able to more smoothly transition from a research practice to an intelligence practice.
Q: What do law firms most often misunderstand about CI? What should they know about CI that you’re afraid is often misunderstood?
A: There is some misunderstanding about the process of developing KITs and CI. It is a two-way street, and a successful CI program requires that management and decision-makers share information with the CI professional. For CI to simply generate a report on a set of data or research into a particular topic is not a successful use of CI. CI must be actionable and must help inform management’s decisions, but that requires that management perceive CI as an integral part of the decision-making process.
Title: Competitive Intelligence Specialist
Firm: Haynes and Boone, LLP
Since: September 2008
Profiles: You can find Emily at LinkedIn and Twitter.
Q: What is your job description at Haynes and Boone?
A: My role is primarily focused on developing and reporting strategic business and competitive intelligence. I support the Business Development and Marketing Departments, the CMO, the firm’s attorneys, and, most importantly, firm management.
Q: Who are your typical CI clients at Haynes and Boone?
A: My clients range from associates to the Managing Partner to marketing staff. My primary clients are the Business Development Managers who coordinate with me on behalf of their respective practice groups.
Q: What are three common KITs you’re often asked to address?
A: Topics for our intelligence frequently include: 1) profiling competitors’ practice areas and clients, 2) identifying business development opportunities for the firm among existing clients and developing strategic targeting programs, and 3) developing intelligence in preparation for business development meetings with existing or potential clients.
Q: How is the intelligence function organized at your firm? To whom do you report?
A: I am the firm’s only CI professional. I am directly supervised by the Director of Business Development, indirectly supervised by the CMO, and my role is situated within the Marketing department.
Q: What experience or training prepared you most for the CI work you do now at Haynes and Boone?
A: My years as a research specialist with King & Spalding were good training for the CI work I do for my current firm. I also developed technical skills with various softwares during my time working as a consultant and freelance technical librarian.
Q: What formal CI training have you had?
A: Very little CI-specific training. I studied social sciences and statistics in college and went on to achieve a Juris Doctorate and Master’s of Library and Information Sciences. These are highly analytical areas of study, and I feel that the training I received in those programs were wonderful preparation for my career in CI.
Q: Where do you go for ongoing CI training and mentoring?
A: Since accepting this position, I have attended webinars and tried to expose myself to the basic literature. I also have been mentored by colleagues via professional organizations like SCIP and SLA’s CI division, for which I am very grateful. From librarian to CI professional isn’t as jarring a transition as lawyer to librarian, but has required some adaptation.
Q: What specific adaptations have you found necessary in your transition from librarian to CI professional?
A: The most helpful adaptation I have made has been to change my patron/client focus from transaction-oriented (retrieve article, locate book on shelf, instruct on research techniques, build bibliography, perform catalog search) to results-oriented (find and understand the client, prepare for the meeting, get the business, maximize the relationship). My new, CI perspective looks less at the question "What is the patron asking me to give them?" or even "What do we need to know?" than it looks to the question "What should we do and how can intelligence help us make a better decision?" Once I really understood my present role in terms of the latter phrase, rather than either of the first two phrases, CI made sense to me and I was able to more smoothly transition from a research practice to an intelligence practice.
Q: What do law firms most often misunderstand about CI? What should they know about CI that you’re afraid is often misunderstood?
A: There is some misunderstanding about the process of developing KITs and CI. It is a two-way street, and a successful CI program requires that management and decision-makers share information with the CI professional. For CI to simply generate a report on a set of data or research into a particular topic is not a successful use of CI. CI must be actionable and must help inform management’s decisions, but that requires that management perceive CI as an integral part of the decision-making process.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Law Firm Economic Cycles Part IV
Here’s my fourth and final post in a series offering findings from analyses I performed last fall as my law firm clients were considering how best to respond to the economic downturn. Seven months later, some of my findings from last fall look like a big duh, although others still offer useful insights. (For more details and caveats about this series, read the past three posts at this blog.)
1. Many firms will return to a single equity partnership tier.
In the nineties, law firms created non-equity partnership tiers as a tactic to elevate their profits-per-partner performances. The number of non-equity partners in law firms grew in the 2000s, those ranks filled by reliable technicians who did good work and supplemented labor gaps unmet by the associate talent wars.
