Special Little Snowflakes

As the new year dawns, so do lots of resolutions about moving on to the next step professionally. I'm not sure whether this phenomenon is brought on by reflection on one's life so far or the thought of impending merit reviews - probably both. A lot of in house lawyers start evaluating their worth to the company, their skill set and their marketability elsewhere.  It's a time of year where everyone starts to see themselves as special little snowflakes.  But here's the thing, we're not.  With a few exceptions, there are quite a few people waiting in the wings do do what we do.  It's just a pain in the ass to find, hire, and train them.  So as managers we do what we can to keep them engaged and productive.  As employees, we need to understand the effort to keep us engaged and satisfied will cease the minute that effort exceeds the productivity lost to find, hire and train a replacement.

We may not all be "can't live without" employees, but we do generally fit into one or more categories.  Categories, that if department managers would pay attention to, make this time of year and the influx of the special snowflake syndrome a lot easier to deal with.

1.  The Gunner.  This attorney wants to make partner, be the GC, be a leader.  She spends all of her waking hours eating, breathing and being work.  She'll go out of her way to socialize with those in the management wrung at the office, often with the not too hidden intent of schmoozing her way into a promotion.  This person can generally be counted on getting a lot of work done, fairly well, but will also require a lot of recognition in return.  Titles mean a lot to her.  Making sure she knows that you see the effort she's putting in and talking her up to business people when appropriate will go a long way in keeping her satisfied.   If you can, give her a title promotion periodically.  Works best when accompanied by a raise, but an increase is not always required.

2.  The Ambitious.  Unlike the Gunner, this attorney isn't focused on power he just wants to be better.  Better than last year, better than his peers, just plain better.  He takes the opportunity to learn more, often taking on projects and more work that he really should.  He does it to better himself as an attorney, but also to better his marketability and ultimately his paycheck.  Titles are nice, but not all important.  Opportunity is the currency for the Ambitious (and a raise to go along with a stellar review).  Give this guy the opportunity to sit in on management meetings he normally wouldn't be involved in; put him on projects with business people/units that aren't in his normal rotation.  Being challenged, within his potential, will keep him engaged.  Making sure his pay check is better than last year, even if only by a cost of living increase will keep him satisfied and not looking elsewhere.  Give him a 1% raise telling him he's doing a good job but there's no need for him to go out of his zone of expertise and expect his resignation as soon as he finds the next thing.

3.  The Workhorse.  This is your go to gal.  She drinks the company kool aid and will do anything asked of her without complaint.  She's not overly ambitious and doesn't really care about being challenged.  She comes to work, puts in her hours with full concentration and then goes home and doesn't think about work again until the next morning unless there's something big going on.  Large law departments across the world are filled with Workhorses.   And that's a good thing.  We can't all be leaders, and it's good that not everyone wants to be.  Keeping the Workhorse engaged and satisfied isn't hard.  Job security is priority one.  Occasionally tell her she's doing a good job, give an occasional raise to keep pace with inflation and your golden.  You do have to watch productivity levels during business changes.  She won't tell you when her work is drying up for fear of having to find a new job.

4.  The Slacker.  We all met this guy in law school.  Naturally gifted enough to just "get" it, but to lazy to doing anything with it.  He'll slide by with just enough productivity to keep him employed and will occasionally show brilliance at just the right moment.  Otherwise, he'll find every excuse he can to do anything but work.  This is the guy that if it weren't such a pain in the ass to find a replacement - or if you could be guaranteed the budget for the back-fill would be approved, you'd get rid of quickly.  Unfortunately, you and he both know that a body doing something is better than an empty chair so he's safe - for now.  Rather than focusing on keeping him engaged, you need to keep him productive.  Weekly (or daily) check-ins and a bit of micromanaging will keep him on track.

