2011 Firm Spy Corporate Firm of the Year: Marque Lawyers

We seek from our readers an indulgence but once a year – in a calendar that stretches the gamut of the corporate, the incorporate, the legal, the illegal, the parliamentary, the unparliamentary, the tight-wadded, the worthy, the apocalyptic, the aquisitive, the submissive, the embarrassing, the stalkerish, the dickheaded, the pornographic, the perverted, the paedophilic and the bestial – to draw breath, to reflect on what is positive in our industry and to dust off our seal of aproval. Annually, in our last post of the year, we bestow upon one deserving recipient the Firm Spy Corporate Firm of the Year Award.

This year, that award goes to Marque Lawyers.

Marque Lawyers - A Deserving Victor

You know, if you were to ask a random senior partner from any top or mid tier Australian corporate firm what they think the corporate firm of 2020 will look like – that is, what the actual bare-bones, warts-and-all, office space will look like – you would probably receive a perfunctory, unedifying response like “the same, only bigger”. On the other hand, if you speak with a superannuation fund property investor, like we recently did, you’re likely to get a much more fascinating response. Such investors, bound by the equitable duty to invest our retirement dollars wisely, are highly equivocal about the “new normal” that awaits the corporate world in the years ahead. In fact, those prognosticating over such matters suggest that, by 2020, the phenomenon of a centralised corporate office – which as you know usually manifests in a cluster of floors in a single building – will be either passed or passing, in favour of a presence in a single and much smaller “inner-city” office and several “sattelite” offices. For this very reason, prudent investors are increasingly wary of the purchase of city office space, fearing that the rental yield will plummet if their predictions are correct. Conversely, for the select few industry observers contemplating such matters, the value proposition of a change in presence is already on the radar. Tenancy costs per floor in “premium” grade office space regularly exceed $500,000 per annum, while equivalently “premium” suburban-based tenancies are often just a fraction of that amount. So, for firms bent on squeezing overheads, the case is already clear, or, at least, is emergingly so.

Indeed, as we enter an era in which corporate service delivery is increasingly unconstrained by the physical locus of an employee, the imperative to shift away from the centralised inner-city office building will grow stronger. Like its progenitor Legal Process Outsourcing, the shift to an inner & sattelite office presence will be driven by its potential to drascially reduce overheads, however, unlike LPO, it will be easier to sell to non-partner fee-earners who will progressively find themselves situate in the outer fringes of Australia’s sprawling metropolises.

The visionary leader of Marque Lawyers, Michael Bradley, who is also the former figurehead of Australia’s 9th largest firm by revenue Gadens Lawyers, has informed views on the vision of a corporate firm in 2020:

It is in fact the topic of our next firm retreat in February – we’ll be talking about the “firm of the future”. In particular, how we might more cleverly use all this technology and some lateral thinking to redesign what it means to work together. It’s a really fascinating subject, balancing the benefits of physical togetherness against the obvious inevitability that the current paradigm of all being in the same place all the time isn’t going to continue.

Indeed, Mr Bradley is across most major issues affecting Australian corporate law. Read, for example, his thoroughly insightful views on the nationalisation of the legal profession (click here). Or his comprehensive analysis of the pros and cons of LPO (click here). Or his prescient opinion on the way the legal industry is changing and will continue to do so (click here). But more than just having a leader who knows what he’s talking about, Marque Lawyers is a deserving victor because, quite simply, it is an excellent and innovative firm.

But there are of course those who will be quick to chide our victor and/or our decision. Indeed, a reader made the following statement in response to our last Marque Lawyers post:

I’m sorry but Firmspy’s willingness to act as an uncritical spokesperson for smaller firms pisses me off.

Well, no, we believe our views are informed by the facts and the facts about Marque Lawyers speak for themselves. The firm appears, at least from where we sit, to be a more pragmatic version of last year’s victor – the now defunct Optim Legal – and for this we believe it ought to be commended. It is a going concern and many lawyers want to work there. We cant blame them.

Marque Lawyers takes a novel-non-billable unit approach to its revenue, steadfastly refusing to charge clients for such valueless dross:

Marque is a law firm that does not measure its people or its clients in six minute units of time. We do not charge by the hour. We do not charge when we pick up the phone or send you an email. We do not charge you for taking you to lunch or travel time or any of that kind of stuff that is disconnected from the real value of what we do.

