In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Duc Trang discuss:
Key Takeaways:
"In fact, [General Counsel are] probably talking to the firm because they've already been vetted that you have technical expertise, what they want to understand are two things: Do you understand my business and my business problem of which legal is only apart? And how would you marshall the resources at the firm to try to help you solve this business problems?" — Duc Trang
Connect with Duc Trang:
Website: MLAGlobal.com
LinkedIn: Duc V. Trang
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
Duc Trang 0:00
You know, we do the really high end stuff. But our client has, you know, a lot of NDA or procurement contracts, can we partner with a smaller or, you know, firm that we trust, and we bring them into the account to deliver those services at those levels in a way where we have the firm to manage the account, but we have a partner that can deliver what our clients need.
Narrator 0:28
You're listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode your hosts, author and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin, we'll take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here's your host, Steve Fretzin!
Steve Fretzin 0:51
Hello, everybody, welcome to the show. Be that lawyer. I'm Steve Fretzin, your host and really excited to introduce my guest today, author, GC, executive coach, career advisor Duc Trang. How you doing Duc? Good, don't really well, thanks. Awesome. Awesome. I appreciate your being being with us today is my my audience knows I don't get into a long bio with my guests. But I'd love to hear you give your Reader's Digest version if you wouldn't mind.
Duc Trang 1:18
I currently am a managing director at major Lindsey Africa. And many of you may know that MLA is probably the largest search recruiter for love for partners as well as general counsel. So a big part of our business is placing partners and general counsel into law firms and as well as in house departments. I'm on the advisory side. So basically, management consultant to General Counsel as well as law firms. So I've been doing this consulting work for about two, three years prior to this, I was in house, I was global General Counsel of one of the business divisions at Motorola Solutions. And I was also a general counsel of Asia and the lease for motor solutions for Samsung has about 15 years of my role, as well as with IBM. Prior to my in house career, I was in private practice about 10 years first with Whiting case in Asia. And then DLA Piper in Silicon Valley. So pat the opportunity to practice law in California, Asia, Middle East, and now I'm based in London.
Steve Fretzin 2:22
Awesome, awesome. And yeah, we know major Lindsey Africa very well here in Chicago and around the US, as you know, it's the biggest player in in the marketplace. So just out of curiosity, I know that you're a lawyer yourself, obviously. But what inspired you to work with lawyers instead of actually practicing law or staying in that course?
Duc Trang 2:40
Yeah, when I was in house, General Counsel, obviously, I managed large teams globally, I managed, last hired and fired law firms. I worked with leaders. And so what I was interested in was, was really looking at what value really effective and good lawyers. What do they do to contribute the kind of value that clients want and appreciate I willing to pay for both from an in house as well as, as a, you know, law firm perspective. So I took as part of my job, I kind of did some deep dive into kind of talent management, looked at work that lawyers did in transactional lawyer in leadership and end up writing a book on on transactional learning, exploring how we can train lawyers better in development with complex skills that clients want and are willing to pay for. And so part of my work I did, you know, I decided to I thought it was more interesting to work with lawyers to help them be better, be more effective, rather than just practicing law.
Steve Fretzin 3:45
You know, and I have an interesting question for you. Many of the lawyers that I work with focus on, you know, trying to get into meet general counsel's, and they struggle with that, and we work on those skills, and I've got a number of things that I suggest to get in, but you've been on obviously, on both sides. What are what are just one or two things that that, you know, so because no one wants to be a hard sales man or are trying to, like, you know, just meet meet a general counsel to present, you know, aggressively they'd rather do it more naturally, or, but they still want an opportunity? What are some things that that you appreciated when a lawyer would try to get in touch with you or would try to talk to you to get to get the ball rolling business, for example, even though you're obviously already with, you know, different firms is, Are there things that that you like that as far as their approaches or things that that you didn't? Like?