5.  The Bad Apple.  Every once in awhile we come across a bad apple.  Her work product may be great, her productivity high, her ambitions just right and overall an easy employee to manage.  But, she's never happy.  And she complains - a lot.  To anyone who will listen.  She complains about legitimate things like work conditions, and stupid things like the decor in the bathroom.  She takes personal offense at every business decision made whether it impacts her or not.  She gossips about other people's paychecks, job performance and relationships with management.  The worst part of it all, it's contagious.  Her co-workers will find themselves drawn into her negativity without even realizing what's happening and before you know it you have a department that used to be well functioning, but is now one nightmare after another.  If you don't want to spend the next year playing kindergarten teacher with your employees, find a replacement for her now!  This is one time where even if you can't get a new req approved it's worth it to be without the body.

There you have, the major categories of in house lawyers that I've had the pleasure of meeting.  I know that I have definitely fit into more than one of these categories at one time or another - maybe even all.  Recognize any in yourself?  Or your team? 

Forget Resolutions, I have Goals for the New Year

It's a new year and after a much needed vacation, I'm back on the blogging wagon.  I promise to answer all the emails that came in as soon as I get unburied.  In the mean time, a post just in time for New Year's. 

This time of year the question I hear most often is what are your resolutions?  Why must we make resolutions every new year only to break them within the first month?  Most resolutions are boring, restrictive and completely contrary to our personalities.  Just the word "resolution" conjures up images of failed weight loss attempts, missed opportunities and failure.  My resolution this year - no resolutions!   I do, however, have a few professional and personal goals I'd like to meet in 2013.  When I meet them, I will celebrate - most likely by doing a little happy dance somewhere that embarrasses my kids.  If I don't meet them, I will evaluate what didn't work and move on.  No guilt over not having lost that last 10 lbs for me!

So to help me be accountable for my goals, I am sharing them with the world - or at least the dozen or so people who will read this entry.  Feel free to use the comments section to share your own goals with the world.  We promise not to judge you (too) harshly.

On the professional front I have two goals for this year.  The first is to strengthen my network.  I spend a lot of time building my network and it has been invaluable to me at critical moments.  This year I'd like to focus more on strengthening the relationships I already have and focus a bit less on building new ones.  With that goal in mind, I will endeavor to meet with at least one person from my existing network once each week.  I will also be more active in connecting good people to other good people.  What good is a strong network if you can't use it to help out your friends?

My second professional goal is to expand my skill set.  I feel pretty confident in my everyday areas I practice.  And while I need to stay current in those areas, I'm not adding much value to myself or my employer by being complacent in gaining new skill sets.  So by the end of 2013 I would like to add at least an elementary understanding of a new area of law - preferably something relevant to my in house practice.  I haven't decided what that will be yet, so any suggestions are welcomed.

On the personal front I also have two goals for this year - improve the quality of the time I spend with my family.  I've given up on the idea that I can increase the time spent with them.  Until I win the lottery, I have to earn a paycheck and that means being away from my family for long hours during the week.  And since no matter how often I play I can't make those little balls come up with my numbers, I'm going to focus on what I can control this year.  And that is simply the quality of the time I spend with them.  So instead of rushing home to do dinner, homework, bath time - I'm going to squeeze in a little play time.  And instead of spending the weekend doing laundry, grocery shopping, and other distractions while in the same room as my kids, I'm going to focus on them exclusively - at least until they tell me to leave them alone.  Recent events have made me keenly aware that when I drop them off at school on Monday I may not see them again.  So I will hug them a little tighter, play with them a little longer and cherish them for as long as they let me.  And after they've gone to bed, I will focus on my husband.  I will listen to him go on about his latest game or the newest discovery in the news that has him excited.  I will learn more about his interests so I can have a more engaging conversation with him.  And, much to his relief, I will try really hard not to turn every minute of his down time into a "honey do" project.  Although the shed looks great honey!

