LAW FIRM OF THE MONTH Squire Patton Boggs How Microsoft Teams Can Improve Your Legal Practice Protecting Communications With Law Firm In-House Legal CounselJaburg Wilk Family Law Group • Parenting Time • Legal Decision Making • Divorce • Legal Separation Our family law attorneys earned their reputation in high-conflict, high-stake divorce cases. They are skillful and knowledgeable in divorce and family law matters. Experience Matters - Certified Family Law Specialist, Super Lawyers, Super Lawyer Rising Stars and Best Lawyers • Mediation • Paternity • Post Decree Modifications • Pre-Marital and Post-Marital Agreements Services 602.248.1000 | jaburgwilk.com | 3200 N. Central Avenue | Phoenix, AZ 85012 (800) 282-9786 AHERNINSURANCE.com AZ LIC #1800012964 Over 300 Years of Experience Working With Law Firms Founded in 1997, AHERN Insurance Brokerage has become an industry leader in providing customized insurance solutions for law firms. Our professional and competent staff brings over 300 years of combined experience working solely with law firms in brokering services, underwriting, risk management, and claims. AHERN is a part of Acrisure LLC, one of the top 10 insurance brokerages in the world and the fastest growing in industry history. AHERN, along with Acrisure, insures over 7,500 law firms nationwide with firms ranging from 1 to 1,100 attorneys. Experience does make a difference. W. Brian Ahern 27 years Tamara Bartels 33 years Susan Kilano 22 years Kevin Ahern 16 years Michael Davidson 32 years Randy Gust 10 years Sheila Denessen 18 years Kelley Milks 28 years Summer Gorsica 18 years Reid Middleton 11 years AHERN is an Official Member Benefit Provider of the State Bar of Arizona. Stephen Lowe 33 years Tracy Podzimek 18 years Gabriel Yu 14 years Shawn Royle 24 years Welcome to another issue of Attorney at Law Magazine Phoenix! This year, for me, has reminded me of the milestones in a business’ history. While we at At- torney at Law Magazine have celebrated our own, we’re pleased to be able to share the story of a law firm’s local milestone. Squire Patton Boggs, a global firm with 44 offices in 19 countries, celebrates 40 years of business here in the Phoenix market. In this issue, we sat down with managing partner Pedro Miranda and others at the Phoenix office of Squire Patton Boggs to discuss the firm’s success here in Arizona. I hope you enjoy learning more about this firm and its team members. As always, our Talk of the Town section brings you some highlights from the local legal community—new hires, promo- tions, awards, association elections and more. Be sure to visit our website to check out up-to-date articles, upcoming events, latest news and more. We invite you, our readers, to join the discussion. Submit an article, a press release, an upcoming events or participate in our Readers Respond. I look forward to hearing from you. Happy reading, Ken Minniti EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER 480-219-9716 KMINNITI@TMMPUBLICATIONS.COM FROM THE Publisher Attorney at Law Magazine is published by: Target Market Media Publications Inc. Copyright ©2019, Target Market Media all rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part is strictly prohibited. Advertising rates on request. Bulk third class (standard) mail. Although every precaution is taken to ensure accuracy of published materials, Attorney at Law Magazine & Target Market Media cannot be held responsible for opinions expressed or facts supplied by authors. Corporate Office : 5828 North 7th Street, Suite 200 Phoenix, AZ 85014 Phone (480) 219-9716 www.tmmpublications.com • info@tmmpublications.com CONTRIBUTING Editors DAVE KINSEY Ken Minniti PRESIDENT & CEO Howard LaGraffe VICE PRESIDENT Caitlin Keniston EDITOR Jaqueline Dávila GRAPHIC DESIGN Veronica Jauregui ASSISTANT EDITOR Dragana Kartalija ADMINISTRATION Dan Baldwin Frederick Shelton Jackson Williams CONTRIUTING WRITERS Bill Gallagher, DC, CMVI Daniel W. Hager Dave Kinsey Mitchell Reichman CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Andrew Paul PHOTOGRAPHY Northern Alabama | Atlanta | Chicago | Dallas | Ft. Lauderdale Jacksonville | Los Angeles | Miami | Minnesota North Carolina Triangle | Ohio | Philadelphia | Phoenix | San Antonio Salt Lake City | Middle Tennessee | Washington D.C. BILL GALLAGHER MITCHELL REICHMAN DANIEL W. HAGER 4 ATTORNEY AT LAW MAGAZINE · PHOENIX· VOL. 11 NO. 66 AHERN Insurance Brokerage Vendor Spotlight 8 The Viable Alternative to BigLaw Has Arrived—Virtual Law By Frederick Shelton 10 How Microsoft Teams Can Improve Your Legal Practice By Dave Kinsey 11 Automobile Insurance Issues By Bill Gallagher, DC, CMVI 12 Squire Patton Boggs Law Firm of the Month 18 Protecting Communications With Law Firm In-House Counsel By Daniel W. Hager SPECIAL SECTIONS 20 Talk of the Town 21 Upcoming Events 12 6 TABLE OF Contents Business Valuation Marital Dissolutions • Shareholder Disputes • Tax Purposes Buy/Sell Agreements Litigation Support Forensic Accounting • Commercial Damages Expert Testimony • Other financial consulting services Brendan J. Kennedy, CPA/ABV/CFF, CVA, ASA Canyon Financial Services, LLC Email: bkennedy@canyon n.com Phone: (602) 363-2698 Website: www.canyon n.com 5VENDOR SPOTLIGHT “ AHERN Insurance Broker- age is an industry leader in the