For those of you in the New York area, or who might be here the first week of October, here’s a heads-up about a day long conference on the topic of alternative fees that Adam Smith, Esq. will be hosting and which we developed, and we warmly invite you to attend.
Here’s the summary of what it’s about:
There has been much hand-wringing and ink spilled on the topic of AFAs. Will they take over? What do they look like? What permutations do they come in? Aren’t they just “code” for clients demanding discounts?
Is the billable hour dead?
Unfortunately, most of these discussions have provided far more heat than light. It’s time to demystify matters.
It’s probably safe to say that AFAs are more complicated than the billable hour. That said, they are not intrinsically hard and they are most definitely not mysterious.
Most industries, including professional service firms, profitably manage the necessary resources to deliver effective, efficient, predictable solutions to their clients. The law is no different. (Indeed, it’s the heavy reliance on the billable hour which is distinctive to law firms.)
What most discussions about AFAs have left out is what law firms need to do – and, yes change in order to be able to offer their clients a menu of pricing options, including AFAs.
Above all, with AFAs, firms (and clients) need to be willing to experiment. The genius of the scientific method is that you learn things even from experiments that fail. “There’s a reason we call it research; we don’t know what we’re doing.”–Albert Einstein.
This one-day workshop is intended to address that void – both in terms of how law firm models may need to change and implementation requirements and challenges.
Let’s agree that AFAs are here to stay. Now what?
The goal of this is not to be your typical (forgive me) series of static talking-head presentations, but to be a genuinely interactive and participative workshop-like event where we can get well past the gallons of ink that have been spilled on whether or not AFAs are “coming” and start to deal with, “So now what do I and my firm do?”
What you need to know:
- Date & Time: Tuesday, October 5, 2010: 8:30 am – 5:00 pm
- Location: AMA Executive Conference Center, 1601 Broadway (48th Street, Crowne Plaza Hotel–north side of 48th, between Broadway and Eighth Ave), New York
- Topic: What You Need to Know to Make Alternative Fee Arrangements Work
- Key Contributors:
- Tom Clay, Principal, Altman Weil, Inc.
- Jim Hassett, Ph.D., Founder, LegalBizDev
- Janet Stanton, Partner, Adam Smith, Esq.
- and of course yours truly.
- Agenda:
- Varieties of AFAs
- Implications of AFAs for law firm structures
- Structural & strategic
- Implementation & execution
- Intersection of AFAs with project management and financial reporting and analysis
- Implications of AFAs for client relationship development
Registration and more information is here.
Please note that there’s a 15% discount for signing up before August 31.
Hope you can make it! Please let me know if you have questions, and do me the favor of shooting me a quick heads-up if you’ll be there.