My last goal is the one I neglect every year.  This year I would like to spend a little "me" time.  As a working parent it's easy to get caught up in the guilt trip that every waking minute should be devoted to your job or your family.  And any minute not so devoted is a minute wasted in selfishness.  Logically we all know the fallacy behind that sentiment, but we nonetheless fall victim to it time and time again.  A few weeks ago a group of in house mom's lamented over the fact that no one had time to get a hair cut because it meant taking time off work or skipping out on mommy duties.  A hair cut!  It shouldn't be so hard to maintain basic grooming.  So this year I will take at least one hour each week to do nothing but focus on me.  Get a hair cut or a mani/pedi, read a book, watch a mindless tv show that no one likes but me, or even take a nap.  One hour where I will feel no guilt for not being devoted to anyone else for just a moment.  Sounds heavenly, doesn't it?

I give myself a 80% chance of actually reaching my goals.  Will let you know in January 2014 how I did.  

A Few of My Favorite Things

As you know, I love the holidays.  One of my favorite aspects is the sharing of things that are important to us.  On a personal level, there is nothing that brings people closer than sharing their traditions and their hopes for the new year with one another.   On a professional level, this is a great time of year to pick up tips and tricks from colleagues who may be more willing to share now than when they're buried with work in the Spring.  So, while I'm not going to turn this blog into a sappy 'after school special', I do want to share a few of my favorite things with my fellow in house brethren.   

One of the things about being in house is the lack of resources.  You're already costing the company, so getting tools to be more efficient at your job may be a luxury if the price tag is too high.  This is true regardless of whether you're in a small department or a large one, although the cost benefit analysis will be slightly different when deciding which tools to get.  So for the value you get for the money spent here are a few of my favorite resources:

1.  Association of Corporate Counsel.  I can not stress enough how many great resources you get just by joining.  At a cost of a couple hundred dollars a year per attorney, you get access to form documents, policy papers, research, CLE's and a network of a 30,000 other in house attorneys who are generally willing to share what's worked for them.  If you get only one resource in the new year, this is the one to get!

2.  Cobblestone System's Contract Insight.  As a document management tool, this has a ton of features that makes managing work flow and central repository of documents manageable for a small team.  Warning, it's not pretty at all and there are features that would make my life even easier.   But, for the low cost you can't beat the functionality.  You can track start and end dates, assign approvals and other tasks, track versions, and control access on a personal/department/function level.

3.  Google.  Let's face it, almost everything you need to know you can find with a carefully crafted Google search.  While you do have to be wary of unknown sources, you can find a lot of general answers with the search engine.  You won't be finding specific case law, and I wouldn't cite it in a pleading - but if your HR team needs a quick answer for a payroll question Google can be a huge time saver.

4.  Twitter.  I don't have the time to keep up to date with every new legal headline or the technical ones that matter to my business.  Twitter has become a great aggregator for me.  If you pick the right people to follow, your feed becomes a stream of good information, often summarized succinctly with the best articles about the topic trending highest.  You can also see good conversations about any particular issue to gauge how the matter is playing out.  A few great follows:  @legalbrat, @lawyercatrin, and @BretTechLawyer will keep you updated on interesting EU/UK/international matters that may be missed with US-centric sources (not to mention the food porn!).  @ACCinhouse, @InHouse_Bern, @CorpCounsel and @Insidecounsel generally have headlines and commentary on legal matters affecting in house practice.  And @TechCrunch and @mashable are both generally good at promoting any interesting new tech updates, including legislation that will have an affect on tech.   You can even follow me on twitter, @TanyaAvila - although I rarely have anything interesting or informative to say.  I do however complain about the cold, my kids' germs and random stuff about Texas.

So there's my top 4.  Have any to add?  Share with us in the comments.

Holidays In House

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a Christmas fanatic.  As soon as I'm done eating the turkey, the Christmas music comes on.  I spend all 3 1/2 days of the long Thanksgiving weekend decorating my house.  I have most of my Christmas shopping done by end of day Cyber Monday.  Hell, I have a walk in closet in my house dedicated to Christmas decor.  I'm a bit of a freak.  And that's totally okay, except when it comes to work.

