Patrick Lamb, by Patrick Lamb - (version 1.0)

Patrick Lamb is a business trial lawyer with Valorem Law Group, a Chicago litigation firm.

I was born in a log cabin and walked five miles to school everyday, barefoot, except when I was working in coal mines. (Sorry, I might run for public office someday and need to preserve the myth.)

When Michael Jordan was winning championships in his prime, everyone wanted to be like Mike or one of his teammates. But my dreams were different. I always dreamed of being the architect of the team, building the greatest team ever. I also dreamed that one day I would be free from the shackles of the mind set “because that’s the way we’ve always done it” -- the eight most profane words in the English language. With Valorem, I have moved from dreams to a reality unlike anything I’ve known in my 25 years of practicing law.

We are building something extraordinary. The recipe? Getting rid of the billable hour. A passion for excellence, but not self-defined. Excellence judged by the judge that matters—our clients. Business acumen, since litigation is not the objective for most of our clients, but rather a distraction. The ability to know the difference between the wheat and the chaff, the meaningful and the routine. Being creative and innovative. Using business tools like budgets, decision trees, and project management skills (and software), along with litigation tools like early case assessment. Drawing on our vast courtroom experience to know what is necessary and what is wasting our client’s money. All these things, plus a drive to provide the very best client service in America, bar none. Those are the essential ingredients that make Valorem, save one. The most important, but far from secret, ingredient is collaboration. I am privileged to work with exceptional people who embody the Valorem recipe.  Therein lies the Valorem secret--my colleagues add great value to the work I do.  By working together, we produce more value than any of us would produce alone.

In my 25 years of business litigation, I worked at an AmLaw 100 firm (Katten Muchin Rosenman) for 18 years. I worked for seven years at an elite litigation boutique (Butler Rubin Saltarelli & Boyd). I served for six years on Butler Rubin’s Management Committee, so I’ve made a fair number of business decisions. I’ve thought a lot about the practice and talked to many about the future of law as part of my blogging (In Search of Perfect Client Service). I’ve also spent a lot of time in court, albeit not anywhere near as much as my partner, Mark Sayre. I’m very proud of the results I have been fortunate enough to obtain for our clients. I worry that telling my many war stories about what I’ve done will be boring, so I am going to save all but the truly masochistic from them—if you really want to read some stories, go here. (War Stories).

I’ve always had a strong focus on client service. I left Katten because I thought big firms were being unfair to their clients when they raised salaries for new associates to (gasp!) $125,000 (I’m sure most clients look back fondly on those days!). And I left Butler Rubin because I became convinced that the traditional law firm model is an anathema to clients. The relationship between client and attorney should be something special. Valorem is going to make it so.