world of lawyers profes- sional liability insurance. That’s our niche. We special- ize in law firms and can write any line of coverage that they may need. Our agents bring more than 300 years of combined experience working solely with law firms in brokering services, underwriting, risk management and claims,” says Randy T. Gust, vice pres- ident, AHERN Insurance Brokerage. The boutique brokerage firm is one of the strongest full-service insurance brokerages in the nation specializing in law firms. Founded by William Bri- an Ahern in 1997, the brokerage firm has grown to a staff of 40 professionals serving clients throughout the United States. AHERN is endorsed by the San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego County Bar Associations; is the desig- nated broker for the Orange County Bar Association; and is an Official Member Benefit Provider of the State Bar of Arizona. In 2015 AHERN became part of Acrisure, LLC, one of the top 10 in- surance brokerages in the world and the fastest growing in industry his- tory. Together they now insure more than 8,000 law firms nationwide, with firms ranging in size from one to 1,100 attorneys. USING A STRONG INDUSTRY REPUTATION TO LEVERAGE THE MARKET Due to their specialization and strong industry reputation, Gust says that AHERN has direct access to car- riers that a lot of other brokers do not. Many brokerage firms have to go through a wholesaler to access mar- kets, which puts the client one step further from the negotiating table. “They can’t just pick up the phone and talk to the person who is making the decisions. Because of the personal relationships we have built through- out the years, I can pick up the phone and get underwriters, heads of pro- grams and claims handling online with my client that same day. That goes a long way when you’re negotiat- ing renewal terms on behalf of your client. Our personalized service gives us a big leg up as opposed to a broker- age firm that doesn’t specialize in law firms and doesn’t have direct access to grow these relationships,” he says. As an example of AHERN’s suc- cessful approach, Gust cites the case of a Los Angeles law firm that had been insured with an insurance car- rier for many years but was paying above market price for their insurance – more than $120,000 in premium per year. “Their broker was completely asleep at the wheel. We dug in there, did some shopping and got them a much stronger policy for almost $40,000 less. It’s not that their old carrier was a bad carrier. They just weren’t the right carrier for this client. We run into that situation quite often.” STATE OF THE MARKET AND THE BENEFITS OF BUILDING CARRIER CONTINUITY Currently the insurance market is seeing a lot of carriers come in and out of California because of the large amount of premium in the market. Gust notes that oftentimes new insur- ance carriers coming into the mar- ket may try to undercut the market and buy the business. For example, if a policy costs $2,000 in Colorado, chances are that the same policy costs $4,000 in California. Carriers believe they can write such a policy for 25 percent less and make huge profits. These new carriers offer policies that are somewhat competitive, but they don’t have a lot of financial strength and claims handling experience back- ing them up. Many carriers fail and end up having to leave the market, as they didn’t price their product ap- propriately to keep up with the claims they ultimately end up paying. When an attorney or law firm jumps from a blue chip carrier with a lot of experience, to a new insurance carrier lacking in experience and/or financial strength, they can find themselves in the unfortunate situation of trying to get the claim settled as cheaply as pos- sible. Conflict inevitably results. Although pricing is a significant factor in purchasing liability insur- ance, many law firms make the mis- take of approaching insurance cover- age as if they were purchasing a price- driven commodity. Gust says there is true value in working with insurance carriers that have been in the lawyers market for a long time. Their under- writers understand the risk and are less likely to leave the market. Over- all, lawyers should seek to establish a long-term relationship with an insur- ance carrier that understands the risk in the legal industry because the car- rier will be less likely to non-renew a policy in the event of a claim, due to the established history and relation- ship with the insurance carrier. A firm that that jumps around to the cheapest alternative every year can’t build continuity or real personal relationships. “If you have a claim, the carrier is going to non-renew your policy and you’re stuck right out of the gate try- ing to find a new home in a hard-to- place market, which could be sub- stantially more expensive than if you were to be renewed by your current carrier.” AHERN Insurance Brokerage Unique Expertise BY DAN BALDWIN 6 ATTORNEY AT LAW MAGAZINE · PHOENIX· VOL. 11 NO. 6place. Because of our repu- tation and large business volume, underwriters are willing to go out on a limb for us as opposed to a broker they don’t know. Our level of expertise matched with those strong industry part- nerships can be extremely beneficial to our clients,” Gust says. PERSONALIZED