Unless you work for a religious institution, you need to be as secular as possible on all holidays.  This is true even if you are not the employment lawyer.  One difference between practicing in house and practicing at a firm is the fact that you are working with a bunch of people who often don't get the nuance in different areas of law.  No matter how many lawyers you have in your department, you are all the "legal department".  And as such, you - along with human resources - need to put on a secular front at all times.  The last thing you need is for an employee who feels discriminated against feel uneasy about approaching you to report it because you've got a Navity scene in your office.  Or a wreath decorated with the Star of David.  Or anything that has a religious connotation.

What makes Christmas especially hard, beyond the fact that it already is everywhere, is the expectation of some people to participate in some sort of gift exchange with their coworkers and/or boss.  In many companies this is cross departmental fun, and not participating can damage your relationships with those who do.  There is no easy answer here.  I try to keep all of my celebrations involving work light hearted and secular.  I listen to holiday music in my office, but nothing religious.  I don't put up a tree, but I do put out a Santa bowl of treats.  I send Happy Holiday cards instead of Christmas cards.  I bake goodies or bring in candy treats for exchanges.  A few close "work" friends my participate in something more "Christmasy", but I do it off site and don't talk about it at work.  I also make sure that in January I do employment training where I stress non-discrimination and advertise widely that my door is always open.  

There's an understandable frustration with having to be "PC" all the time, and I will counsel other employees to not overdo the PC if it makes them uncomfortable as long as they're not pushing their views or beliefs on others in the work place.  That doesn't apply to legal, even us Christmas freaks.

The Thanksgiving Post

Every year around this time I start badgering the kids in my family to give me their wish list so I have time to purchase, wrap and/or ship everything before Christmas.  My 5 year old happily obliged giving me a very long list (he loves Lego Hero Factory and wants every hero, especially Von Nebula - good luck finding that one Santa!)  He was also very helpful in giving me a list of what he thought that his low-verbal 3 year old and 1 1/2 year old brothers would want (anything Cars 2 and something to draw on).  It was all very helpful.  I then called my sister to get the list for my niece and nephew.  My niece is mature beyond her years and would like to start a perfume collection (she's so much like me, it's great!).  My nephew was more difficult.  He couldn't think of anything that he wanted.  In a fit of impatience, I threatened to give his present to an underprivileged kid instead.  To my surprise he thought that was a great idea and asked me if I really would.  In an instant, my faith in humanity restored (or at least, my faith in West Virginian teenagers).

It's not often that you talk with a teenager who is happy with everything he has and doesn't want more.  For that matter, it's not often you talk with a professional who is happy with everything and doesn't want more.  Given that this is the week of Thanksgiving in the US, I'm going to take this opportunity to channel my nephew and be grateful for what I have.  It's amazing how often even educated adults will ignore what's right in front of them while in pursuit of something else.  The grass is greener syndrome runs rampant in corporate America.  And while I hold no illusions that any employer cares more about you as an employee than they do about their bottom lines, even  in this recovering economy many of us are in good positions with good companies.

So this week I am thankful for truly enjoying the work I do.  Many lawyers graduate from law school with an expectation of what practice will be like only to be severely disappointed.  Luckily, I'm not one of them.  I actually enjoy most aspects of my job and love the fact that I'm continually learning and growing professionally and personally, and getting paid to do it! 

I'm thankful to have a good job with a good company that offers benefits that cover the therapies and treatments my son needs.  He's made so much progress since starting his therapies, he's so close to saying "Mommy". Of course "McQueen" is more important - he said that last night, my ego took a slight hit but that was drowned out by my excitement that he's saying any words without prompting.

I'm thankful for great mentors who have helped me both professionally and personally.  I don't know where I'd be with Christine Jones or Nancy Ebe.  These two ladies are among the wisest, most intelligent and most compassionate people in the world.  If you are lucky enough to meet them, know that they each do more to help others in a single week than you or I do in a year with nothing to gain personally.  They're also pretty fun to spend time with - just ask Christine about politics or Nancy about her chickens.

I'm thankful for my husband who has put his career on hold indefinitely so that someone can be there to take care of the kids and advocate for my 3 year old.  His professional sacrifice for the family is what makes it possible for me to follow my dreams and pursue success in the legal world. His patience with the kids (something he has in spades and that I lack too often), has resulted in 3 of the finest young men I've met.  I love seeing more and more of him in them each day.

