VeraSage

Christopher Marston

CEO and Founder, Exemplar Law Partners, LLC
Boston, MA, USA
P: 617.542.7400

www.exemplarlaw.com

Born and raised in West Bloomfield, Michigan, Chris demonstrated at an early age his diverse interests and talents, including music, performing and academics. He began playing the piano at age eight, wrote his first song at age 10, and had his first professionally produced recording by the age of 12. With music as an early-on passion, at age 14 he started his first company, C&C Studios and The DJ Connection, a full service entertainment company for special events. It also allowed Chris to record his own material. Chris attended an exclusive private high school in Michigan where he achieved high honors and further developed his talents.

He received a Bachelor of Business Administration with a dual major of Finance and New Venture Management at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. During his time at NU, Chris took up Competitive Ballroom Dancing, competing for 4 1/2 years, and at the height of his competitive dancing was ranked 27th in the nation. During this time, Chris had developed a particular interest in the options and equity market, and had been trading since he was 18.

During the later part of his undergraduate education, the CEO of JSA Technologies hired Chris as the Chief Financial Officer. As CFO, he restructured the product offering to become a service offering in order to reduce selling costs and produce a reliable cash flow for the company. His internal function was budgeting, forecasting, financial modeling, and involvement in negotiation. Their first client was Harvard University and JSA was responsible for the online money transfer feature for Harvard’s Crimson Cash Program. Now, more than 50 universities across the nation are customers of JSA.

Chris earned a J.D. and an M.S.F. (Master of Science in Finance) from Suffolk University Law and Business School, where he was awarded the Distinguished Oral Advocate and was the first first-year law student ever admitted to the national trial team. He competed all four years of the dual degree program on the national team, achieving regional semi-finals in the 3rd year and regional finals in his last year. He also won every internal mock trial competition (Junior and Senior Mock Trial Competition), won Best Trial Advocate in Fall 2003, and the Harold B. Goodwin Trial Advocacy Scholarship.

Gifted with a natural entrepreneurial spirit and intellectual curiosity, Chris set out to revolutionize the legal industry moments after graduating with a vision for creating the firm of the future. This firm would abandon traditional law practice and the billable hour, focusing on the value of services provided, rather than the cost of one’s time. After conducting thorough research on the topic of the history of law and the billable hour, and unable to find a law firm with this unique business model, it sparked the idea for a business.

Chris began to imagine the possibilities of beginning a law firm that offered fixed pricing, valued a work-life balance and placed customer service at the forefront. He envisioned the company would operate more like a traditional business, with a capacity-first business model where key management personnel are involved more as firm partners, timesheets do not exist and key functions like marketing, operations, human capital and customer relations are critical to its success.

Chris realized the firm of the future could be created with vision and leadership, the guts to forge a new path in an industry that is crying out for a reform, and a marketplace that would support such a departure. Not yet entrenched in traditional legal methods, and wanting to solve a problem greater than himself alone, Chris realized bringing this business model to market would not only change his life, but also impact and change the lives of attorneys, consumers, and the marketplace—ultimately how the law is practiced and consumed.

After months of research, Exemplar Law Partners was born in April 2005. A constantly evolving work in progress, Chris is leading a management team in shaping the business model to attract and retain talented attorneys and support staff that support his vision and want to make Exemplar Law Partners the iconic firm of the legal future.

Jay Shepherd

Founder, Prefix LLC
CEO, Attorney, Shepherd Law Group, P.C.
+01 617.213.0067

Twitter www.twitter.com/jayshep

Jay Shepherd is on a mission to save the world from lawyers, and to save lawyers (and other professionals) from themselves. He runs the Boston employment-law boutique Shepherd Law Group, which made headlines when it abandoned the billable hour and timesheets in 2006. As an employment litigator, he has been protecting employers in and out of court for the past 17 years. He specializes in noncompetes, trade secrets, and social-media law.

Jay also founded Prefix, LLC, a consulting firm dedicated to pricing professional knowledge. Prefix helps professionals like lawyers, accountants, and consultants value and price their services, and helps clients get more value from their professionals.

Jay is a prolific blogger. He writes the workplace blog ”Gruntled Employees,” which Human Resource Executive magazine called the best HR-law site. The American Bar Association named his other blog, ”The Client Revolution,” to its Blawg 100 list of the top lawyer blogs. “The Client Revolution” focuses on reinventing the business of law. Jay is also a columnist for ”Above the Law,” America’s leading law blog. Law and Politics magazine named Jay one of the top 100 lawyers in New England.

He lives outside of Boston with his wife (also an employment lawyer) and two young daughters (not employment lawyers).

John Chisholm

John Chisholm Consulting
Victoria, Australia
M +61 0 419 763 391
B +61 3 9578 3500

www.chisconsult.com

My life changed when he met the late-and great-Paul O’Byrne in Sydney in 2005.

