• As needed telephone consultations regarding legal and strategic business issues;
• Monthly strategic legal planning sessions in your office;
• A trusted, objective advisor available when you need it; and
• Freedom from the billable hour.

How many times have you experienced the following:

• Been reluctant to call your attorney to ask what you believe is a simple question because you are worried that you will get a $1,000 bill.
• Decided that instead of proactively consulting your attorney, you would just “wait and see” and call your attorney if or when you have problems.
• Wished you had predictability in your budget for legal expenses.
• Needed a strategic, business-minded lawyer that could help you evaluate your business in an objective manner without trying to bill hours.
• Been frustrated because your attorney doesn’t really understand your business and only speaks legalese!

The General Counsel Hotline is the solution.  Clients are embracing this new model and it just might be a perfect tool to augment your legal practices.  Contact Ethos Business Law today to find out how the General Counsel Hotline can decrease your legal risk and increase your bottom line.

The basic business model is simple — outside general counsel services typically work with small to midsize businesses that have few or no in-house lawyers and act as an in-house lawyer without the cost or commitment of full-time employment. They can parachute into a company, even as a C-level executive, and stay for as long or as briefly as needed.  Outside general counsel are perfectly suited to triage and solve your day-to-day legal needs at a fraction of the cost of traditional legal solutions.  Here are just some of the benefits that outside general counsel provide when compared with traditional law firms:

• They are key business advisors, not just legal technicians
• They have significant in-house executive legal experience, and often times advanced business education
• They share a business-centric and practical approach, grounded in the company’s business objectives
• They can work in your office, along side your team
• They provide proactive legal risk management, helping avoid problems before they arise
• They communicate better with business constituents
• They provide another executive on your team, without the commitment of hiring a new employee
• They free you from worrying about the 6-minute bills
• They offer low overhead costs, meaning more affordable rates

An outside general counsel can handle your day-to-day legal needs in a manner that is more relevant to you than a traditional law firm and at a more compelling cost. In addition, they can work with law firms, and manage them, to get the most out of high-priced specialists when needed. Large companies rely on in-house counsel for these reasons. With an outside general counsel, you can too.

I find one of the best way for a client to leverage value from its corporate counsel is through regular, proactive interaction.  Simply spending time discussing a client’s business and future goals can prove quite productive.  I often work as outside general counsel for clients on a retainer basis — not by hourly fees.  This encourages clients to spend time working with their attorney on proactive strategies and removes the “time” concern.  Moreover, this fosters a better relationship between the parties and allows the attorney to have a better institutional knowledge of the client.  If you are still paying for every minute of your corporate attorney’s time, consider implementing a different business model.

If you simply look at the typical business model of a law firm, you see that the business model is not congruent with alternative fee arrangements.  Most traditional law firms (small or large) compensate attorneys on billable hours; measure achievement and advancement on billable hours; pay bonuses on billable hours; maintain minimum thresholds for billable hours; and base many other firm metrics on billable hours.  Every aspect of the firm business model is grounded in the almighty billable hour. So, how can a firm turn on a dime and effectively implement alternative fee arrangements — they can’t.

Don’t get me wrong, there is certainly a place for the billable hour business model.  The problem is, with the economic downturn, many firms have decided to jump on the alternative fee bandwagon.  Unfortunately, when your entire business model is based on the billable hour, you can’t implement an alternative fee structure without a major business model change.  If you are looking for a firm that embraces a more client-centric alternative fee structure, make sure the firm you select embraces a different business model as well.  Otherwise, you might be experiencing exactly what the above observer predicts!

Recently, there have been various articles on this topic (see here and here for a couple examples).  In fact, one of these articles goes so far as to say “[t]he conventional ideas for changing the way law firms do business are . . .  insipid and inadequate.”

I firmly believe that the business of practicing law needs a complete overhaul.  The legal profession has followed the same business model for too long.  Business continues to evolve and legal services must maintain pace, if not excel.  This cannot be accomplished by a simple pledge to consider an alternative fee structure.  A business built on a specific business model cannot just change one aspect of the model (e.g., pricing) and expect a difference.  Instead, the business must be flipped on its head and re-engineered from the ground up.  Law firms are no exception.  Think about this next time you contact your attorney and ask them to consider an alternative engagement structure.  Are they simply changing a few business practices to follow the wave of change, or have they re-invented their business model to lead into a different economy and different world.

Your thoughts any comments are appreciated.