I'm thankful for friends and family that accept that I work to much and spend the majority of my spare time with my kids.  Those friends that love me anyway and will catch a lunch or coffee during the week instead of happy hour, or will catch up on that one Saturday afternoon after months of not hearing from me.  These people enrich my life beyond anything that I deserve.

Lastly, I'm thankful for this blog and the outlet to speak out about what's on my mind.  I've met so many interesting people from around the globe just because I ramble on weekly about practicing law in house online. Who knew it could be so liberating - I've been rambling daily in private, so putting it online has been a very fun experiment.

Now you've got my list, what are you thankful for this year?

Cocky or Confident?

My first "real" job interview after high school was for a small privately held medical supply company doing data entry.  The job description didn't sound very hard and I was pretty confident that I could do the job well.  I got the job, and a month after I started my boss told me that he almost didn't hire me.  He wasn't sure from my interview whether I was really confident in my abilities or just cocky.  If it wasn't for a reference from a friend of his, he would have hired someone else.  Ever since then I've been worried about sounding too cocky and have often undermined myself by sounding like I lack confidence in my abilities.

Fast forward to last week, I was discussing my career path with a mentor.  As part of the discussion she started listing my skill set.  I almost immediately started qualifying her list.  I do employment law, but I don't know ERISA very well; I handle our internal litigation, but it's really only managing outside counsel... etc.   As soon as the words left my mouth I knew that I was doing it again - I was downplaying my experience and expertise.  Doing this doesn't win you any promotions, or gain the confidence of any of your business clients.  In all reality I could take an employment position in house and do well.  I could join a litigation team in house and do well.  I have a broad base of skills that I've worked very hard to cultivate.  But I'm too afraid of sounding cocky so I hedge them with qualifications making me seem less competent than I am.

On the other side of the coin is a friend that I met with a few weeks ago.  He was in the running for a new job and asked me to review his resume.  He had embellished a bit on his experience.  Calling the securities work he did, "transactional" and including IP in his wheel house because he worked on valuing it for public offerings.  He's never actually done daily business transactions or registered a trademark or patent.  But he felt confident that he had the fundamentals from his experience and could easily pick up the rest.  He got the job.

Now I'm not advocating lying on a resume.  We all know where that gets you.  But you should feel confident in the skill set that you have cultivated.  And you should feel confident in presenting that skill set in a way which reaches your client base, and your resume isn't the only place that you present your skills.

My HR team doesn't understand the difference between an ERISA attorney and a employment law generalist.  So why would I go out of my way to inform them that I'm not an ERISA attorney?  They don't care.  They care that I can answer their questions about ADA accommodations.  My dev team doesn't care that I don't prosecute the patents myself, they care that I manage the process in a way that gets them their bonus on time and gets the most valuable ideas protected.  My marketing team doesn't care if I have ever argued in front of a judge, they care that I know the basic advertising laws and when/how to stop competitors from unfairly copying their hard work.

Being confident in how I present my competencies to these teams will define the relationship with them.   Qualifying my skill set with nuanced explanations is lost on them and will only hurt my chances to get the next promotion, or better job, or to even be told the next time there is an issue that legal needs to know about.

So kids, this week's lesson is one I'm still learning - justified confidence is not cocky.  So go out and start to be confident today.

Take Control

As a follow up to last week's post about bringing courage into your career, I want to take a moment to promote another aspect of successful business people that lawyers can learn from - taking control.  One of the most successful business people I've ever met, Bob Parsons, has an air about him.  It's an air of authority.  A larger than life personality that fills the room even before he enters it.  A big part of that is how he takes control of every moment of his life.  It's a trait that a lot of entrepreneurs have - don't like your 9 to 5, quit and take control of your own financial future.