As a result, many firms now have expensive, middle-aged legal work forces with reduced appetite and aptitude to become equity partners. These non-equity partners supervise associates, a useful function, but one that has an unintended consequence of blocking mentoring of associates by partners who are business owners, a distinction I think is important. It’s interesting that law firm associates’ widespread and vocal dissatisfaction with their professional lot coincides with their greater insulation from equity partner mentoring.
Although few firms have yet announced taken they will action to eliminate completely their multiple partnership tiers, I have long heard firm leaders talk about their desires to return to a smaller, single equity partnership structure for a variety of reasons. Therefore, I view some of the late 2008 and early 2009 partner downsizings as not only housecleaning and paring of practices, by efforts to reduce these non-equity partnership tiers.
2. Legal marketing and business development functions will continue to evolve.
During the recession of 1990-91 and through the nineties, law firms began to engage marketers and marketing methods from other industries. This first wave of professional legal marketers focused on basic marketing services—promotional events, marketing communications, public relations, and branding. Marketing services have expanded over the years to include sales and sales support, decentralized marketing support for practice and industry groups, market research, in-house client feedback programs, and key client programs.
I predict that in the current downturn law firm marketing will undergo a second renaissance. Marketing contributions that were valued 15-20 years ago probably will not make a big difference this time around.
Going forward, competitive firms will double down with even more professional sales support and coaching, key account management, and much more sophisticated competitive intelligence functions. These skill sets will help firms to acquire, expand, and defend their best client relationships. These functions will also help firms add badly needed rigor to their business planning function. Strategy, long pooh-poohed by most firm leaders, is finally seen to be important at both practice group and firm-wide levels. During this global recession and the new-world recovery to follow, law firms now need the early-mover and better execution advantages these functions offer.
And with print journalism on its last legs, law firms’ traditional PR programs will have no choice but to embrace Web 2.0 tools and activities to support the firm’s and individual lawyers’ institutional and personal brands through digital promotion and virtual word of mouth.
Conclusion: Recessions Offer a Chance to Step Forward
Recessions offer opportunities for a law firm to emerge stronger than its competitors. Certainly, a law firm is obliged to do whatever it must to survive in the short term. But the greater challenge for law firm leaders and their advisors is to find and take those positions (invest in resources) that will take advantage of changes wrought by the recession and the eventual recovery. Firms that will be stronger after this recession are those that find and tap new opportunities at the intersection of otherwise disconnected areas of expertise, where change is happening that they can exploit. (USC business school professor Dick Rumelt describes this approach to successful strategy in an excellent McKinsey Quarterly interview.)
The changes this recession introduces to law firms are nearly limitless—energy and environmental changes, client industry changes, political changes, legislative and regulatory changes, dramatic changes in communications and news channels, as well as changes in the legal talent pool, law firm structures, fee arrangements, business processes, and legal technology.
Lessons from the 1990-91 recession tell us that fifteen to twenty years from now, at least a fifth of today’s “leading law firms” will no longer be around, having dissolved or been acquired by stronger firms. Many others will have fallen one or more quartiles in the rankings that matter most—firm revenue, revenue per lawyer, and profits per equity partner. But still others will have ascended dramatically, having done what firms like Latham, Orrick, Dechert, Goodwin Procter, and Quinn Emanuel did in the last fifteen years—finding and tapping new opportunities at the intersection of otherwise disconnected areas of expertise, where change is happening that they can exploit.
1. Many firms will return to a single equity partnership tier.
In the nineties, law firms created non-equity partnership tiers as a tactic to elevate their profits-per-partner performances. The number of non-equity partners in law firms grew in the 2000s, those ranks filled by reliable technicians who did good work and supplemented labor gaps unmet by the associate talent wars.
As a result, many firms now have expensive, middle-aged legal work forces with reduced appetite and aptitude to become equity partners. These non-equity partners supervise associates, a useful function, but one that has an unintended consequence of blocking mentoring of associates by partners who are business owners, a distinction I think is important. It’s interesting that law firm associates’ widespread and vocal dissatisfaction with their professional lot coincides with their greater insulation from equity partner mentoring.
