Beetenson & Gibbon Acquires Martin & Haigh of Scunthorpe
Grimsby legal force Beetenson & Gibbon has now acquired Martin & Haigh of Scunthorpe.
This is the second solicitors merger in as many months, as this move follows Wilkin Chapman and Grange Wintringham’s announcement three weeks ago.
This move comes as a result of the ambitious expansion plans of Grimsby-based Beetenson & Gibbon following their acquisition of Louth’s Scammell & Braithwaite in 2007.
What this means on a short-term basis is that we’ll be seeing the number of employees in B&G increase to 79, a headcount increase of nearly 60%.
As part of the acquisition, Martin & Haigh of Scunthorpe will now be known as Martin & Haigh with Beetenson & Gibbon.
The New Martin & Haigh
“I am looking forward to working within the new firm in the new venture. It makes us a force to be reckoned with, we are now one of the largest firms in the town, as well as the surrounding area. Both of the firms are very similar from what I have seen, and services are being brought together that will complement each other. It is a great fit.”, says Jo Moorhouse, practice manager at the firm.
Beetenson & Gibbon is a founding member of the Quality Solicitors network (found at QualitySolicitors.com), which is a legal brand located in the United Kingdom that chooses lawyers based on positive ratings from their clients as well as their accreditations and then matches them up to new potential clients.
I went to the Martin & Haigh website (martinandhaigh.co.uk), but it appears to be down with this message: “We’re Sorry! This website is down for maintenance, please check back later.” I checked Google Cache and found this description: “Martin & Haigh is a long-established solicitors practice in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire. Our clients are as varied as the range of services we provide.” Perhaps B&G is working on a website revamp to reflect the new branding.
Knowledge Management for Law Firms: The New Frontier
There is no doubt in my mind that Knowledge Management (“KM”) will drive law firms in the future. In the past, law firms were driven by recruiting the best and the brightest lawyers and developing a reputation for good work. Hiring talented lawyers will be important in the future, but not as important as developing the best KM systems. Why do I believe that? Because the Internet makes people and information more accessible. It’s scary to say, but the Internet makes people more of a commodity (not that I believe that personally). With regard to professional services, talent will no longer be the differentiator. The biggest challenge for law firms will be to harness that talent and their reservoirs of knowledge in ways that improve product quality and efficiency. In other words, “Knowledge Management”.
Defining Knowledge Management
Ok, but what is KM? Here are some definitions:
According to Wikipedia, “There is a broad range of thought on Knowledge Management with no unanimous definition current or likely.” Wikipedia itself defines Knowledge Management as a “range of practices used by organisations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge for reuse, awareness, and learning across the organisations.” The fact that wikipedia spells the word “organization” differently than I do does not give me much comfort in their definition.
The definition of Knowledge Management that I prefer is “Capturing, organizing, and storing knowledge and experiences of individual workers and groups within an organization and making this information available to others in the organization.” (Ironically, I found this definition on Google from a link that is no longer working.) It is the collaborative element of this definition that I find compelling. Lawyers sharing information will make all of us better lawyers and more efficient. KM will facilitate the process.
The Truth of What Knowledge Management Means
More practically, I think that KM encompasses all of the systems, tools, and infrastructure needed to practice law effectively. In an upcoming blog, I will attempt to break down the concept of Knowledge Management into practical terms and identify how law firms can start to lay the ground work now for developing the systems, tools, and infrastructure that I (and most lawyers) will need to access in the future.
What do you think will drive law firms in the future? Will it be KM or something else?
[thanks to blmurch and roger glovsky via cc]
Value Billing vs Hourly Billing: Which Way is Best For You?
I promised David at EthicalEsq that I would respond to this post of his today. In a response to my previous post on value billing, David argues:
There are a lot of problems with the billable hours system, but most of them are the result of abuses rather than of the inherent nature of using hourly billing. In determining the reasonableness of a fee, therefore, the legal profession has attempted to avoid the worse distortions from hourly billing by not fully charging for hours spent “getting up to speed” in an unfamiliar area of law. The client rightfully expects expertise and needs to be informed by the ethical lawyer when he or she is not yet fully competent in a particular legal subject.
