atLaw
Jeffrey J. Upton
617 226-3459
Shareholder
Areas of Concentration
Business Litigation
Office
Hanify & King has just launched its new web site. The address is the same— www.hanify.com, but the content is all new. The new site is the product of many months of effort, and much reflection and introspection. Our goal was not simply to update our old site with flashier graphics and more current photos. Indeed, many of us prefer the misimpression of perpetual youth (or middle age, at least) given by the ancient photos on the old site. Rather, we sought to convey to users of the site an accurate insight into what we do and who we are. This simple exercise, to accurately convey a known set of facts, quickly developed into a more philosophical exercise of determining who we are as a firm and how we distinguish ourselves from other firms in our practice area.
From its inception Hanify & King has focused its practice on providing the highest quality legal services to businesses, on a par with the largest and best-known law firms, but with greater responsiveness and personal attention, and at a rational cost. Although this focus has never changed, major changes have taken place in the courts, in business, in the law, and in the practice of law itself. We’re now filing briefs electronically, with hypertext links to documents and audio-visual files. We’re creating searchable interactive databases of thousands of pages of documents and transcripts. We’re creating “extranets” that allow our clients remote access to our pleadings, research and discovery materials. We have replaced our library with a server, remotely accessible from a laptop with a wireless Internet connection. And, technology aside, the business world and the challenges it faces are vastly different post 9/11, post Enron, and since the Internet bubble burst and the commercial rental market bottomed out.
Our practice has responded to these developments. We are taking full advantage of the opportunities for efficiency presented by new technology. We find ourselves partnering more with in-house counsel and our clients in addressing legal problems. But more importantly, we are continuing to educate ourselves in the science and art of negotiation and alternative dispute resolution, in the rapidly developing law of financial accounting and reporting, and in current developments in our clients’ businesses. If I had to identify the single most significant aspect of the host of changes we have experienced in our practice over the past decade, it is that the changes as a whole have enabled us to focus more intensely on the most satisfying aspect of our practice—the role of counselor. Drawing on our collective years of experience in so many aspects of business, and our knowledge of the law, legal process, and a realistic view of the costs and alternatives, we have found not only greater opportunity to serve as counselors to businesses, but that our role as counselor has greater value.
You may wonder how all this relates to the launch of our new web site. The answer is that in working together to give one voice to our collective vision of our practice, we realized how much it had changed since we last engaged in the process. I was reminded of the parable of the three blind men and the elephant. One reached out and touched the elephant’s trunk and declared the animal to be like a snake. One reached out and touched a leg and declared it to be like a tree. The third touched the elephant’s side and declared it to be like a wall. While none of us are blind (although I will confess to a mild astigmatism), and if compelled to compare our firm to an animal we would be unlikely to choose an elephant, in sharing our different views we all came to see what we have created, and what we offer, more clearly. Indeed, in a world where newly minted MBAs with little or no practical experience are hanging out shingles and representing themselves to be business consultants, we realized that our collective perspective and experience have become among the most important qualities that set us apart. It was with this in mind that we overcame our vanity decided that we would update the photos on the new web site after all. Those aren’t wrinkles. They’re experience.
We hope that you will visit the new website and share your views with us.