Although few firms have yet announced taken they will action to eliminate completely their multiple partnership tiers, I have long heard firm leaders talk about their desires to return to a smaller, single equity partnership structure for a variety of reasons. Therefore, I view some of the late 2008 and early 2009 partner downsizings as not only housecleaning and paring of practices, by efforts to reduce these non-equity partnership tiers.
2. Legal marketing and business development functions will continue to evolve.
During the recession of 1990-91 and through the nineties, law firms began to engage marketers and marketing methods from other industries. This first wave of professional legal marketers focused on basic marketing services—promotional events, marketing communications, public relations, and branding. Marketing services have expanded over the years to include sales and sales support, decentralized marketing support for practice and industry groups, market research, in-house client feedback programs, and key client programs.
I predict that in the current downturn law firm marketing will undergo a second renaissance. Marketing contributions that were valued 15-20 years ago probably will not make a big difference this time around.
Going forward, competitive firms will double down with even more professional sales support and coaching, key account management, and much more sophisticated competitive intelligence functions. These skill sets will help firms to acquire, expand, and defend their best client relationships. These functions will also help firms add badly needed rigor to their business planning function. Strategy, long pooh-poohed by most firm leaders, is finally seen to be important at both practice group and firm-wide levels. During this global recession and the new-world recovery to follow, law firms now need the early-mover and better execution advantages these functions offer.
And with print journalism on its last legs, law firms’ traditional PR programs will have no choice but to embrace Web 2.0 tools and activities to support the firm’s and individual lawyers’ institutional and personal brands through digital promotion and virtual word of mouth.
Conclusion: Recessions Offer a Chance to Step Forward
Recessions offer opportunities for a law firm to emerge stronger than its competitors. Certainly, a law firm is obliged to do whatever it must to survive in the short term. But the greater challenge for law firm leaders and their advisors is to find and take those positions (invest in resources) that will take advantage of changes wrought by the recession and the eventual recovery. Firms that will be stronger after this recession are those that find and tap new opportunities at the intersection of otherwise disconnected areas of expertise, where change is happening that they can exploit. (USC business school professor Dick Rumelt describes this approach to successful strategy in an excellent McKinsey Quarterly interview.)
The changes this recession introduces to law firms are nearly limitless—energy and environmental changes, client industry changes, political changes, legislative and regulatory changes, dramatic changes in communications and news channels, as well as changes in the legal talent pool, law firm structures, fee arrangements, business processes, and legal technology.
Lessons from the 1990-91 recession tell us that fifteen to twenty years from now, at least a fifth of today’s “leading law firms” will no longer be around, having dissolved or been acquired by stronger firms. Many others will have fallen one or more quartiles in the rankings that matter most—firm revenue, revenue per lawyer, and profits per equity partner. But still others will have ascended dramatically, having done what firms like Latham, Orrick, Dechert, Goodwin Procter, and Quinn Emanuel did in the last fifteen years—finding and tapping new opportunities at the intersection of otherwise disconnected areas of expertise, where change is happening that they can exploit.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Law Firm Economic Cycles -- Part III
This is my third post in a four-part series that offers findings from analyses I performed last fall as my law firm clients were considering how best to respond to the economic downturn. Seven months later, some of my findings from last fall look like a big duh, although others still offer useful insights. (For more details and caveats about this series, read the past two days’ posts.)
5. In this recession, many law firms will be dissolved or acquired by stronger firms.
I maintain a list of “weakest link” law firms—those that are nearing or have passed a tipping point in terms of falling lawyer headcount and net operating income (these two metrics seem to be as good or better indicators of potential law firm dissolution or fire-sale acquisition compared to more arcane metrics). Right now, my weakest links list contains the names of nearly a dozen US law firms among the Am Law 200, the dissolution or acquisition of which would improve the health of competing firms, in some cases dramatically.
As with earlier recessions, this one will drive some law firms to failure and weaken other firms that will fail after the recession ends. US regional markets that are particularly stressed include Atlanta, Boston, Ohio, and the San Francisco Bay Area. During and following this recession, we can also expect to see failures or acquisitions of three or four New York Am Law 100 and 200 firms.
Firms that grew rapidly in recent years, spending or borrowing heavily to fund their growth, will suffer extra pressures during this recession. Those pressures will be hardest to withstand at firms where large blocs of partners have been together only a short while.
