Innovation in Service

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Crowell & Moring has been a leader in the call for law firms to reinvent their relationship with clients in order to improve client service and forge a true partnership. We have embraced an ambitious effort to think more creatively about how to help our clients' businesses and realign our interests with theirs on issues ranging from better project management to billing arrangements to knowledge management.

We've been a thought leader in addressing why law firms, through commitment to client service, must rethink their business models, their talent-development models, and their fundamental role as critical strategic advisers to businesses they understand intimately.

Read more on how our lawyers, including our chairman, Kent Gardiner, are leading the discussion on the need for fundamental change in how law firms partner with their clients.

"Guide to Value-Based Billing," a publication of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) (May 2012). Chair of Crowell & Moring's Finance Committee Robert A. Lipstein writes the ACC's seminal guide on alternative fee arrangements, laying out the secrets to success for both in-house counsel and law firms.

"In Support of Flat Fee Pricing for Complex Litigation Matters," Corporate Counsel (May 2012). Crowell & Moring Litigation partner Kathryn D. Kirmayer addresses the "last frontier" of fixed fee pricing: complex litigation that is as unpredictable as the Wild West itself.

"How Tomorrow Moves: CSX Uses Scorecards to Help Outside Counsel Stay on Track," ACC Docket (October 2011). In this case study, CSX senior counsel Thomas I. Anderson and Crowell & Moring partners Kathryn D. Kirmayer and Robert A. Lipstein discuss the benefit of tying law firm compensation to performance reviews and scorecards.

"Firms Need To Reinvent Relationships With Clients," The National Law Journal (June 2011). In this first installment of a two-part series about innovating the way law firms work with clients, Crowell & Moring chairman Kent A. Gardiner states that the way law firms can "escape the commodatization trap is to bet more heavily on ourselves and our ability to win."

"Reinvented Law Firms Emphasize Collective Knowledge," The National Law Journal (June 2011). In the second installment, Gardiner addresses how innovative law firms can reinvent their relationship with clients by building their talent pool through secondments and harnessing collective firm knowledge to improve client service.