Registrants were given many useful tips for dealing with these issues in the session entitled An Insider’s View of the Challenges of Law Firm Management yesterday morning.
The session was moderated by Mark Kachigian of Johnson & Kachigian. One particular point of interest was the question of whether responding to a request for proposal (RFP) is worth the time.
“The answer in our firm is always yes,” said Rose Auslander of Carter Ledyard & Milburn in the United States. “It’s a competitive world out there. You may be busy now, but you may not be busy tomorrow.”
“If it is an existing client, it may be internal protocol for them to ask. And if it is not protocol, at least they have given you a chance. If it is not an existing client, it may be that it is someone looking for free legal advice but you never know. Once you have done one, you have something of a template.”
Marcus Gallie of Ridout & Maybee in Canada noted some reasons not to respond, however. These included the RFP not fitting into the firm’s image, conflicts, the stretch on resources, and not being given enough time to respond.
“I’ve handled two RFPs in the past six months—one was probably the worst one ever, and one was probably the best,” said Gallie.
He said the first one was vague about how many law firms were being asked, and involved lots of demands for data and hypothetical questions that made his colleagues at the firm feel they were being asked for free legal advice.
“The result was 30 hours of staff time, it took three days to get confirmation back, and in the end we had back a response just saying ‘thank you very much, dear sir’ and we aren’t going to use you.”
In contrast: “The other RFP said we were one of five, they asked us to run a conflict check, they were very upfront, and are now a good client,” said Gallie.
He advised registrants not to be bullied during the process and to be assertive. “And if it doesn’t work, ring them up and ask why you didn’t get the job,” he said.
Another tricky question handled by the panelists was best practices for dealing with collections to reduce accounts receivable (AR).
“Everything starts with the pre-nuptial,” said Anthony Tong of Robin Bridge & John Liu in Hong Kong. “Steps must be taken to deal with non-payment or delay of payment. But pursue legal proceedings as a last resort, since that means the end of the relationship.”
Gallie said Ridout & Maybee had reorganized its credit and collections department and had learned a number of useful lessons in the process.
“The first was we weren’t making sure that banking information was on invoices. Clients want to pay you— don’t make it hard,” he said. “The second was to include the AR reminder on new invoices, so they know what the AR is when they get the invoice. The third is that there are payment portals you can use. Our role is to make it as easy as possible for the client to pay.”
