PRIVATE ADVISORY TO LAW FIRM LEADERSHIP

Most firm leaders are still asking the questions that worked ten years ago.

Running a firm means managing its internal political economy, a full-time job by itself, and what gets crowded out is deciding which questions are even worth asking.

AI has widened that gap: the traditional questions still get asked on schedule, and the emerging ones don't get asked at all. I get inside a firm to learn fast, model it as a system, and turn that into decisions your partners and teams can execute.

Evidence

I have been in the room from all three sides

Three times over twenty-five years I've taken a different seat on the same problem: how legal work gets structured, delivered, and priced. Inside a client. Retained by firms. Inside the firm.

2000 - In-house

Legal operations before it had a name

Inside the legal department of a national telecom as a junior lawyer, designing the workflow systems, process, and technology the department ran on. The part that mattered: working directly with outside counsel on how the work got done and how it got priced; which meant helping those firms adjust their own business models. This was two decades before "legal ops" was a title anyone held.

2000s - RETAINED BY FIRMS

Rebuilding the firms' position in a market taking their work

A large, profitable band of litigation work was moving out of law firms and into an outsourced market, and firms were watching that revenue leave without a strategy for it. Firms retained me to get it back — designing the practice structures, economics, and delivery models that let them enter that market on their own terms rather than cede it. Organic growth, built inside the firm instead of bought. I originated and ran roughly $20 million of that work.

BUilt Internally at: Mayer Brown · Crowell & Moring · Pepper Hamilton (now Troutman Pepper Locke)

2010s - INSIDE THE FIRM

Chief Strategy Officer, then embedded executive

Became the first Chief Strategy Officer of an Am Law 100 firm, where I built an alternative business model for its most rate-sensitive practices using a different labor structure, engineered process, and alternative pricing that let the firm defend the work on price without discounting the brand. It is still in service today.

Before that role and continuously since, I've worked inside firms as an embedded fractional executive: the seat between deciding direction and actually executing it, which is where most firm strategy quietly dies.

I've been in the room when the decision was made, and in the room a year later when we found out whether it worked. That second room is the one most advisors never see.

THe Work

What you Actually get.

01: I learn your firm, not the category.

The business model is the same everywhere. Your firm isn't. The idiosyncrasies are where the material opportunity is hiding, and they don't show up in a benchmark.

02: I model it as a unique system.

The business model is the same everywhere. Your firm isn't. The idiosyncrasies are where the material opportunity is hiding, and they don't show up in a benchmark.

03: You get pathways and trade-offs.

Clear options toward your version of alpha, which is not the firm down the street's version. That difference is also the story that you tell partners, laterals, and clients choosing between you and three others.

When Leaders call

FOUR situations, most of the time

These aren't failures. They're inflection points and they require a different kind of engagement than what most consultants offer.

How I Work

Private, direct, and limited by design.

You work with me.

There is no team behind me and no associate learning your firm on your time.

EMBEDDED,not advising from a distance.

I work inside the firm the way a fractional executive does: in the meetings, on the decisions, through execution. Not a diagnosis handed over at the door and left with you to run.

RETAINED, NOT PROJECT-BASED

The work that changes anything takes longer than a quarter. I hold a small number of firms at a time.

BUILT FOR YOUR FIRM

I don't arrive with a framework looking for somewhere to land. What I bring is a way of seeing the firm as a system. The content comes from your firm.

PUBLIC WORK

LEADING VOICE

I write regularly about the forces reshaping the legal profession: AI, firm economics, operating model design, and the leadership decisions that connect them.

My newsletter, Brainyacts, reaches over 10,000 legal professionals globally and has been published continuously since the earliest days of generative AI's impact on the profession. It's where I work through ideas in real time, challenge conventional wisdom, and translate complex developments into practical implications for firm leaders.

Read Brainyacts →

Speaking

I speak regularly on strategy, AI, and the business of law in executive workshops, firm retreats, bar associations, and academic settings. My speaking is grounded in the same applied thinking I use in advisory work: specific, practical, and built on real operating experience; not keynote platitudes.

Past engagements include the State Bar of California, the Florida Bar, Ferring Pharma, Microsoft, Bird & Bird, Goodwin, Simpson Thacher, Osgoode Hall Law School, and others.

Inquire About Speaking →

Teaching

I'm a Visiting Lecturer at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, where I teach courses I created on the business of law and the responsible use of generative AI in legal practice.

| Pragmatic and Responsible Use of Generative AI for the Legal Profession - bridging technical understanding with professional responsibility

| Modern Strategies - the business model, strategy, and economics of law, taught with a project-based lab

Previously, I founded the award-winning Legal Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at Richmond School of Law.

Recognition

Bloomberg Law Top 10 Innovation Program (2023) - selected from 90+ programs nationally

Fast Company Innovation by Design Award, Winner (2022) - Learning & Education category

Fast Company Innovation by Design, Honoree (2022) - Enterprise category

Let's Talk

If you're navigating a strategic decision, an operating model challenge, or a moment of transition and you want a direct, experienced perspective from someone who understands how law firms actually work.