Duc Trang 4:34
It's a great question, by the way, it's a critical question that most law firms ask if I could start with a story. So if you use or when I was General Counsel out in Asia, and at least with Motorola, you know, a lot of firms used to pitch business to me and one firm took me to a very nice lunch. And they brought along a partner who by reputation was the the best telecoms partner in, in Asia. And, you know, they're saying, look, you know, we worked on these regulatory issues and telecom And then we worked on these telecom deals. And you know, since our telecoms expert, and you know, overall, it's a great telecommunication company, and we think we could really help you, because we're great telecom lawyers, and halfway through the lunch, and it was a very expensive and nice life, I realized that this firm, and this person had did not know my business at all, because they really knew my business, they would say, do we understand that Motorola goes to has these two key market segments, the first market segment, you're selling through distribution, so the legal issues, you're facing more on disputes with distributors, you know, access to market procurement? And also on the other side, we know your other big business, you're going you're selling large contracts to governments. So what are some of your key legal pain points there? Is it you know, fcpa? Is it complex contracting, they did not know my business enough to engage me in that kind of conversation, all they were trying to do is sell their expertise. And that's the problem with most most law firms. They walk in and try to sell their expertise, which has worked for many of them, particularly the top law firms. But for the middle law, you know, the middle tier, the general counsel, really doesn't want to know that because they can get that information on the website, or whatever the case may be. In fact, they're probably talking to the firm, because they've already been vetted that you have technical expertise, what they want us to understand are two things. Do you understand my business and my business problem of which legals only a part? And number two, how would you, you know, Marshal the resources at the firm to try to help me solve this business problems. So when we hear terms like, we want clients to be client centric, we want to, we want lawyers to be client centric, understand our business, that's what it means. It goes beyond, you know, reading the 10 Q's with 10 Ks, but really getting into the business model that accompany and the general counsel and having that deeper conversation about the pain points and the general counsel.
Steve Fretzin 7:02
Yeah, Ithink that's really great advice. And I can't tell you how many times I've had my clients come back with a success story, because they were prepared or over prepared, they really knew they're there, either clients or process prospective clients business. And and that was a key element. So I think that's really, really great ideas. Let me ask you this. How about take a step back? How would someone even get a meeting with you? How did they even just it? Was it just the name of their firm was a big name? Or was it was or was there someone that introduced this individual in that that sort of asked for the favor asked for the meeting? what's the what's the step to get in the door with a high level GC?
Duc Trang 7:41
So I would answer that question a couple ways. I mean, that all the surveys, you know, confirm that General Counsel trust the the advice and recommendations appear General Counsel, so you're only likely to get in to see General Counsel, if you've been recommended by a pure General Counsel. Well, what does that mean? That means that you should, a firm should really focus on their current client base, and really develop that brand as not only that excellent legal expert, but also a strategic business adviser. And there are two benefits to that one, you know, it's a lot cheaper to develop additional business, from your existing client base. And I think most firms can do a lot better in delivering more value, and therefore, a creating additional revenue stream from it from their current client base. And from one if you develop those deep relate with your current client base, and those clients are much more effective in making those introductions to other GCS in getting you that that meeting for new accounts important business.
Steve Fretzin 8:47
Yeah, and something that I work on regularly with lawyers is the language that they need to use with their existing GC client to get the introduction to the other GC at the other company or a sister or sister company. And that's really what lawyers struggle with is making that ask really just like, what's the language like, I don't want to bother my GC client with with a favor or to get into meet other people. Yet, I think without asking, it's just not going to happen. Is that a fair assessment?
Duc Trang 9:19
I think certain certainly it doesn't hurt to ask. But you obviously you have to set the right conditions for asking. What's more important is that a lot of referrals come when you're not asking. And and it's those GCS you know, so for example, my pure GC would call me and say, Hey, Duke, you know, we have an acquisition coming to Thailand, who would you use? And, you know, I would say, Well, you know, these are the three firms on my paddle and I would use this firm for that reason I would do that for that reason. And so you want to have that headspace of your current clients so that they will have conversations about you when you're not in the room or when you're not asking. I mean, that is how you build a sticky brand. Increasing.
Steve Fretzin 10:01
Yeah. Yeah, that's really great. So I think again, I think you have to mine, the, you know, information from your client, you know, to to get an introduction, but then that's proactively but then reactively you know, they need to they need to be thinking about you when someone comes to them and says, Who do you know, you need to be the first person on their list? Absolutely. So let me ask it changing not subjects, but changing kind of direction a little bit. You know, just what kinds of things are you seeing now, challenges and issues that lawyers and law firms are having, let's say before the Coronavirus and then now with the Coronavirus situation, what are some things that you're seeing? And then how do you step in and help them to I think that would be good to share?