Now, we can't all be entrepreneurs for macroeconomic and microeconomic reasons.  Lawyers on a whole would make horrible entrepreneurs precisely because we have a hard time taking risks.  As counterintuitive as it sounds, taking control over your career is also taking the biggest risk one can make professionally.  It's no secret that I am the breadwinner in my family with three children depending on me, one of which requires extensive and expensive therapies.  So taking control of my career, and the risk that making a mistake may cost that stability is the scariest thing on earth to me.

But that doesn't mean that I, or you, should let our fears run our careers.  You're much more likely to gain the respect of your peers and your management team if you bring a little of that entrepreneurial spirit to your practice.  Take some risks occasionally  not just risks to the business by letting that indemnity clause go, but risks to you by speaking out against a bad business idea or setting boundaries to when and what you will do.  Control your career by branching out in speaking engagements, or social media.  Garner a name for yourself independent of your employer to make yourself a commodity worth keeping.  Understand your worth and offer proof of it to your employer on a regular basis - not just at review time.  Keep your options open.  In the corporate world today, loyalty is only so valuable.  You need to keep honing your skills and keep an eye on the job market.  Know what it's doing at all times and know how easily or how difficult it will be for you to find your next opportunity.  Don't be at the mercy of a bad boss, or a bad business plan.

Take control of your career in the way that serial CEOs do.  Like them, you'll find that once you control yourself, you'll start to emit an air of authority that creates a respect before you even enter the room.  With that, you can better control the rest of your world, all while still receiving a paycheck from someone else.

Be Brave

Yesterday I spent the day surrounded by professional women at the Texas Professional Women's Conference.  It was my first year attending, but it definitely won't be my last.  I was very inspired by the success stories of the entrepreneurs and business women and the eagerness of everyone to help out the next generation of women to surpass their success.  The conference was definitely geared towards the entrepreneurial spirit, but the lessons it had to offered can be easily translated into practice tips for in house women lawyers.  I know I've got several post ideas out of the different sessions I attended, stay tuned for what is sure to be a deluge of entrepreneurial lessons to apply to in house practice.

The general theme that carried the day was one of courage.  Over and over again the panelists and presenters encouraged the audience of almost 5000 to be brave.  Take ownership of what you want and be willing to do what's necessary to get there.  Don't be afraid to ask for help or take risks - including the risk of absolute failure.

Very often we, as women and as lawyers, are so personally risk averse that we hedge our bets.  We fail to commit fully.  We frame our answers to the hard questions with weasel words like "it depends" or "I think".   It holds back our ability to gain full trust from those we are advising and our ability to move ahead in our careers. We sabotage our ability to be the best we can be because we are afraid of appearing weak by asking for help, or worse incompetent by having the wrong answer.  Combine that with the real fear of committing malpractice by offering reckless advice, and we've stuck ourselves in the back seat of our companies and our lives.

Business men don't typically have the same fears.  They tend to take on the challenges not knowing if they are capable of doing it, giving themselves the opportunity to rise above their experience.  The most successful will confidently forge ahead even when the worst case scenario is complete failure.  They don't do it recklessly, instead they surround themselves with mentors and experts to advise and guide them to the right path.  If going down a path completely uncharted they acknowledge the chance of failure and move on anyway.  They understand instinctually that you can't be a star by sitting in the audience, only by entering the arena can you shine.

As they say with most recovery programs, the first step is admitting there's a problem.  Look at your professional interactions.  Are you always sitting in the back, or at the table?  Do you naturally fill the service roll - getting coffee, taking notes, administering the meeting rather than participating in it?  Does your advice contain weasel words?  Does your voice rise when talking to your executives making you sound unsure of yourself?  If you find yourself answering yes to any of these questions, make a conscious effort to take risk.

Begin by arriving to your next meeting slightly early and grabbing a seat at the table instead of the periphery   Make a point to comment on the business and not just the legal.  Just one comment, it doesn't have to be controversial or even memorable at first.  Just start to participate.  When asked for your advice, don't hesitate, don't weasel or hedge the answer.  Be confident and firm in your delivery.  If you don't know the answer, tell them you'll find out and let them know in an hour.  Then do it.  If it's an uncertain area of law/business, tell them it's not fully played out yet but you'd bet that it will turn out like xyz.  Put yourself out there and know that it may result in you being brilliantly wrong.  It will be hard at first, but once you begin to believe in yourself, so will others.  Only then will you have the opportunity to shine.

