After spending years practicing corporate and transactional law, first in NYC law firms and then in-house for a software start-up that grew to become one of the top 10 largest software companies in the world, I came to understand both the strengths and the weaknesses that the structure of a firm can provide.
I recognized that the current big law firm model is inefficient and inadequate in several ways.
I was subject to the large law firm model of billing — billing to “learn” as a junior and mid-year associate and — at all times — billing to support a profits-per-partner structure. Everything was on a “need to know” basis. Operating on imperfect information led to more revisions and greater billing.
Significantly, I didn’t realize how poor the system was until I joined Infor Global Solutions (then known as Agilisys) in April 2003, 9 months into its existence as an ERP and SCM vendor, and very recently after its first major acquisition. Operating with a Legal group of 2, no Contracts group and a bare-bones Finance group, I was immediately thrust into handling thousands of global customer and partner issues every year, and learning about product development, support, professional services, marketing, employment, compensation and benefits, Finance, Revenue Recognition, data privacy and collection standards, litigation, and other compliance and internal corporate matters on a scale and depth that is nearly impossible to gain as outside counsel working in the large law firm model. Over the next 5 years, we grew Infor over 7000X in revenue, acquired over 30 companies and built it into one the top 3 ERP software companies in the world.
Through this process, I quickly understood that outside counsel really didn’t quite understand or appreciate the day-to-day business issues that motivated our short and long term decisions. Even though they were smart, experienced and motivated, their knowledge of Infor, and how to build and run a software company in general, was superficial. The law firm model simply doesn’t allow for this type of depth and understanding. And the legal fees reflected this inefficiency.
WarmundLaw, LLC incorporates the skill, intelligence and scalability of a large law firm, while providing the deep knowledge, intimacy and focus of an in-house counsel.
I created and structured WarmundLaw, LLC to be a responsive, pragmatic and knowledgeable business partner to our clients. We operate on a thin, efficient but highly scalable model (both vertically and horizontally), no different from the clients we represent, allowing them to receive the representation they require — without wasting time or resources. Because of our deep technology and media expertise and in-house approach, we provide elite, world-class legal services for all our clients operating in North America and Europe.