Paul Jacobson Life, law and other stuff

Your lawyer is an extension of your marketing departmentPosted by Paul on April 26th, 2006

Seth Godin believes that your lawyer is an extension of your marketing department:

Most lawyers view their job as a defensive one. They use phrases like, “keeping you out of trouble.”

Unfortunately, when they interact with the public or with a partner or even a landlord, they are marketing your organization, whether they want to or not.

Consider the case of a drugstore chain that accidentally sent out a second rebate check (for $4) to hundreds or thousands of customers. The lawyer drafted a note telling customers (remember, these are the valuable ones, the ones that take action) to discard the second check. Included this line:

We are informing you of this error so you do not incur returned check fees

from your bank, since the check is not valid. Please destroy the duplicate

check.

So, in other words, if you cash the second check by mistake, you’re going to have to pay your bank a $25 bounced check fee on a $4 check because of an error the drugstore made.

One of my favorite lawyers has come to understand that she can do better for her company, negotiate better deals and build better, more profitable customers by acting like a marketer first, a lawyer second.

Scratch that.

Acting like a marketer first is being a good lawyer.

This idea really appeals to me.  If you think about it what Godin is saying is so true.  We forget that your lawyer speaks on your behalf and, in the process, presents a particular image of you to the people he/she is dealing with.  This can be subtle or overt.  An example of a subtle presentation of your company is the way your lawyer treats his/her opponents and words his/her letters.  A more overt way your lawyer presents you to the world is what your lawyer says about you in legal proceedings and how your lawyer goes about either working in or against your interests.

Bottom line?  Make sure your lawyer represents something you agree with or believe in because while your lawyer is out there acting on your behalf, potential clients are forming opinions about you based on what your lawyer says and does (this is a strong argument for making sure you know what your lawyer is doing and why).

Technorati Tags: lawyers, marketing, public image

I’m moving …Posted by Paul on April 26th, 2006

We are moving to a new house on 13 May and with that comes a new home office space for me.  I don’t anticipate any major disruption in my practice as we are moving over a weekend.  I do, however, anticipate a delay in having my phone line moved and this will mean an interruption in my landline and ADSL service.  This move will not affect my fax line (which is a fax to email service), my email accounts or my mobile phone so you will still be able to reach me.

I will post updates here around the time of the move so make a note of this post if you want to keep up to date on my move.

This move means bigger office space, meeting facilities and upgraded data services so I am pretty excited about the whole thing.  It also means my puppies will have a garden to play in all day and that means very happy puppies and a good feeling all around.

Technorati Tags: adsl, moving to new premises, Telkom

Nokia launches three N-series phonesPosted by Paul on April 26th, 2006

Nokia is launching three new N-series phones in the next few months.  There isn’t anything on the Nokia site just yet but Gizmodo and Infosync World have some enticing tidbits.  These phones are designated N72, N73 and N92.  I am pretty keen on the N73.  Here is a brief description of the three phones:

N72

This little bunny has a 2 megapixel camera, Nokia’s new music software, a built-in FM radio and supports uploads directly to Flickr!  Now that is handy for a camera phone!

N73

As I mentioned already, I like this model most of the three new phones.  According to Gizmodo:

The Nokia N73 at right also has the 3.2 MP Zeiss Lens plus a 2.4 inch display, and is meant for users who want to capture quality multimedia but also want their device to be easily pocketable—as you might gather from the photo on top, the N93 is somewhat of a behemoth. It functions on 3G or quadband EDGE/GSM networks, has an FM radio and digital music player, a VGA camera on front for video calls and is expected in July.

The one thing I would like to see in this phone is support not just for 3G but for HSDPA and for that reason I may not bother with this one.  Otherwise, it looks like a pretty cool phone.  I especially like that I can upload to Flickr with this phone.

N93

This model is pretty big, comparatively speaking, and clearly a device intended for a mobile multimedia experience:

The Nokia N93 in the photo above might just be the first device made for serious mobile videoblogging—it takes MPEG-4 VGA video capture at 30 fps, records audio in stereo and has digital stabilization to avoid shaky capture. It features a 3.2 MP (2048×1536 pixels) camera with a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens, 3x optical zoom (20x digital zoom), an active toolbar like you see on many digital cameras that displays details like white balance and exposure, and dedicated shutter, zoom and flash keys. Video and photos can be edited on the N93 and uploaded uncompressed via email, Bluetooth or to blogs or Flickr; multimedia can also be shown on compatible TVs via the included cable or wirelessly over integrated WLAN and UPnP. It runs on WLAN, 3G (WCDMA 2100 MHz), EDGE and GSM (900/1800/1900 MHz) networks, runs on Symbian OS 9 and S60 3rd Edition like all new Nseries phones and should be available July 2006 for €550.

According to Infosync World:

Taking a design cue from its N92 TV phone, Nokia today unveiled the N93, pitching the handset as the ‘ultimate mobile device for spontaneous video recording’. Equipped with a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens with 3x optical zoom, the handset is capable of shooting stills at resolutions up to 3.2 Megapixels and recording video in MPEG4 format at VGA resolution and 30 FPS. Sharing capabilities include the ability to upload recorded content to online albums such as Flickr, Typepad blogs through Nokia Lifeblog, or alternatively direct-to-TV output.

It looks a little chunky and if some of Nokia’s other models are anything to go by, it will probably be quite a big sucker.  Not quite for me although I do like that it will interface with Flickr and TypePad, two services I use quite a lot.