My early New Year's resolution is to be brave.  I'll keep you posted on the progress I make.  For today, I'm going to make a conscious effort to eliminate the weasel words.  How will you start being brave?

Got business?

One of the best things about being in house is the fact that you don't have to generate business.  I can only empathize with my firm colleagues on how stressful it is to have to be "salesman" on top of attorney.  That said, please stop hitting me up for business the first time we meet.  When the second thing out of your mouth (after, what company are you with) is what are your legal needs, I immediately turn off and will almost as quickly forget you.  If you truly want my business here's a few things you should know about how I, and many of my in house brethren, award business.

Small matters go to people we know and like.  Generally a specialist in the area.  I don't typically hire firms, I hire attorneys.  And usually, I'm hiring the associate who will do the actual work and not the partner who manages the account.  If you want to get the small matters that we don't do in house then you'll want to have your associates spend a little time networking with in house attorneys.  Giving CLE's is a good way to get some face time with in house folks and become somewhat connected with an area of expertise without having to oversell it.

If I don't know someone who specializes in the area I need, I ask my in house friends for references.  You'd be surprised at the information we share when it comes to representation.  Who does quality work efficiently, who over bills, who wastes time, who is pleasant to work with and who is a pain in the ass, etc.  Make a good impression and we'll go out of our way to promote you.  Make a bad impression and we'll go out of our way to warn others about you.  Make no impression and, well, you're on your own.

For big matters, those multi-million dollar lawsuits or bet the business transactions, I typically put it out to bid.  I won't lie, cost is a factor.  But value is a bigger factor.  Having the right expertise and the right "fit" for the matter and our company culture will give you bonus points and may outweigh a savings from a competitor firm.  If I like you, you'll be on my list of firms that I invite to bid.  But you won't be alone on the list.  This is business and I have a responsibility to my company to get the best value possible.  Know that we evaluate everything, from your initial response to your presentation.

You will most likely be competing with at least 10 other firms of varying size and focus.  I typically include boutiques as well as big and small general practice firms in a RFP. In the initial response you will need to put your best foot forward and explain why I need you and your firm instead of a more specialized group.  If you make the first cut, I'll invite you (and at least 2 of your competitors) to meet with the business stakeholders   In this phase, you've already sold me that you have the basic legal expertise needed.  Now I'm looking for the "fit" with the stakeholders and the right staffing.  Again, I generally will take a hard look at the associate you present because I know they'll be doing the lion's share of the work.

My business stakeholders are going to be comparing you in the most general terms to the other lawyers.  You're not going to sell them on how you know this specific area of law better than the other guys.  So don't try.  Sell them on how you can handle this particular matter better than the other guys.  Whether that's because you have experience with the judge, the opposing counsel, the subject matter, etc.  Give them something to differentiate you from the other guys.  Give them a taste of what they can expect if we hire you, some out of the box thinking on the matter at hand, something, anything.  If you come with a presentation about how great your firm is and how well you know about xyz law with the same basic formula that any lawyer with a bit of experience is going to pitch, you'll lose.  Go above and beyond, spend a little bit of time.  After all, you may not win this matter but if you make an impression you'll be remembered for the next, and I might even recommend you to a friend.

What to be for Halloween?

Every year my company does a Halloween costume contest in which I am 'highly encouraged' to participate (the joys of working for a tech company).  My first year I dressed up as a pregnant nun which was hilarious because I was in fact pregnant and it was my 3rd day at work as the company's first lawyer.  It helped set the tone for how my relationship would go with the company.  Now I've got to top that in some creative way and I'm drawing a blank.  So dear readers I'm sending out a plea for help.  Have a work appropriate suggestion?  Leave it in the comments or email me.