Duc Trang 10:45
Yeah, so, you know, before the pandemic, there were a number of trends in the market, that the pandemic and economic crisis have merely accelerated the trends ones obviously is is the, you know, the effect of the law firm model. Number two is, you know, the, the GC being more choosy about who to use, and also their number three, the different competitors coming into the market, either, you know, boutique law firms or technology, or even General Counsel hiring more in house lawyers, rather than going outside to external. And those trends have just been accelerated by the number two, you know, from a law firm industry point of view. If you look at the numbers, particularly in North America, most of the growth was driven by the top 5% of firms anyway. So those winners before the pandemic are clear winners, during the pandemic, those are the top of the top firms that continue to be busy. During the pandemic, I worry about the bottom 80 or 85% of firms, the middle and the bottom, they were under a lot of margin pressure. Anyway, the general counsel, they were not looked at the firm to go to for bet the company work. And so, you know, pricing was extremely sensitive. And obviously, their economic model, you know, it's highly priced lawyers, you know, that that makes it very difficult as well, the economic condition of those bottom 80 85% will get more decreased, that we're getting becoming increasingly more difficult. And the reason is that General Counsel, today we work with a lot of general counsel on her side, they're under more scrutiny by CFOs, and CEOs to justify why they're spending so much money on external counsel. And I suspect that they're all going to go through their views and probably rationalize and and most likely reduce that external spent. So unless it's bet the company work, external spin is a very easy lever to pull, get for the general counsel to reduce costs. So in part, or work on the other side with firms is part of how we started this conversation. What exactly are you selling it to whom, and number two, is that creating the kind of value that the client that you selected to serve, we'll say, you know, I'm not as price sensitive, because what the delivering is so valuable to me. And number two, I will, you know, give them you know, more business. And so part of it is, is really helping firms redefine the value they're creating beyond legal expertise. And then how do you convey that in your legal service to that your existing clients so that they buy more from you at the same time, they also increase referrals to pure GCS?
Steve Fretzin 13:29
Is part of the value add that lawyers need to sort of put into the mix doing more either maybe cross marketing within their firm or trying to, you know, maybe come up with alternative billing arrangements, fee arrangements, what what are some of the things that that the GCs are looking for, to sharpen their pencil in keep the existing firms there with?
Duc Trang 13:52
So, you know, I'm not one of those who were my general position is that, for example, the billable hour is a dead model. There's certain services and there's certain clients who are willing to pay the bill by art, and that's the most appropriate way to build somebody, for example, you don't really bet the company, we're really unique legal advice. Now, there may be other types of legal services that a client may need, like a lot of contracting on procurement, where for them that the billable hour is not the right billing model, and, and the value to them is not justified by the higher hourly rate. And so if the client selection of that firm is, you know, for those types of legal services that are more commoditize, you will, then they need to do a bit more about you know, what exactly does this client, how did they perceive this value? And you know, which is both a combination of quality as well as pricing, and can we as a firm deliver that quality as well as pricing in a way that we are profitable, but at the same time delivering to them the right kind of quality at the right pricing for that particular client. So, in short, you, you have to start out with a examination and one, the clients that you think you want to service and what they perceive as value, which I described as a combination of quality as well as pricing. And number two, the reexamining your business model and saying, given our selection of clients and what they perceive as value, can we run this business in a way that is profitable for us, and that is, given what we're paying our people are our technology, what is our, our young pricing, that we'd go to market art to be profitable? And that's the kind of analysis that that I like to see in law firms, and unfortunately, many law firms don't, you know, bring the kind of discipline to that analysis.
Steve Fretzin 15:49
Yeah, that's really, really interesting. And so in just a, I don't know, if this is a step back, or just to dig deeper, sounds like if it's a better company, you know, legal matter, litigation, etc, that they're going to stay with the high price firm that they might currently be with. However, if it's if it's other elements that help to cut costs, but still get high service, high quality through maybe the mid market, or a big firm attorney that is now with a boutique, is that an acceptable thing that GCS are going to be interested in more now than ever?
