I got quite involved in the future of profession think-tanking over last five years and one of my themes is that the services or products that lawyers are selling to their clients are wrong. It is not the billing structure that causes their misery in the first place, but everything leaning towards traditional dispute resolution and old fashioned usage of legal systems is. Our customers just don’t wish to buy anymore the wares we are peddling and I think it is a self-defeating proposal to insist on the profitable traditional products such as litigation in all cases of dispute. Everything that is not directed towards the business or personal aspect of a client’s activities is likely not to serve the buyer. Therefore, in my primary field of practice which is IP, I started selling knowledge and experience in the form of consulting, training, strategic audits and other formats focuses on knowledge transfer to the clients. On top of it comes ADR in all its forms and flavors, especially mediation. I find the clients rather happy buying this type of services and that makes me happy in turn. Firm’s bottom line is happy too because happy clients bring more business of both novel and traditional type. Besides, I always practiced only in the fields I wished to, always told my clients what I thought about their advantages and disadvantages and that kept everyone happy too.