SERVICE FROM A TRUSTED ADVISOR Gust says that working well over the long term with insurance carriers and lawyers is like starting, building and maintaining any personal relationship. Getting to work closely with the clients and carrier representatives and knowing them as human beings is an es- sential element of success. “We have frequent meetings with our carriers, we talk about the markets, and we talk about what we need for our clients to grow that that symbiotic rela- tionship. You build and maintain that trust.” “We advise our firms that the strength and expertise of a carrier is of utmost importance when selecting a professional liability carrier, as essentially they are purchasing catastrophic insurance. They definitely want a strong part- ner in the event that something goes wrong. We are also proud to have some of the best re- lationships with many carriers in the market- AHERN INSURANCE BROKERAGE 9655 Granite Ridge Drive, Suite 500 San Diego, CA 92123 (858) 514-7137 aherninsurance.com rgust@ aherninsurance.com We advise our firms that the strength and expertise of a carrier is of utmost importance when selecting a professional liability carrier, as essentially they are purchasing catastrophic insurance. They definitely want a strong partner in the event that something goes wrong.” “ 7I’m miserable. I hate the hours, the politics, the bu- reaucracy and everything else. But I’m making over $500K here and my clients won’t port to another firm unless it has attorneys with the same pedigree and all the practice areas that I have now. If you can find me something where they have all that AND I can have more control over my practice, rates and lifestyle, I’ll move in a minute.” This was a request I’d heard a thou- sand times during my career as a legal recruiter. The year was 1999 (when $500K was pretty good money) and I was on the phone with an AmLaw 100 partner who was obviously unhappy but didn’t seem to have much in the way of choices. The viable alternative to BigLaw has been the Holy Grail for decades. But where else could a partner work with Fortune 100 clients in a sophisticated practice area, and make the money made at BigLaw? We asked hundreds of BigLaw partners what would be necessary to move their practice to an alternative and eight attributes were identified: 1. Less Overhead / More Entrepre- neurial. 2. Superior Credentials & Full-Ser- vice Capability. 3. Command Authority Over Prac- tice. 4. Better Lifestyle. 5. Better Value to Clients. 6. Less Bureaucracy. 7. Real Back Office, Tech and Mar- keting Support. 8. Cross-Selling and “Sense of Com- munity.” THE NEW BREED OF LAW FIRM The first firm we identified that met the above criteria was a hybrid brick & mortar / virtual law firm named Rimon Law. They started in Silicon Valley as a purely virtual firm but have since opened brick & mortar offices in seven markets. When we examined their attorney bios, we saw an abundance of top law schools and AmLaw experience, as well as full- service capabilities. Additionally their CEO, Michael Moradzadeh confirmed that in addi- tion to paying partner 70 percent on their work, a whopping 34.7 percent of all gross revenues result from cross- selling. This merited a campaign to identify other outliers. Nice Firm! Won’t Work for BigLaw Partners Though The largest and easiest to find vir- tual law firms and ASLPs (Alternative Legal Service Providers) looked good and paid up to 80 percent on rev- enues. But our due diligence showed the overwhelming majority of these firms fell into one of two categories: 1. A collection of solo practitioners who happened to be on the same website. There was no real back of- fice, tech or marketing support. 2. A tech, temp or other business, that also happened to have virtual attor- neys but who would never scale and compete directly with BigLaw. While both of those models can be profitable, our data indicated these were not what BigLaw partners were seeking. After years of interviews and research, we have identified only sev- en firms who meet the criteria. While this may seem to indicate the proliferation of such virtual law firms is unlikely, the opposite is true. Virtual or hybrid firms have captured Fortune 100 clients and are managing Virtual Law BY FREDERICK SHELTON The Viable Alternative to BigLaw Has Arrived 8 ATTORNEY AT LAW MAGAZINE · PHOENIX· VOL. 11 NO. 6deals and litigation in the hundreds of millions. Not only are virtual law firms like Rimon offering brick & mortar loca- tions but now, brick & mortar firms are expanding on a virtual basis. Chris Wilson is a partner who left one of the largest virtual firms, to join Taylor English, a brick & mortar firm based in Atlanta. He described why he left a virtual firm but has (with management) determined the virtual platform is the best way to expand in modern times. “I previously worked for a 150+ at- torney virtual firm where there was zero marketing or IT support. That’s not going to work for most attorneys who are accustomed to the resources of BigLaw. When Taylor English de- cided to expand on a national basis, we decided to do so through attorneys working remotely. Lower risk and no long-term real estate obligations. This allows us to pay 80% on their book and still offer the support that comes with