The Majorie Firm

Our lawyers have represented commercial clients as members of large, medium, and small firms, full-service firms and boutiques. We have studied various efforts by in-house general counsel to manage litigation, and talked with countless business people about what they think they need and what they think they get from their lawyers.

As we reflected on those experiences, we developed some very distinct beliefs about how lawyers should approach the lawyer/client relationship and the matters they are hired to resolve by businesses and other commercial clients.

Our basic realization was that lawyers had the "lawyer/client" relationship backwards. It should be called the client/lawyer relationship since the lawyer's job is to provide services to the client. So we decided to start a law firm which was not only based upon that focus, but reflected it in as many aspects as possible, from the types of clients we represent, to the kinds of matters we work on, how we give advice, how we staff cases, how we get paid by our clients, and how our lawyers are compensated for their work.

Isn't your phrase "the client/lawyer approach" just clever marketing?

No, it really goes to the heart of what The Majorie Firm is all about. We start our representation by asking the client what they hope to achieve and what resources they can expend to reach the desired result. We then help them look at all of their options -- legal and non-legal -- and refine their goals in light of those options. Then we set a strategy for achieving those goals and oversee the process to ensure that nothing is lost in the translation from plan through implementation.

Why doesn't The Majorie Firm offer more than dispute resolution services?

The answer can all be summed up in one way: where you stand on something depends on where you sit.

"Full Service" law firms are divided into various departments which roughly translate into "corporate lawyer" and "litigator." The corporate lawyer's goal in life is to help the client structure and document a transaction which the client and the other parties want to accomplish; the litigator's goal is to help the client fight when the "friendly" relationship goes sour.

Most real world business problems fall between the cracks of those two perspectives. If the client asks his corporate lawyer to handle the matter, that lawyer will not be equipped to negotiate in an environment where both sides do not share a desire to accomplish the result. The litigator, on the other hand, will see every disagreement as a lawsuit in the making and will not be sensitive to non-formal means for achieving a mutual resolution which is favorable to the client.

The Majorie Firm has an entirely different perspective which bridges the gap between the so-called traditional departments in law firms.

We know that over ninety-five percent of commercial lawsuits settle before trial. That means that litigation is only one end of the negotiating spectrum, kind of like having your troops ready to enforce the peace. Each of our lawyers is therefore constantly assessing when we should negotiate, when we should litigate, and when and what we should be doing in between.

The Majorie Firm has a relatively "flat" organization chart. Doesn't it save money if the work is distributed to different levels of lawyers based upon their experience and cost?

Sometimes yes, most times no.

Although the theory for using a staffing pyramid is to save costs, in reality the structure can be very inefficient. The lawyers on the team vary greatly in degree of experience. Each lawyer reports to the lawyer higher up the chain until all of the lawyers have had a "piece" of the work.

No one lawyer, except maybe the senior partner, has a good idea of how or where their work fits into the overall strategy. And if the senior partner is not spending a lot of time and attention to your case, then there is no one who knows why they are doing what they are doing to solve the client's problem.

In a lot of cases, it's kind of like the old parable about blind men describing the elephant. But in this case it's worse, because each blind man is being paid to grope the elephant and then have in-firm conferences and write memos about it on an hourly basis.

The Majorie Firm avoids this problem in three ways:

First, we tie how we get paid to what value we create for the client, not the number of lawyers we have on a case or the number of hours we work.

Second, all of the lawyers in our firm are real lawyers, with at least 7 or 8 years of real experience. No on-the-job-training on the client's nickel (or dollars) for $140,000 per year people fresh out of law school.

And third, if specialized knowledge is required, we staff the case with a virtual law firm of the best lawyers in each area we need to reach the goal, not lawyers who happen to be on our payroll and available for work. No "introductions" to "our tax partner, Sally" (who may not be the best tax lawyer on the issue, but who does share profits and expenses with us and would look at us cross-ways at partnership meetings if we gave the tax issues to someone else).

The Majorie Firm says that it "eschews" hourly billing in favor of "value added" fees. What do you mean?

