Wrong Reasons To Choose The Firm As Counsel

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

The “Wrong Reasons” originated in an iconoclastic sort of internal spoofing of what the Firm was and was not.  In a way that the Firm never would have expected, the Firm found in its discussions with its clients and prospective clients that the “Wrong Reasons” was helpful perspective for them.

As part of the Firm’s desire never to be a negative surprise to a client and as part of the Firm’s commitment to provide clients and prospective clients any information that might be helpful to them in making an informed and intelligent decision about whether their personal and business interests and the Firm are a “good fit,” the Firm provides the “Wrong Reasons”:

1. If the prospective client wants a marquee name as its legal counsel, the Firm is not a marquee name.
2. If the prospective client wants points on the cocktail circuit because of who its legal counsel is, the Firm will not get anyone points on the cocktail circuit.
3. If the prospective client wants its legal counsel to have fancy offices, the Firm has untraditionally less than modest office space and office furnishings in its offices.  Firm offices are meant to be workspace for very hard work.  Almost overwhelmingly clients expect the Firm’s professionals to come to the client’s office and seldom, if ever, come to the Firm’s offices.  Prospective clients should imagine a “loft mentality” in the Firm’s offices even though no office is in loft space.
4. If the prospective client wants the Firm’s professionals to have large, lavish offices, the Firm practices the “hotelling” concept in its offices, i.e. no one has their own office, all offices are everybody’s office, whoever is in town in a particular office uses whatever office is available that day.  All offices are furnished with the same less than modest furniture and are meant to be the same.
5. If the prospective client wants a firm of size, the Firm is the antithesis of that and is unlikely to change.  The only professionals are Michael, Kelly, Leslie, Cheryl, and Kearney.  The Law School Fellows are Dana and Bri.  The rest of the staff is made up of law clerks and administrative and paraprofessional staff.
6. If the prospective client wants its lawyers to have “gatekeepers,” the Firm does not use gatekeepers.  Part of the Firm’s culture is that no individual in the Firm will be asked to do anything that everyone else in the Firm is not prepared to do, has done and will do.  For instance, as a gesture to that culture the Firm’s professionals might answer the Firm phones on any given day.