Alternative Fees Put Tucker Ellis & West on Hot List

By Janet O'Hara, Marketing Director, Tucker Ellis & West LLP in Cleveland, OH.  She can be reached at 216.696.4569 and janet.ohara@tuckerellis.com.

There is good reason to view recognition awards with a skeptical eye these days.  Lawyers are spending an unfortunate amount of time and money nominating each other for various lists, and then paying handsomely to publish the results.  Time and money that could be better used on client service training and other efforts to improve results for the customers of the firm are being spent on “ego advertising.”

But sometimes law firm recognition comes about through the one source that should, and does, truly matter – the client.  Tucker Ellis & West (TEW) recently had that precise situation take place, which led to our being named to the list of 20 firms on the National Law Journal’s Midsize Hot List, and featured in the publication.

Tucker Ellis & West is a 140+ attorney firm with offices in Cleveland, Columbus, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco.  The firm serves several large national litigation clients, a majority of the largest D&O and insurance carriers in the world, national and international patent clientele, and sophisticated business clients for whom we individually tailor our client service teams.   

Only 20 firms with attorney numbers ranging from 50 – 300 were selected from an extensive list of nominees. The editor’s note on selection states: “Those included here have shown the nimbleness and adaptability that come from lean operations and strong client ties.”

General counsel thought of law firm 

The General Counsel of one of TEW’s clients saw the information about the Hot List, thought of TEW and contacted an attorney at the firm. TEW attorneys then discussed the nomination with additional clients who not only agreed with the idea, but were pleased to have the opportunity to be included in the nomination and comment on why they think TEW is “hot.”

The clients’ reasons for believing TEW should be recognized were a validation of what legal marketers have said for years:  it’s all about service and relationships.   Specifics listed by the clients included:

• “Off the clock” calls and emails from TEW attorneys
• Efficient, effective handling of matters
• A willingness to actually talk about how the firm was doing and might be able to do better (and then actually following through on the suggestions)
• Great lawyers and team members who are also nice people
• In nearly every case, the firm’s willingness to pursue mutually rewarding fee arrangements designed to align the interests of the law firm with those of the client.

In presenting its Hot List, the National Law Journal did a feature story on TEW entitled “Alternative Fee Arrangements Are So 2003.”  The date alludes to the fact that when TEW was formed in 2003, the firm committed to three “big ideas” that it believed were long overdue for the legal profession:  1) rewarding our lawyers for what they accomplish as opposed to merely billing time; 2) working with our clients on alternatives to the billable hour; and 3) a constant focus on training and mentoring our more junior lawyers on our nickel. 

TEW has stuck with those original ideas.  Attorneys are rewarded in a closed compensation system for what they accomplish, rather than simply how many hours they bill.  Training and mentoring occur at the firm without penalizing less experienced lawyers for time spent learning legal skills. And most significantly in the current economy, in a world where firms garner praise for their “willingness to entertain the idea” of alternative fees, TEW generates more than 40% of its fees under arrangements other than the billable hour.  Having committed to providing alternative fee arrangements in 2003, the firm has been consistently ahead of the curve.

A number of good things have been happening for TEW.  In addition to being included in the NLJ Hot List, recent client-based recognition includes being named a 2009 “Go-To” law firm by Corporate Counsel Magazine, and a “Client Service A-Team” firm in The BTI Survey of Client Service Performance for Law Firms, an independent survey of corporate counsel at Fortune 1000 companies.  The firm was also recently recognized for “Best in Class Awareness” in BTI’s Survey of National Market Awareness for Law Firms. TEW is ranked the #1 product liability firm in the U.S. for cases handled by Product Liability Law 360 and has been named to the 2009 U.S. Legal 500 in the area of Product Liability. 

Editor's note: The Hot List winners are:

1.  Tucker Ellis & West

2.  Adams and Reese

3.  Bowman and Brooke

4.  Butler, Snow, O'Mara, Stevens & Cannada

5.  Carlton Fields

6.  Ford & Harrison

7.  Gibbons

8.  Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn

9.  Kean Miller Hawthorne D'Armond McCowan & Jarman

10. Levenfeld Pearlstein

11. McDonough Holland & Allen

12. McKool Smith

13. Much Shelist Denenberg Ament & Rubenstein

14. Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler

15. Pryor Cashman

16. Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi

17. Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox

18. Turner Padget Graham & Laney

19. Warner Norcross & Judd

20. Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean