BUSINESS GOALS AND STRATEGIES
Attract Exceptional Attorneys: We have attracted lawyers from the largest and most prestigious law firms by offering these lawyers the chance to expand their law practices in an environment that promises significant growth possibilities. Some consider the Firm a Latham & Watkins “spin-off” since both of our founding partners are originally from that firm; however, our partners and associates also include alumni of other major firms such as Mayer Brown; Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; Schulte Roth & Zabel; Morrison & Foerster; Cahill, Gordon & Reindel; Dewey & LeBoeuf; Baker & McKenzie; Sullivan & Cromwell; and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson .
Provide Superb Support and Service to These Exceptional Attorneys: As indicated above, our success will be dependent upon the extent to which we can attract and retain excellent attorneys to our law firm. We keep in mind that there are many places where talented lawyers can practice law and our commitment and goal is to make our firm the absolute best place for these lawyers. As one of our partners has pointed out “All of the assets of our business go down the elevator each night; management’s job is to make sure that they come back up in the morning!” This is not an easy thing to do – and our firm management devotes its primary responsibility to this goal. And we are proud of our success so far, as the firm has grown steadily to approximately 50 lawyers in two offices and with eight separate practice groups.
Create a Business Culture That Attracts, Retains and Motivates These Exceptional Attorneys: It is difficult to describe a culture just with words. You of course have to experience it to truly understand it. Indeed it is possible that even we ourselves do not even understand it – but somehow it works – our attorneys truly love the firm and its people. A junior associate was asked at a firm function several months ago what the firm was about and she blurted out “Happy lawyers”. Hard to figure a more direct way of hitting what we are about. Perhaps it is the fact that the “big thing” every year at the firm is where we will go for our annual firm outing (usually a three day weekend of fun at a Ritz Carlton in Florida) – in most companies people would rather gnaw their arm off than attend a firm function – yet at Duval & Stachenfeld it is the number one topic of interest and excitement for months before the big event. Perhaps it is the fact that many of the attorneys when on vacation can’t wait to get back to work and can’t wait to get to work in the morning so excited are they about what they (and we) are building. Perhaps it is the fact that we have an atmosphere in which lawyers are eager to assist each other in servicing the clients of their partners and in help each other bring in new clients. Perhaps it is because we don’t have (or desire) imperial fiefdoms or similar situations which propagate an “every man for himself” business. Somehow we are striking a chord in what attorneys want in their practice of law and the firm is supplying the secret sauce that makes practicing law a thrill rather than a chore.
Permit and Encourage These Exceptional Attorneys to Provide Superb Service to Our Clients: We believe that it is absolutely critical that the lawyers at our law firm provide our clients with exceptional service, and the exceptional attorneys which we have as part of our firm need no encouragement to do this. This is what they were born to do. All they need is the environment and platform from which to do so. We think exceptional service includes (among many other things):
Acting as “business lawyers” to become deeply familiar with our clients’ business objectives so that our legal services can be as useful to achieving those objectives as that of “in-house” counsel. Indeed, many of our attorneys take the position that “our clients are our hobbies as well as our jobs”; we love thinking about them and how to help them succeed;
Being highly responsive (e.g., flawless in our execution of the “basics” such as returning calls promptly, turning documents quickly, and doing whatever it takes to dramatically exceed client objectives). Indeed, we believe it is fair to say that our clients are consistently amazed at our service – we never let our clients down, ever – repeat – we never let our clients down, ever; and
Being extremely creative and flexible to achieve legal solutions that are consistent with our clients’ business objectives. In this regard, we feel that the highest accolade a lawyer can receive is a client telling one of our attorneys flat out that “This deal/settlement would never have happened without you – you really created value for us!” Of course this does not happen all the time, but when it does we know we have really done what we are in business to do!
Attract Exceptional Clients and Service Them on Major Transactions: Although we may seem like a small firm we are quite unusual in that the Firm functions effectively as a large law firm in its capabilities. Not only does our client roster consists of blue chip opportunity funds, investment banks and Fortune 100 companies, but our clients come to us for major matters some exceeding $1,000,000,000 in size and for high profile matters. Indeed, we typically become the “go to” law firm (or one of the “go to” law firms) for most of our clients. Possibly this is because (as noted above – twice) we never let our clients down – ever!