Hallelujah! On the firm’s non-billable unit policy, Managing Partner Michael Bradley told us:

Our move away from time costing has been very successful indeed. We had an immediately positive response from the market and that’s only increased as we’ve gone on. Very few clients actually like being charged on a time basis, but the profession has abjectly failed/refused to positively put forward alternatives. We charge mostly on a fixed fee or retainer basis, and it’s proved an easy sale. It’s also brilliant for our relationships with the clients, and our lawyers are much happier in the absence of a daily chargeable time target.

We have for several years remained strongly of the view that billable units are detrimental to the mental welfare of junior lawyers (click here for example) and we are thoroughly pleased to hear that senior legal figures are beginning to take the issue seriously. Indeed, Mr Bradley’s sentiment regarding the happiness of lawyers and the effect of billable units on it is something which is shared by his fellow Marque Lawyers partner Damian Sturzaker, who said:

When you treat people on a basis that you’re only measuring them by time, and not by the value that they give to a particular client or to someone working within an organisation, you’re reducing that person to a very low common denominator, and it’s a very alienating experience.

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. It seems clear that as well as significantly benefitting its lawyers, clients are also interested in the value represented by Marque’s approach. The firm now boasts the following portfolio of clients:

Westpac, Sumitomo, GetUp!, Gloria Jeans, PayPal, eBay, United Airlines, Virgin, Booz & Company, Bridgeport Energy, Drillsearch, UTS Insearch, Newcrest Mining, Mortgage Choice, Fitness First, APRA, Qantas Staff Credit Union, Jones Lang LaSalle, Centrebet, Carl Zeiss, LG Electronics, ASUS-Tek, ensign Energy Services, InterOil, Hawker Pacific, General Pants, Civic Video, Pivotel and DTZ.

Those are some pretty decent names, especially for such a small firm. On the issue of the size of Marque Lawyers (about which a snide commenter recently remarked “Holy crap….[with only seven partners it is] clearly the Everest of the Australian legal landscape…. those top tiers better watch out!”), Mr Bradley told us:

In our second year, we were named Australia and NZ’s Fastest Growing Firm by ALB as we recorded 56% revenue growth that year. We haven’t repeated that level of growth and don’t plan to, because at that rate we’d be Minters by 2014. We’re actually attempting something new for a law firm – strategically controlled growth. We’ve only twice gone into the market to recruit at partner level, and otherwise we reject all approaches. We’re currently at 7 partners and 30 staff in total. Which is a really nice size.

It is a nice size, and, funnily enough, almost the exact same size as Cochrane Lishman Carson Luscombe: the firm Clifford Chance merged with to create is new Perth office (check out a Google cache of its 7-partner presence here). Yes, a “really nice size” indeed!

After informing Mr Bradley of his firm’s nomination, we asked him a few questions about the firm, including how it has become the successful enterprise we see today. He responded:

When we started the firm, we committed to redesigning legal practice from scratch, in every respect. We have steadfastly ignored conventional wisdom and worked it all out for ourselves. That’s been pretty challenging but enormous fun.While the pricing is our most obvious differentiator, in fact the really fundamental differences in our business model are beneath the surface, and relate to how we’re structured and how we manage ourselves.

Unlike most firms, we have not created an internally competitive culture driven by personal financial contribution as the essential measure of success. What we have is the opposite – our goal is genuine collegiality, driven by collective success. We may well be the world’s first socialist law firm. We have only four rules in the firm:

1. When anyone goes on a holiday, they have to bring back a seriously tacky trinket for the office, preferably a fridge magnet bottle opener.
2. Participating in the NRL tipping competition is compulsory.
3. Every six months, we all shift workstations, on a random distribution model.
4. The 4pm Friday Pens Down Rule.

Who would have thought, a pioneering legal leader … with a sense of humour. A big congratulations to Marque Lawyers for showing us that a law firm exists which can be profitable, attractive at once to clients and fee-earners, presided over by leaders who genuinely actually care about those below, and which retains a self-effacing sense of humour.

Perhaps in 2012 it might be time to make a move there…

We’re recruiting for 3 additional lawyers at the moment.

Send the Firm Spy your news and views!