The Firm Philosophy

Firm Philosophy    |     Year End Letter     |    Wrong Reasons to Choose Firm


The Ten Commandments of the Firm (except that there are XIX)

  1. The Firm only wants to be in the profession of law and does not want to be in the business of law.
  2. Family, faith, community, and health come before the Firm.
  3. In all of its decisions regarding clients, the test the Firm will use is what is fair, best and appropriate for the client not what best serves the finances of the Firm.
  4. Regardless of whether the client will pay for it, the Firm will do its best to find the resources to do nothing less than an excellent job on any matter it undertakes.
  5. “The Firm’s Goals In Each Client Relationship”.
  6. “The Firm’s Expectations of Its Clients”
  7. “The Firm Billing Policy”.
  8. All Clients are Firm Clients.
  9. The measures of whether the Firm has had a good year are:
    1. Did we have fun?
    2. Did we only serve clients whom we respected, whose company we enjoyed and about whom we cared?
    3. Did we only work internally with individuals whom we respected, whose company we enjoyed and about whom we cared?
    4. Did we focus entirely on “the profession of law” and avoid entirely “the business of law?”
    5. For the size of the Firm, was the Firm involved in a disproportionate number of the interesting issues in its respective communities?
    6. Did the Firm ever consciously equivocate or compromise on its commitment to excellence?
  10. The Firm will have a “Civic Initiative” in which the Firm invites the community to nominate and then chooses a certain number of civic or not for profit organizations and volunteers to serve their legal, strategic, and macro financial needs for a defined period of time.
  11. To promote job creation and economic development in its communities, the Firm will have an “Economic Development Initiative” in which the Firm invites the community to nominate and then chooses a certain number of start up, second stage or struggling companies without the capital for adequate professional services and volunteer to serve their legal, strategic, and micro-financial needs for a defined period of time.
  12. When it stops being fun for any of the Firm’s professionals, they will stop practicing law together.
  13. All Firm professionals succeed and fail together. There is collective victory, collective accountability and collective failure.
  14. All Firm personnel will try and contribute to the Firm more than each takes from the Firm.
  15. All Firm personnel are committed to helping any other Firm professional and doing any task and any assignment to assist a client and to assist another Firm professional serving a client. No Firm personnel are too big for any matter or any requested contribution in connection with an engagement. No Firm personnel are too big to perform any staff or secretarial or clerical function around the office.
  16. All individuals associated with the Firm will never be anything other than gentlemen and ladies.
  17. The Firm will not indulge any pretensions about what the Firm is and what the Firm is not and who any of its professionals are and are not.
  18. No Member or Principal will be surprised and not consulted on any material decision. Each Firm professional will treat each other Firm professional and each person that is part of or employed by the Firm as well as, if not better than, the Firm professional would like to be treated.
  19. No person whose name is in the Firm will have any vote in what the name of the Firm is. The Members of the Firm whose names are not in the name of the Firm will decide each year what the name of the Firm will be.No Firm professional will invest any ego in the name of the Firm. No Firm professional will expend any negative energy in connection with the name of the Firm.