Duc Trang 16:21
Oh, yes, I mean, that that has been an ongoing trend for the last several years. That is, what you describe is is the the general counsel, but I call it deconstructing or unpacking their legal needs, right, the top of the, the N word, the highly complex, unique, the the mid complex work, and then the really non complex work, you know, they would love to have a, so what they're doing is, as they unpack it, they go to the market and say, Is there one firm that can provide, you know, all of that at the right pricing? If not, then I need to go to multiple firms. And so absolutely GCS are, have started that analysis. And if anything, this epidemic will accelerate that analysis. Number two, for those that you know, in your community, who are small and medium sized firms? Well, I what I suggested I say, look, talk to your your contacts and partners at these, you know, top top law firms and think about, can they can you go to market together with the top law firms, there may be accounts where, let's say, a Kirkland and Ellis and let them say, you know, we do the really high end stuff, but our client has, you know, a lot of NDA or procurement contracts. But can we partner with a smaller or, you know, firm that we trust, you know, and we bring them into the account to deliver those services at those levels in a way where we have the firm to manage the account, but we have a partner that can deliver what our clients need.
Steve Fretzin 17:51
Yeah. And I think that's something that many attorneys Don't think about. They don't think about the idea of partnering with attorneys at the big firms. Because if it's, they can only take on a million dollar matter, and something comes across their desk, that's a few 100,000. Well, that's either beneath them or not not, they're just from a price perspective, they're not going to be able to deal with it. But they still want to add value for their clients or be able to refer it out and look look like a hero to their client. And so I think that networking with some of the big firm lawyers is is a great strategy. But I just don't think it's being done enough.
Duc Trang 18:25
Not Not at all. And I have this conversation both in in Europe, as well as Asia, and I don't think firms are having those conversations to the extent that they should.
Steve Fretzin 18:35
Yeah, it's really amazing. So what are lawyers thinking about then today? So we're moving into we've been in this Coronavirus thing for like, you know, five, six months, you know, what I'm hearing on the ground from a lot of people is that things are great, or things have never been better. Like there's a segment of the legal population that's just killing it right now. And I know that there's a segment that isn't I'm not hearing really much from them, which is surprising, because that's a big part of who I help, but I'm not hearing much. And I'm just wondering with with what's going to happen in the next six months or next even next year or two? And how are you seeing that if you could, you know, kind of look in your crystal ball? What do you see is going to come down Come down that path?
Duc Trang 19:15
Yeah. So Steve, I cannot look at trends and try to understand the trends and kind of look a little bit backwards, a little bit forward as well. So absolutely, the top tier firms are have been busy in part because of the numbers that leads from U of M law, or even the bankers, you know, Citibank who does a lot of work for for firms. The first four or five months of the crisis have been generally better than I thought. And the reason is this, most of the work that those firms are doing now were pitched four and one about six to nine months ago. And those projects, you know, continue to be in play. And also number two, some of the demand recently in the last four or five months is for all the novel legal issues that that have arisen from the past. The deck right now, looking forward ahead, you know, those conditions aren't going to be there anymore in the sense that, you know, GCS will have figured out what not the crisis number one. Number two, you know, the projects that were 169 months ago, and that's keeping some of the firms busy, that's going to come to an end pretty soon. Now, the question is, what's going to happen forward on both the demand and supply side, on the demand side, the GC, as I mentioned to you, they're all undergoing deep review. And the CEOs and CFOs are expect him to cut expenses. And external spend is one of the two big levers that they have, they're going to pull in that lever. So I suspect that, as a trend, General Counsel are going to reduce their spend on on law firms. And that was what we saw back in 2009 2010. With the great financial crisis. Number two on the supply side, there continues to be an oversupply of lawyers. Even before the crisis, as you know, there were a lot more graduates than than job the new legal jobs created. What you're going to see is as as this period coming in, and probably end of September, you'll probably see more serious consideration about layoffs in the profession, both on law firm side is also in house. And so what you're going to, you're going to see is that the pipeline of law graduates are, are kind of, let's say, say the same, or maybe they would use a little bit, but there'll be more talent, experienced talent coming into the market, that is going to give alternatives to GCS, who will say, Oh, I don't have to hire a full headcount, I can go to the market and hire contractor who has securities experience, who's very good and was just fired because of the economic crisis from this firm or the case may be. So that's going to give them an additional source of supply of legal of legal suppliers, that they can say to their and CSF. And look, we don't have to go to this law firm for security for 80% of the security advice, what are the top 20% really sensitive stuff, we'll continue to go to Wachtell or whatever the case may be. But you know, everything else, that there's more talent in the market to service the consumer. So I don't you know, I hope that I'm wrong. But I think the long term I can the medium economic, economic trends are going to put even more pressure particularly on you know, the firms in what I call that the middle, the mushy middle.