Until then, I had always struggled with the concept of billing clients in 6 minute increments even though, as Managing Partner and CEO of large law firms in Australia, this was for all intents and purposes a pretty successful business model which I embraced.

When I left mainstream law firms in 2004 and set up my consultancy practice I was determined not to price my services by time (perhaps I was just too lazy/too old to record time in my own consulting practice?) but really had no idea how I would price myself. That is until I met Paul.

The rest as they say is history. Initially through Paul and then Ron Baker and the whole Verasage family I have become an advocate, zealot and many of my colleagues would say a terrorist for the destruction of time based billing in professional firms in Australasia.

Viva la revolution!

Background:

John Chisholm was previously a partner and Managing Partner at Maddocks, Chief Executive of Middletons and Executive Chairman Melbourne PKF Chartered Accountants.

John established his own consultancy, John Chisholm Consulting, in 2005 to share his expertise and experience with professional service firms in Australia, New Zealand and worldwide who look to maximise their business performance. He now speaks, trains, facilitates, coaches and consults.

As a practising lawyer, managing partner and chief executive John was well placed to experience first hand both the benefits but also the drawbacks of the profession pricing their services solely by reference to time. He now works with many professional service firms (and their clients) around Australasia assisting them with both a mindset change, and the practical implementation and application of, moving towards value based pricing.

John has studied and works with professional firms in UK, US and Australia who no longer bill their clients in 6 minute increments of time. He has written numerous articles on value pricing and has presented and spoken to over a 1000 lawyers and accountants in the past three years on this topic. He is regularly invited as a key note or guest speaker at legal industry events including for the Law Council of Australia, Australian Legal Practice Management Association, Law Institute of Victoria, Law Society of Queensland, CPA Australia and Leo Cussen Institute.

Mark A. Chinn

Chinn & Associates, PLLC
Jackson, Mississippi USA
(601) 366-4410

http://www.chinnandassociates.com

Mark has been married to Cathy for over thirty years, and they have four daughters, Courtney, Casey, Carly, and Conley.

He is the author of three ABA books, How to Build and Manage a Family Law Practice, published by the Family Law Section and Law Practice Management Sections and The Constructive Divorce, published by the GP/Solo Division and Forms, Checklists and Procedures for the Family Lawyer, published by the ABA Family Law Section in 2010.  He is also author of chapters entitled, “Marketing is Not a Dirty Word,” in How to Capture and Keep Clients, and “The Exit Interview” in 101 Practical Solutions for the Family Lawyer, both published by the ABA.

Mark is a frequent contributor in periodicals such as the American Journal of Family Law, The Family Advocate, Small Firm Profit Report and Fair Share on the subjects of client relations, service and law practice management.

Mark has been featured in the National Lawyer’s Weekly Magazine for delivering world-class service. He has been a frequent speaker for the American Bar Association Family Law Section, The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, The Iowa and Indiana Bar Associations, and the Mississippi Bar on issues of family law practice management and delivering world-class service.

Mark has received distinction from the following publications:

o Top 50 Lawyers in Mississippi for 2010, Mississippi Business Journal
o Mid-South Super Lawyers
o The Best Lawyers in America and
o Martindale-Hubbell’s Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers

He is one of the one hundred attorneys that were selected from Mississippi for membership into the Outstanding Lawyers of America.

Mark was the recipient in 1996 of the Award of Merit for distinguished service to the Bar and the public and was enrolled as a Fellow of the Mississippi Bar Foundation in 1997. Mark is also certified in Civil Trial Advocacy by the National Board of Trial Advocacy.

Mark has been Chairman of the Family Law Section of the Mississippi Bar twice and a member of the governing council of the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association for two terms. His other work with the Mississippi Bar has included: Chairman in 1995-96 of the Solo and Small Firm Practice Committee, and past service on the Ethics, Client Relations, Women in the Profession, and Fee Dispute Resolution Committees.

Mark was Chairman of the Lamar Order of the University of Mississippi School of Law Alumni Association in 2002. He was President of the Hinds County Bar Association for 1998-99 and is a Master of the Bench in the Charles Clark American Inn of Court.

He was elected Vice Chair of the Supreme Court’s Gender Fairness Task Force and was appointed by the Governor of Mississippi to the Children’s Justice Task Force.

Community activities include: Chairman of the Jackson Urban League Board of Directors (1995-2000); Chairman of the Tenth Jubilee! Jam in May 1996 which featured the Olympic Torch; Jubilee! Jam Foundation Board, Arts Alliance Board, Opera Board and Leadership Jackson.

Black belt in Karate and kick boxing and a veteran of the 20 years of Rugby, Mark is also a private pilot and enjoys golf and weightlifting.

Mark received his undergraduate degree from Iowa State University in 1975 and his Law Degree from the University of Mississippi in 1978. He is admitted to practice in all courts in Mississippi, the Fifth and Seventh Circuits and the United States Supreme Court.