Most law firms charge their clients by the hour. That means that the firm does not make money unless its lawyers work as many hours as possible at specified billing rates regardless of the results for the client. The more hours they bill and collect, the more money the firm makes. And, of course, the more lawyers working on the file, the more hours, so the more money.

The structure doesn't make a lot of sense from the client's point of view. It's kind of like paying a surgeon for the number of incisions she makes or stitches she sews. I want the surgeon to complete the operation successfully; if she does it faster, with less pain, then all the better.

The Majorie Firm structures fee arrangements which pay us more if we are successful, and less if we are not. That way, we have the same incentive as the client to obtain a prompt and successful resolution of the problem.

Doesn't the smaller size of your firm keep you from being able to handle big cases?

Not at all. It is a myth that big cases require a cast of thousands and Cecil B. DeMille to direct them all. And if you think about it for a moment, it's easy to see why.

The key to successfully resolving a business dispute -- or any business problem, for that matter -- is to set strategy early, test it often, and implement it as close as possible within the time frames and budget you determined at the outset. That means that you should be able to staff your team for what you want and need, not what the other side wants and needs and not what the law firm you hired wants or needs.

Are you saying that you will never need more than one or two lawyers to handle a case?

No, of course not. But we do say that the old adage that too many cooks spoil the broth is true. In fact, it's even worse when the cooks have law degrees. If you have too many lawyers on a case, you will find yourself spending a lot of time and money on conferences and not nearly as much on trying to achieve results.

It's also much more effective for two or three lawyers to keep their eye on the ball than it is to educate a revolving roster of lawyers on the case and expect them to produce a consistent result on a sustained basis.

What kind of fee structures do you usually recommend?

Each case is different and each relationship is different, but The Majorie's Firm's goal is to allow our client to budget for the work and provide us an incentive to achieve successful results promptly and efficiently.

For stand-alone problems or cases, for example, we may recommend a modified contingent fee arrangement, where we place a ceiling on hourly rates, lower our hourly rates, or charge "pay and accrues" or lump-sums unless and until the matter is successfully resolved. By doing that, our client can budget for the case and he will know that we have the incentive to achieve a prompt and favorable result, because that's when we make more money.

For clients who know that they will have a book of disputes in any given year (although they may not know how many or with whom), we offer a turnkey program designed to manage all of their disputes in an efficient and cost-effective manner. One billing method for the turnkey program is to stair-step our rates so that the client is paying fair fees for the size and complexity of the matters we are handling. Another method for billing in a turnkey program is a "rate buy-down" feature, which allows a client to "purchase" reduced rates through fixed monthly retainers.

In all cases, and with all of our relationships, we work with our clients in the front-end of the relationship to ensure that the client's price of "victory" is not an empty bank account.

Isn't litigation inherently uncertain and doesn't this keep you from being able to budget effectively?

Only if you take your eye off the ball. Providing budgets for legal services is no different than providing budgets for any other business endeavor. Each budget is based upon a set of assumptions about what should or could happen. The value of the budget is directly related to the accuracy of the assumptions. That means the assumptions should in turn be re-examined in the light of the clients goals as the case progresses.

If the other side wants to engage in side-shows, let them. We put out their fires one at a time, and ask the judge for help if we need to.

If we have to add more lawyers, paralegals, or people to the team to respond to their demands, we do so in a way that does not allow the case to become the lawyer's full-employment act.

We winnow the problem down to its essence, decide what tasks can be done by what types of people, and we staff accordingly. That may mean asking the client to provide internal help, it may mean hiring law students to act as "paralegals"on big document productions, or it may mean taking some other approach.

The key is to recognize the peaks and the valleys and to always keep your eye on the goals you set at the beginning. Otherwise, the client winds up with a lot of lawyers doing make-work while they wait for the other side to set another fire.

We help clients weather and navigate legal storms in their businesses.

Although we are just as capable as anyone at being tough, we believe that shooting now and asking questions later is not in the best interests of the client. It is all well and good for the law firm to add another notch to its belt and go on to the next case. The client, on the other hand, usually has to continue to conduct business in the industry or market. The client also has to live with the costs incurred to reach the result.