Technorati Tags: camera phone, flickr, n72, n73, n92, nokia, n93, typepad

Today is a good day!Posted by Paul on April 26th, 2006

I am sitting at the Seattle Coffee Shop in Hyde Park (it turns out their wifi isn’t that expensive after all), have just had an excellent pizza at Fratelli and I have selected a particularly good playlist on my iPod which I forgot about.

Just sharing …

Technorati Tags: iPod, fratelli, seattle coffee company

Does your lawyer lack vision?Posted by Paul on April 25th, 2006

In his post titled “Is it Possible For Lawyers to Embrace New Business Models?“, the Greatest American Lawyer wonders whether lawyers just lack vision and the ability to innovate:

Lawyers are so use to arguing with everyone about everything, that they have no vision. The implication of David’s comment is that lawyers are so good at shooting every idea down, that the concept of change or innovation is analogous to blasphemy. Lawyers are such a sarcastic lot, that they lack the creativity to embrace new ideas.

I think that David has hit upon something that is important. Lawyers can be incredibly smart. Moreover, there are even lawyers who are good businesspersons. So why don’t they make the change? Why is innovation in the practice of law so rare in a time in our history where virtually every other business model is evolving, changing and morphing into something the world has never seen?

Lawyers, by their nature, are opposed to…well they are simply opposed to many things. Their job is to oppose people, ideas and concepts. Because the law is such a mystery to so many clients, it is hard to imagine change being demanded from the client side. Of course, giant corporations do sometimes require innovations and change from the mega law firms that they deal with day to day. However, in a medium sized town like I live in, there are no mega corporations. The concept of a business model different from the traditional hourly billing one is blasphemy.

I wonder about the same thing locally.  Law firms are so used to operating in the way they have always operated that it becomes a case that the more things may seem to change in the local legal fraternity, the more it seems they never changed after all and business goes on as usual.  As GAL points out, the world is changing at a blistering rate and while South Africans seem to be sheltered from the rapid pace of innovation and change we see overseas, we can’t remain insulated from this trend for very long.  If we do, we run the risk of being left far behind as the world becomes more and more connected.

This all applies to law firms as much as it does to our clients.  As lawyers, we can’t hope to advise our clients adequately if we fail to keep up with them as they evolve and grow:

It will be impossible for law firms to remain entrenched in their old billing ways when the rest of the world is racing forward with new business models and efficiencies all bent on delivering more value for less money.

Adapt or die?  Or perhaps it is more that if you keep doing what you have always been doing, you will keep receiving what you have always received.

Technorati Tags: innovation, law firms, lawyers

Be specific when you cry foulPosted by Paul on April 25th, 2006

The Supreme Court of Appeal recently reinforced the necessity of carefully setting out your cause of action should you need to sue in terms of an agreement.  In the case of Masterspice (Pty) Ltd v Broszeit Investments CC -

The Supreme Court of Appeal today dismissed an appeal brought by a Cape Town company, Masterspice (Pty) Ltd, against a judgment of the Full Bench of the Cape High Court, which held that it was not entitled to a winding-up order against a Cape Town close corporation, Broszeit Investments CC.

In the winding-up application the appellant alleged that it had cancelled a contract in terms of which it had bought a spice blending business from Broszeit Investments and that it was entitled to return of the purchase price in an amount of not less R3.4 million, which, it said, Broszeit Investments was unable to pay. Mr Justice BM Griesel granted the application but his judgment was overturned on appeal to the Full Bench of the Cape High Court, which held that Masterspice (Pty) Ltd had not shown that it was entitled to cancel the agreement. This was because a clause in the agreement which provided that it could only be cancelled in the event of breach if the breach was incapable of being remedied by payment of money.

The Full Bench held that, though the agreement had been breached because certain recipes to which Masterspice (Pty) Ltd was entitled could not be transferred to it because some belonged to Todays Frozen Foods, a division of Pioneer Foods (Pty) Ltd while others belonged to the insolvent estate of one of the members of Broszeit Investments CC, it had not been shown that this breach was incapable of being remedied by a monetary payment.

In a judgment delivered by Mr Justice IG Farlam, with whom the President of the Court Mr Justice CT Howie, and Justices FDJ Brand, CN Jafta and M Maya concurred, the Supreme Court of Appeal said that it agreed with the Full Bench of the Cape High Court that the appellant had not brought its case within the cancellation clause in the agreement and that the appeal had to be dismissed with costs.

It is not sufficient that simple allegations of a breach of contract are made, particularly where there are restrictive clauses that you may seek to rely upon.

Technorati Tags: masterspice, restrictive clauses, Supreme Court of Appeal

While we wait for the iTunes Music Store …Posted by Paul on April 25th, 2006

Skype has signed a deal with EMI that could open up a whole new channel for music downloads.  According to Times Online:

EMI Music Publishing, the song rights company, yesterday announced a deal with Skype, the internet telephony business, to sell music on Skype’s new retail website.

Under the deal, Skype will be licensed to use song copyrights from EMI’s catalogue to sell music as downloads and ring tones. It is the first time that music copyrights have been licensed worldwide in such a way. Normally licences have to be applied for by the seller on a country-by-country basis, making it more difficult for songwriters to collect payments for their work.

What makes this deal so exciting is that rather than having to wait for a store to open in each country (we are still waiting for the iTunes Music Store to open in South Africa … assuming it ever will), everyone ought to be able to buy music from this new store when it goes live, presumably irrespective of where you live.

The point is that people are prepared to pay for music downloads and it really helps to make the service available to enable that.

(via Cherryflava)

Technorati Tags: emi, music store, music downloads, skype