One of the comforting lies that law firms like to tell themselves, is that the problem with clients is they don't understand how Big Law works. Any law firm who says this — or even thinks it — has the whole thing backwards. Clients understand Big Law perfectly well. Many GCs came from private practice and the remainder talk to each other and read the legal press.

The real problem with clients is not that they don't understand Big Law — it's that Big Law doesn't understand them. It's not by accident that part of the Lean Adviser core curriculum is understanding the client.

It is true that for a couple of centuries, since Roman times, it wasn't that way. Until relatively recently, clients would approach law firms with defiance, ignorance and admiration. Clients would gratefully accept whatever pearls of legal wisdom they were sold, irrespective of relevance or value. Not anymore.