These forecasts should not shock anyone. Of the Am Law 100 firms listed in reports describing 1989’s financial performances, twenty no longer exist. Eight were acquired, and twelve have dissolved (see Table 2 below).
Twenty 1989 Am Law 100 Firms That No Longer Exist
A. Eight Firms Were Acquired
1. Brown & Wood
2. Hale and Dorr
3. Hopkins & Sutter
4. McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen
5. Rogers & Wells
6. Rosenman & Colin
7. Shaw Pittman
8. Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts
B. Twelve Firms Have Dissolved
9. Arter & Hadden
10. Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison
11. Coudert Brothers
12. Gaston & Snow
13. Graham & James
14. Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe
15. Johnson & Swanson
16. Keck, Mahin & Cate
17. Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon
18. Pettit & Martin
19. Shea & Gould
20. Thelen, Marrin, Johnson & Bridges
6. Stronger firms absorb failing firms’ best assets, producing even stronger firms.
As in the past, many lawyers in firms that will fail or falter in the next few years will remain in private practice. An acquired firm’s strongest assets (lawyers) with the best strategic fit will be retained and assimilated, or they will find even stronger new homes.
Newly acquired and unhappy groups and practices at unsteady firms will be fair game for poaching firms with the resources to invest in new talent.
Odds are also strong that a Magic Circle firm and a top-tier New York City firm will soon find more reasons to merge than to stay single. If I had more courage, I would name here those two firms I fantasize will tie the knot.
Coming soon:
Tomorrow’s post concludes this series and addresses coming changes in:
7. Law firm partnership tiers
8. Marketing and business development functions
5. In this recession, many law firms will be dissolved or acquired by stronger firms.
I maintain a list of “weakest link” law firms—those that are nearing or have passed a tipping point in terms of falling lawyer headcount and net operating income (these two metrics seem to be as good or better indicators of potential law firm dissolution or fire-sale acquisition compared to more arcane metrics). Right now, my weakest links list contains the names of nearly a dozen US law firms among the Am Law 200, the dissolution or acquisition of which would improve the health of competing firms, in some cases dramatically.
As with earlier recessions, this one will drive some law firms to failure and weaken other firms that will fail after the recession ends. US regional markets that are particularly stressed include Atlanta, Boston, Ohio, and the San Francisco Bay Area. During and following this recession, we can also expect to see failures or acquisitions of three or four New York Am Law 100 and 200 firms.
Firms that grew rapidly in recent years, spending or borrowing heavily to fund their growth, will suffer extra pressures during this recession. Those pressures will be hardest to withstand at firms where large blocs of partners have been together only a short while.
These forecasts should not shock anyone. Of the Am Law 100 firms listed in reports describing 1989’s financial performances, twenty no longer exist. Eight were acquired, and twelve have dissolved (see Table 2 below).
Twenty 1989 Am Law 100 Firms That No Longer Exist
A. Eight Firms Were Acquired
1. Brown & Wood
2. Hale and Dorr
3. Hopkins & Sutter
4. McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen
5. Rogers & Wells
6. Rosenman & Colin
7. Shaw Pittman
8. Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts
B. Twelve Firms Have Dissolved
9. Arter & Hadden
10. Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison
11. Coudert Brothers
12. Gaston & Snow
13. Graham & James
14. Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe
15. Johnson & Swanson
16. Keck, Mahin & Cate
17. Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon
18. Pettit & Martin
19. Shea & Gould
20. Thelen, Marrin, Johnson & Bridges
6. Stronger firms absorb failing firms’ best assets, producing even stronger firms.
As in the past, many lawyers in firms that will fail or falter in the next few years will remain in private practice. An acquired firm’s strongest assets (lawyers) with the best strategic fit will be retained and assimilated, or they will find even stronger new homes.
Newly acquired and unhappy groups and practices at unsteady firms will be fair game for poaching firms with the resources to invest in new talent.
Odds are also strong that a Magic Circle firm and a top-tier New York City firm will soon find more reasons to merge than to stay single. If I had more courage, I would name here those two firms I fantasize will tie the knot.
Coming soon:
Tomorrow’s post concludes this series and addresses coming changes in:
7. Law firm partnership tiers
8. Marketing and business development functions
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