The client also rightfully expects to pay a fee that corresponds — at least roughly — to the amount of time spent by the lawyer. And, the honest fiduciary should let the client know approximately how much work is involved. Some sophisticated clients might want to experiment with or negotiate for some kind of value-related fee. But no sophisticate would say “I know you’ll only spend a few minutes on this, but it’s worth millions to me, so here’s a seven-figure check.” Instead, the savvy client would negotiate for, or shop around for, a more competitive fee, no matter the “value” of the result.
David and I both agree on quite a few things, the primary one being that a lawyer should educate his or her client up front about the basis for the fee and give them an estimate of the range of costs and outcomes. However, I feel (unlike David) that the billable hour system is the problem, for both lawyers and clients. The best indictment of the billable hour that I’ve found on the web is in this article where the author writes:
The billable hour, a practice used only since the early 1960s, has become an artificial device that ill serves both professionals and clients. It divides the time of the accountant and lawyer and consultant into parts, turns each professional into a bookkeeper, and creates such profound guilt for every working hour that’s not billable that important non-billable firm needs are inadequately addressed. It affords the opportunity for the worst kinds of excess, such as padding hours, thereby increasing revenue without supplying value – a short-sighted practice bound to backfire. It makes no distinction between the hour spent on trivial activities and the hour spent on substantive matters. Moreover, if the client perceives that there is no added value in the hourly bill, the general practice is to renegotiate the fee, which is becoming a common practice in today’s competitive environment – and makes a mockery of hourly billing. It’s such an anachronism, and so entrenched, that it precludes such rational billing approaches as value added and enhanced worth or contribution to a client’s business, neither of which is best calculated by the hour. As one sage put it, it’s a virtual cartel in which every firm seems to arrive at the same billing rate, even though quality of service is not consistent from one firm to another. Or even from one partner to another in the same firm.
How many other products are bought this way? My wife and I are going to be building a new home this year. We were given a choice by our contractor to pay a set price or be charged on a “time and materials” basis. We chose the former. I don’t care how much my contractor profits on the job so long as I get a quality home for a price I’m willing to pay. To use another example, should I agree to buy a car at $200.00 per hour multiplied by the time taken to build it? If I get a lazy shift the day my car rolls down the line, should I expect pay more than my neighbor who bought the same car built by a more efficient crew for thousands less?
The Illinois Supreme Court requires lawyers to adhere to the code of ethics. Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1.5 (which David quotes in part in his post) states:
Factors to be considered as guides in determining the reasonableness of a fee include the following:
- The time and labor required, the novelty and difficulty of the questions involved and the skill requisite to perform the legal services properly.
- The likelihood that the acceptance of the particular employment would preclude other employment by the lawyer.
- The fee customarily charged in the locality for similar legal services.
- The amount involved and results obtained.
- The time limitations imposed by the client or by circumstances.
- The nature and length of the professional relationship with the client.
- The experience, reputation and ability of the lawyer or lawyers performing the services.
- Whether the fee is fixed or contingent.
Only one of the thirteen underlined factors speak to the time spent on the task. I argue that many of the other factors speak to the value received by the client. In the end, I think David and I both agree that a lawyer should charge a fair fee. In value billing, what is “fair” is in the eyes of the client. In hourly billing, what is “fair” is in the eyes of the lawyer. Which is a better way to serve your clients?
I do know this, I will not be offering my clients the option to choose between hourly and value billing. I refuse to perpetuate a system that allows me to charge more to a given client the less efficient I am. My prospective customers will have the choice to use me and my value billing system – or they can go to a “traditional” lawyer who bills by the hour. As my site says: “No more stinkin’ timesheets.”
[thanks to aaron geller and matthew homan via cc]
