Long day at the LegalTech Forum yesterday. A marathon of speeches on AI, cybersecurity, and legal tech. It was the tenth edition of the event and, considering I’ve been part of it since the very beginning, I allow myself a little pride. Ten years is a long time, especially in a field that keeps reinventing itself while you’re still taking notes.
After the event, before the speakers’ dinner, I found myself having a very Italian aperitivo: a bottle of sparkling wine kindly offered and a bit of Bolognese piadina. With me were a law-firm partner and one of his associates. We started chatting about this and that, and inevitably the conversation shifted to some of the themes I care about most. The economics of empathy. The KPIs of caring. The ROIs of good contracting. The idea that if you genuinely care about the other parties, and if you sincerely take into account the needs of all the stakeholders, it is good for business. I have already given a couple of keynotes on this, but I want to take it to another level. Show law firms and corporate legal departments the economic impact of trust. Promote benefit corporations so that every company does something good for the planet, and so on.
He looked at me, a bit surprised, then decided to tell me a story. A few years ago, when he was younger, he had a deadline for a client. A motion to draft. He was exhausted, but the deadline was approaching. Write, delete, rewrite. At some point, during what was supposed to be an all-nighter, his body simply said no. He collapsed onto the keyboard. Literally.
He woke up a few hours later to find a Word document of eighty-four pages, all filled with the same letter: Y. Eighty-four pages of Y. Not exactly easy to fix with copy and paste. I loved the story because it shows something important. How much he cares about the work. How much he wants to get it right. A simple mix of personal attachment, law-firm life, and the typical perfectionism of lawyers.
I looked at him and said:
“Damn, that’s a great opportunity. A one-line bill moment.”
He stared back at me as if I had just landed from another planet.
“Come on, the Wachtell one-line bill.”
Still the same face.
So I began. Ah, Wachtell. The firm that stays in New York while everyone else opens offices all over the world. That focuses on only a few carefully selected practice areas while others are multipractice. That recruits only top-notch (I mean truly top) graduates from the best law schools and pays them out-of-this-world bonuses. Not to mention those periodic memos in Times New Roman 12 about M&A transactions that I love to read, despite the Times New Roman 12, and despite the fact that I am not an M&A lawyer.
So, that firm is a legend. And the one-line bill is a legend about the legend.
According to the tale, back in the day, while other firms issued long, itemized invoices listing every single task performed and its cost, their invoice was just one line.
Imagine being a client and opening something like this: “Assistance for XYZ NY Stock Exchange listing: 10 million.”
No details. No explanations. One line. I love when I see identity. And that is pure identity.
I told him all this, and he asked:
“Okay, but why are you telling me this?”
I smiled. “You know what? I would have written a one-line bill to that client. With a single statement: ‘84 pages of Y’ and the relative fee”
He blinked.
“Yeah, but… why?”
“Because that is your added value. Anyone can draft the motion. But this shows that you have an exceptional care of him. That you are his Lawyer, with the capital L, not just another human practicing law.”
He looked at me, paused, and said:
“Yeah… and that’s exactly why Marco Imperiale is Marco Imperiale.”
So what about me?
Am I a lawyer, or do I practice law?
Well, that is a story for another blog post…
