What an MSO deal actually means for your firm

This issue is about who things are really for. Year-end bonuses should reward staff, but a vague thanks-for-being-family speech mostly flatters the person giving it. We look at a better system. MSOs promise to free lawyers to practice law, and the money behind them has goals of its own. More firms are signing on anyway. Most law firm podcasts aren’t made for listeners; they’re made for the guest. And when AI hands you a spreadsheet, it’s handing you something to check. That means you still need to know how.

Coming soon, hear from an attorney whose family’s incarceration during WWII shapes her estate planning practice.

But first, can you translate that song lyric into legalese? Ioana L. Enescu and Elina Khutoryansky, aka @legalbesties, can.

Virtute et armis, indeed.
Attorney Scott Colom bested incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by a razor-thin margin in the Mississippi Senate race. The backstory here is worth your time: Hyde-Smith blocked Colom from taking the bench, so he decided to run for office. 

Hold my beer gavel!
Think this year’s election was notable? The Supreme Court Historical Society humbly presents the election of 1876 for your consideration. 

Age is just a number.
19-year-old Sebastian Matta will soon be the Superior Court clerk in Maricopa County, Ariz. Redditors are excited that he plans to introduce e-filing for probate.

Add this to the growing list of bar exam scandals. 
For at least the last five years, a court official in Arkansas has been altering bar exam scores.

Shoot for the moon.
NASA is hiring, and so are law firms. Legal employment hit a record 1.25 million jobs in October, up 22,800 from a year ago. But the largest firms hired 7.5% fewer new graduates last year and two-thirds expect even smaller first-year classes by 2028. This means the growth is happening at midsize and smaller firms, so if you’re hiring, you’re competing in the hottest part of the market.

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No law firm partner will ever be as good a leader as Vin Diesel is in the “Fast and Furious” franchise. But as @snarkylawyers points out, that doesn’t stop a lot of folks from trying to channel his character during bonus season. 

John W. Olmstead says skip the talk about being a family, and focus on creating a compensation and bonus system that inspires your staff. Since you can’t tie staff performance to billable hours, this means finding other meaningful ways to measure someone’s impact. Olmstead links raises to the performance review, based on skills, market value and cost of living. He ties bonuses only to measurable results agreed in advance.

Why this matters: Goal setting is what takes a raise or bonus from something staff feel they are owed into something they earn. It also helps shift focus to the feedback and coaching given during end-of-year check-ins. (Illinois State Bar Association: Part 1, Part 2)

Dumping a bunch of data into an AI tool and letting the robots take the wheel is becoming so common that the Excel skills lawyers need now are a little bit different than in the past. You no longer need to know how to build a spreadsheet, but you do need to know how to use and judge one. 

Start with this Attorney at Work piece from Ben Schorr of Affinity Consulting Group. It covers filters and reformatting. Then check out this blog on keyboard shortcuts and formulas from Holly A. Sheriff of Best Virtual Paralegal. 

Why this matters: AI and Excel don't replace legal judgment, so verify anything you build before you rely on it. But don’t reinvent the wheel if there is a way to make your work simpler. (Attorney at Work / Best Virtual Paralegal)

Every few weeks another firm announces it has “partnered with” a management services organization (MSO). But what does that actually mean? If you don’t know, it’s time to give these podcast episodes a listen:

On a recent episode of his Original Jurisdiction podcast, David Lat sits down with Trisha Rich of Holland & Knight. By her account, her team works on most of the MSO deals being struck right now. She lays out the structure plainly: The firm moves everything that isn’t the practice of law (think accounting, marketing, HR, tech) into a separate company. It pays that company a flat monthly fee, set by an outside valuation. Lawyers keep every legal decision.

When asked about ethics and mechanics, she argues that a flat fee for services is a vendor bill, not a fee split, and no different in kind from paying the electric company.

Over on the Financially Legal podcast, Emery Wager is doing a whole series on MSOs. The podcast producer/sponsor, Confido Legal, is a payment and financial services company (not an MSO), so it focuses on the financial side of MSOs as much as how they work.

Why this matters: MSOs are going mainstream. Rich predicts an Am Law 100 firm will sign an MSO deal by early 2027. Smaller firms are either going to strike a deal with an MSO or be competing against firms that have. (Original Jurisdiction / Financially Legal)

There are so many law firm podcasts, but so few worth tuning into for a simple reason: most aren’t made with listeners in mind. They’re made for the person in the other chair. 

This article from JAR Podcast Solutions explains why and how this works. In a nutshell, inviting prospective clients, referral partners and co-counsel to be guests on your podcasts gives you one-on-one time with them. It allows you to butter them up and see where their pain points are, all under the guise of helping them share their expertise with the world.

Why this matters: All podcasts are competing for attention. Whose attention may surprise you. (JAR Podcast Solutions)

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Raise the Bar is written and curated by Emily Kelchen, edited by Bianca Prieto.