Piper Rudnick partner Karen McWilliams is not the first busy lawyer to ask an assistant to arrange a birthday party for her daughter. She may, however, be among the first to have called on an assistant more than 2000 miles away from her office in Reston, VA. "I forget they're in North Dakota," McWilliams says. "I just dial the number and they're there." <br>"They" are the outsourced office staff who work for Piper Rudnick and other law firms out of a support center operated by the CBF Group in Fargo, ND. <br>At a time when discussions of outsourcing focus on possibilities in India, companies like CBF want lawyers to remember there is a "near shore" option as well. Renee Rutter, the president of CBF, is hoping her company will find a niche somewhere between the anonymous document processing work that may go to India and the front-line secretaries whom lawyers interact with every day.

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Psychological tendencies that are at play in traditional negotiating postures greatly impede litigation settlement discussions. Following are several examples of these tendencies.

It's been a decade since the case entitled <i>Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.</i>, 509 U.S. 579 (1993), changed the rules by which federal judges determine the admissibility of expert testimony. <i>Daubert</i> and subsequent opinions refining it have established guidelines for ensuring that expert witnesses use credible methodologies for drawing their conclusions. Many state courts have adopted similar rules. <br>Daubert-related work in some types of litigation is now so costly that attorneys should anticipate it in deciding whether to accept a case. Doing so is aided by a good understanding of Daubert, however, and many attorneys hold a wide variety of misconceptions about the subject.

You've heard the story before and it goes like this. A hardworking associate has served the firm well and is made partner, but he has no practice development experience and no business. Now, he is advised that his world has changed and he must get out from behind his desk and generate business. Notwithstanding his status as a top-performing attorney, he now faces the painful task of prospecting for new clients. Does this sound familiar?

At most firms, the transition to partnership requires that an attorney "buy into" the organization. The amount varies considerably, but it is often more than a year's salary. And partners almost always pay for their benefits out of pocket. And partners' draws are often wildly inconsistent from month to month. The eventual financial rewards of partnership can be huge, but the first couple years aren't easy. <br>And what do law firms do to prepare associates for partnership? If the three stories above are any indication, partners terrify associates, lead them to believe that marketing is a sign of corporate weakness and fail to educate them on the basics of firm finance. All that in preparation for the day when they'll be asked to "buy into" the partnership. If you're asking somebody to buy something, they're a customer. And firms should treat associates like customers from the day they begin interviewing until the day they make partner.

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Loyalty is built on the value/price equation. It says: A client will stay loyal to you as long as he perceives the value of the services he receives to be greater than the fee he pays. Other things are important, too, but if you don't deliver value that is greater than your fee, you will never earn your client's loyalty.

You will find spirited debates in the conference rooms of many law firms about the criticality of employing Client Relationship Management (CRM) processes and technology to better deliver legal services. The promise of CRM is enticing, but it is sometimes misunderstood and under managed.

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When it comes to marketing and client development, law firms with multiple offices or with lawyers who practice in different practice groups face challenges that are substantially different from the issues that single office firms or specialized boutiques must handle. This is true whether the larger firm has only a few practice groups or is a full service general practice firm as well as whether its offices are located in one state, across the same region of the United States, spread widely throughout the U.S., or both here and overseas.