paralegals, associates, and all the back-office support needed to handle the largest of deals or cases.” Warning: This Isn’t for Everybody Jill Williamson is a former virtual law firm attorney. While she seemed to view her former virtual law firm colleagues with genuine admiration, the platform didn’t work for her. She offers this caveat: “The virtual firm I worked at was purely performance based. (Note: there are now virtual and hybrid firms that offer draws). So it’s not enough to have a marketing plan. You have to have the clients who will port with you.” This was repeated by every former virtual law firm attorney we spoke to, with one exception. We spoke to a partner who has a loyal client base but was clear that other factors that should be taken into consideration. I spoke with Paula Jill Krasny, a trademark and branding lawyer, at length regarding her time spent in BigLaw, virtual law, and now a full- service, mid-size firm in Chicago, Levenfeld Pearlstein. At one point, Ms. Krasny was re- cruited to help spearhead the Chicago presence of a virtual law firm. While her experience at the virtual firm was positive, she missed the in-person in- teraction and collaboration. Although she could have chosen to re-enter the BigLaw ranks, she instead joined Levenfeld Pearlstein. She was attracted by the firm’s entrepreneurial and collaborative culture as well as its flexibility and camaraderie. For her, it represented the sweet spot between BigLaw and virtual law. Of note, is the fact that of the five partners we interviewed who left vir- tual law firms, none of them returned to BigLaw. Without exception, they went to boutiques or elite mid-sized firms like Levenfeld Pearlstein. In contrast, the partners at the ex- ceptional virtual and hybrid firms were nothing less than ebullient. Su- san Metcalfe is a former AmLaw 100 partner who now works at Potomac Law Group, a virtual law firm that started in Washington D.C. and has been growing nationally. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life,” she beamed. “When I was at BigLaw, I saw people who made a lot of money but were absolutely miserable. I was one of them. I was a partner and I had no control over my rates or whether I could charge based on flat fees or other alternative fee arrangements, I had to deal with un- reasonably high demands in terms of conflicts, billables, grueling hours and bureaucracy, in order to feed a system that was dysfunctional. “Here, it’s not about racking hours and stats in order to appease the com- mittee who decides your compensa- tion. It’s about putting real value and real relationships with clients first.” Rimon Law Partner Lisa-Marie Monsanto focused more on the differ- ence between Rimon and “eat-what- you-kill” virtual firms where cross- selling is non-existent. “That is simply not true at Rimon. As a finance lawyer I regularly work with and cross mar- ket my colleagues in tax, real estate, litigation, bankruptcy and intellectual property. What is different at Rimon is that we do not have the tremendous overhead found at traditional law firms. Our clients want excellent le- gal services at a reasonable cost. They place less emphasis on large teams and Class A office space. “On a personal level, Rimon pro- vides a great work-life balance for many of us wanting to help aging par- ents and spend more time with our families.” Clients also seem to appreciate what these new firms have to offer. Stacy Papadopoulos is the General Counsel of the American Gaming As- sociation. “My primary contacts (at the vir- tual firm) are from big law firms, of- ten with in-house experience, who graduated from top law schools. So the quality of representation and le- gal product is never a question. An experienced in-house counsel knows that most of the work they send out, doesn’t require a dozen lawyers charg- ing close to $1,000 an hour. Nowa- days, I usually prefer to send work to our virtual firm as they provide a much higher level of value.” Ms. Papadopoulos does point out a significant weakness that is largely due to the fact that these firms are rel- atively nascent in their development, as compared to the 100 year old be- hemoths against whom they compete. “If these new firms have an Achil- les Heel, it’s that they’re not yet big enough to take on certain niche mat- ters like antitrust or ‘Bet the Com- pany’ litigation. However, 90% of our legal needs do not fall into those cat- egories.” THE TAKEAWAY: BIGLAW & MID- MARKET FIRMS ARE IN TROUBLE Virtual and hybrid law firms truly are viable alternatives to BigLaw. With payouts ranging from 60-80 percent on business, the math isn’t tough for those with even a modicum of porta- ble business. They are going continue capturing both premium clients and partners from BigLaw. More virtual firms will appear and more brick & mortar firms will offer remote work- ing platforms. For BigLaw, pandora’s box has been opened and the virtual platform is what has appeared. As the Nobel Laureate once said “The times, they are a changing.” FREDERICK SHELTON IS THE CEO OF SHELTON & STEELE, A LEGAL RECRUITING AND CONSULTING FIRM, BASED OUT OF LAS VEGAS. SINCE 1993, FREDERICK HAS WORKED WITH ASSOCIATES, COUNSEL, PARTNERS, GROUPS AND COORDINATED LAW FIRM MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS. 9Next >