Steve Fretzin 22:27
Gotcha and, I guess, not necessarily wrapping up. But kind of like the final question, or the final thing I want to kind of hit on is, so then as a lawyer in the market today, you can decide what level you want to you want to, you know, talk about, but what are the things that lawyers should be focusing on now, more than ever to make sure that they don't get hit that with, you know, losing a bunch of business or having their book dropped from 2 million to two, 1 million? Because they just lost, you know, one of their biggest clients? What should they be thinking about and doing now to protect their future with their existing clients?
Duc Trang 23:04
Yeah, you know, I tried to start looking at that, I get a lot of that question. And I want to answer in a couple ways. One is, I think, to bring some perspective, I mean, I look at all the, the successful lawyers that I know, who have had extended careers, and they've all had, you know, many peaks in many balance. And so, you know, I myself with laid off into in 2030, during 2002, during the.com burst. So, I think if you take the perspective that, you know, we will have our successes and lack of successes, then I'll give you some good perspective on, you know, understanding, you know, how to react to the current crisis. Number two, I, you know, in terms of what you can do, like I said, you know, what, what clients want, and I, we talked about in the beginning of this conversation is, does this lawyer who's sitting in front of me, do they understand my context, my environment, my business problem? And what do they bring to the table to help me solve it? I've talked to them because I know that they are good lawyer, but you know, what, my, my problem goes be locked on the john wall. So part of it is is upscaling in, you know, depending on your market segment, really getting into the, you know, your clients pants and say, you know, what, exactly are the business problems that they're facing? What are the choices they're facing? What are some considerations? What do I you know, that I bring any insight judgment, to the conversation? And I think if we you, lawyers take that kind of client centric approach, and are curious about not wanting to learn more about their clients rather than inward looking at themselves, about their legal skills. I think that's the, the most, you know, useful, foundational work that you can do for your career.
Steve Fretzin 24:57
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a transition between being A lawyer or being you know, an advisor or counselor, right? So it's, it's not just, you know, solving a legal problem, I think you have to get in and, and be sort of the consider the Aerie of that of that GC or of that of that CEO, and you're helping them with their business and bringing in resources and adding value in a lot of other ways that that makes you sticky, that makes you, you know, they can't work without you. And if that's the kind of environment that they're in, I think, then that just adds to what you're saying, Duk as far as a very difficult to change lawyers, when you have that kind of an environment, you know, working in a working for you as a lawyer?
Duc Trang 25:41
Absolutely. I mean, at MLA, we have multiple programs, where we kind of we, again, we unpack those different attributes, characteristics are what you know, we were kind of talking about being what a trusted advisor need, well, what are the six or seven muscles. And we because we find that if we, if we unpack those muscles, it's easier to train lawyers for those with those attributes. But you really want to have to change your mindset as a lawyer, and you know, am I going to walk into that room as a legal expert? Or we're going to walk into the room as a trusted adviser?
Steve Fretzin 26:13
Yeah, well, Duk, it's, I mean, everything you've said, makes a ton of sense. And it's clear, you know, you're you're the guy to talk to so how do people get in touch with you? Or is there anything you'd like to promote or share with my audience?
Duc Trang 26:26
Well, you know, if your audience are familiar with major@Lindsey Africa can be contacted, and you know, through through that network, and I'm on LinkedIn as well. And I happy to be happy to chat with anyone who's interested in that as well.
Steve Fretzin 26:38
Well I really appreciate your being on the show. And again, you know, the lawyers that are listening to this, so much to unpack and so much to consider that Duk is shared today that I think is valuable to growing your law practice built, you know, building sustainability, and I love the idea that we got into the weeds a bit about about you know, dealing with the current environment. So you know, thanks again for for for sharing today.
Duc Trang 27:00
Now, thank you for the invitation.
Steve Fretzin 27:01
Now, and listen, everybody, thank you for listening and I hope you enjoyed today's show and and again, you know, some great stuff and you know, the goal is to keep getting closer and closer to being that lawyer, someone who's confident organized in a skilled Rainmaker. Take care everybody be safe.
Narrator 27:21
Thanks for listening to be that lawyer. Life Changing strategies and resources for thrilling a successful law practice. Visit Steve's website Fre.com. For additional information, and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today's episode, check out today's show notes.