So we look at all options -- and all degrees of appropriate responses -- before we start "barking" or "shooting," and we tailor what we do in each case accordingly.

Not at all. What makes The Majorie Firm different from other firms is not size, but approach.

A small firm which is divided into traditional practice groups, which tries to be all things to its client on the matter they handle, and which bills predominately or exclusively on an hourly basis is not much better than a big firm which approaches the representation the same way. Your access to a more senior lawyer may be better, but that lawyer will still think and act like the big-firm colleagues he "left behind."

What's The Majorie Firm's concept of the "virtual law firm?"

We refer to a "virtual law firm" as a group of senior lawyers hand-picked by us to work on the specific matter for our client. We literally create a "law firm" for each case, using the best people in each of the fields the problem touches upon. It is a "virtual" law firm because many of the lawyers come from their own firms and practices and are members of our virtual "firm" on a case-specific basis.

But isn't your "virtual law firm" concept just another way of saying that you compete with the big firms by out-sourcing work?

No, it's much more than that.

First, clients usually hire a big firm because of a specific lawyer that they want to work for them. They then "inherit" lawyers who work for that firm in other areas. The second lawyer may not be the best in their field; in fact, many times the client would never even think about hiring that second lawyer to handle a matter for them directly. But there they are, billing time on the client's case because someone has to do the work in that field. The Majorie Firm avoids that problem by hand-picking each specialist we need for each case. That way we know that the person is the absolute best person for that job.

Second, law firms are just like any other organizations. They have a specific culture and mindset, a "world-view" which permeates all of the areas of their practice. Although that is a good thing for the firm, it may not be the best thing for the client. A "virtual law firm" of lawyers from different firms increases the chance that the team of lawyers looking at a problem will see things from different perspectives. Different perspectives often yield to extraordinary solutions and more favorable results.

Third, clients very often have lawyers, accountants, or other advisors in one or more fields whom they already trust and who should be put on the team to work for the client. Those people will not be "added on" to a team of lawyers from one firm; they will be integral members of the team from the outset. Once again, such a dynamic creates the best possible atmosphere for solving the problem in the best possible way.

Doesn't your "virtual law firm" concept get unwieldy and expensive?

Only if the members of the team are allowed to forget that they are working for a client.

Th Majorie Firm's role is to ensure that no one on the team loses that perspective; to manage it the same way anyone else manages a business. When it's done right, both the client and the lawyers enjoy the process more because they have a united goal and can measure whether they are coming close to achieving that goal.

What is The Majorie Firm's Turn-Key Program?

Most businesses of any size know that various types of disputes will arise on a day-to-day basis simply as a result of doing business. Those businesses have traditionally responded to this problem in one of two ways: they either call on outside lawyers when a dispute arises; or they have one or more in-house lawyers who handle the disputes when they arise.

The problem is that outside lawyers are usually too expensive to handle matters below a certain size and require substantial time and attention to learn about the company, its values, and its people. In-house lawyers require less learning curve, but are either asked to manage conflict as only one thing on a very large plate or are usually not equipped to handle the large problems that may arise from time-to-time. They also lack the more global perspective which can be gained from handling disputes for a variety of different clients in different industries. The Majorie Firm offers clients a third option, our Turn-Key Program, which links the best of the inhouse/outside approach.

How does The Majorie Firm's Turn-Key Program work?

Under our Turn-Key Program, we are retained to handle all of the client's disputes on an extended basis. There are several unique benefits to this program.

First, we staff the relationship to the actual needs of the specific client's business, rather than "warehousing" lawyers and waiting for business to come through our doors. That enables us to match the skills of our lawyers to the problems, not the other way around.

One example is how we use experienced flex-time staff lawyers. There are many lawyers in the market who are well-trained and experienced, but who no longer can or want to work 24/7 in their practice. We employ those lawyers on a permanent, flex-time basis and assign them to handle the smaller cases, which generally do not have quick deadlines. Because our flex-time staffers are assigned exclusively to those cases, they are not being pulled off those cases to work on larger ones. We can also bill those lawyers at lower rates, without sacrificing experience.

Another benefit from our Turn-Key Program is pro-active management of the entire dispute-resolution side of the client's business. In a typical lawyer-client relationship, the law firm is hired on a case-by-case basis, with no certainty that they will have additional work and a billing system which rewards hours. Our Turn-Key Program changes those dynamics by explicitly making the lawyer-client relationship long-term and identifying prevention of future disputes as one of the key goals of the representation.

How does The Majorie Firm's Turn-Key Program help prevent conflicts?

We offer client seminars on various topics, such as a basic primer on lawsuits, what to write (and not write) in memos and e-mails, and other rubber-hits-the-road topics. Our lawyers meet periodically for the express purpose of identifying common themes or causes for the client's various lawsuits. We then provide the client with a "stop, look, and listen audit" containing our analyses and recommendations for ways the clients organization can recognize conflicts early and keep them from turning into full-blown disputes (translate: lawsuits).

The value of this approach to the client cannot be overstated. Lawsuits are expensive propositions because they cost a lot of money to resolve, they suck up the time of the client's employees on "non-productive" work, and they distract the organization from its core focus. If we are successful in keeping conflicts from becoming lawsuits just 3 out of 10 times, the impact on the client's overall business is enormous.

Can't a business use in-house counsel and achieve the same benefits as The Majorie Firm's Turn-Key Program?

They probably could, but most should not want to try.

It's no small secret that businesses are very sophisticated in other arenas when it comes to outsourcing. If the task is not an integral part of their core generation of revenues, they should probably buy the milk not the cow.

The same dynamics apply to what we do. We are able to find, staff, and manage a team of lawyers more efficiently than starting from scratch. We have systems already in place for managing and resolving dockets of cases. We are able to use our experiences for our other clients as guideposts and flashpoints. We are also engaged in continuous training on both the forensic and management sides of the dispute resolution process. It would be very expensive and time-consuming for a client to recreate that structure simply to handle their non-core business needs.

A good example of the value we add to the process is when a client has many cases in states all over the country. In that scenario, we oversee all of the cases; we find the right local lawyers; we handle all of the discovery needs from one location; and we make sure that the matters are being handled consistently. The client does not have to scour the countryside to find the right lawyers and then educate those new lawyers about the client's business, people, documents, policies, and so forth. Since all of the client's discovery is produced through us, we will already know who to deal with, what to produce and not to produce, and why. That means the client has to invest in only one relationship - with us - and not in ten or fifty relationships with all of the lawyers handling their cases across the country. They can deal with the hub and not have to worry about the spokes.

You have obviously given a lot of thought to the ways lawyers can help clients in today's business world. What advice can you give someone who is trying to find a lawyer for their business?

Finding and hiring a lawyer isn't much different than finding or hiring anybody else. Choose horses, not just stables (lawyers, not law firms). Meet with every lawyer who will be working for you and ask: are they good at what they do by reputation or recommendation of someone you know? Have you seen their work? Do they engender trust and confidence when you talk to them? Can you work with them? Can they work well with the people in your organization? How responsive to your needs do they appear to you? Above all, can they do what you want them to do for you? Do they help you understand your options and can they implement the strategy you choose?

Remember, if you don't understand and respect the lawyer you are choosing to advise you or advocate your position, neither will the person on the other side of the conference table and neither will the judge or jury who will hear your case. If the lawyer can't explain the case to you in a way that makes sense, then how can they do it for you?

And one last thing: Keep asking these questions. Not just before you pick your lawyer, but throughout the time she is handling the case for you. There is nothing worse than investing substantial time, money, and attention to a legal problem when you don't have confidence in your attorney. Your lawyers are supposed to be on your side, and that means you should have the utmost faith in how they represent your interests.

In other words, picking and working with lawyers is just like everything else in life: there is a very direct connection between the quality of the people you work with and the results you obtain.

© 2001 The Majorie Firm, Limited Partnership. All Rights Reserved.
Disclaimer

Unless otherwise noted, all attorneys of the firm are not certified by The Texas Board of Legal Specialization.
EACH CASE IS DIFFERENT: PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS.
Principal Office: Dallas, Texas.