Even though law firms have tried to transform and retransform themselves over the past few decades, it is clear that significant work remains. Lawyers' satisfaction with their chosen work remains quite low.

In a recent poll, 52 percent of practicing lawyers described themselves as dissatisfied. (Authentic Happiness, 2002, at p. 177.) Lawyers are more than 3.5 times more likely to suffer depression than employed persons generally. Lawyers generally, and to an even greater extent female lawyers, have a higher divorce rate than other professionals. Even though law schools have been graduating significant numbers of people of color and women for many years, most new partners are still Caucasian males. ("Glass Intact, Pipeline Leaking," Perspectives, Fall 2002; Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Justice System, 2000.) We're smart and well- educated — can't we do better for ourselves?

Of course there is a lot of "good lawyering" going on, as we would commonly understand that phrase, and some of us are making quite a lot of money. But fundamental dissatisfaction with one's career should not be the normal state of affairs in our profession: It is not in others. Yet most of us enjoy what we actually do — like putting the deal together, or litigating the case or convincing the local planning board that a mixed use development is a great idea.

So what's wrong? This column assumes that the problem comes from the business models we have adopted as the container for holding our work. How can we change these structures in a way that might lead to deeper satisfaction, even happiness, among our profession?

There is surprisingly little variety in law firm organizational structure and practices. In the average law firm, "reinvention" means looking at what the competition does and following suit, albeit with a little more panache, whiz bang or hindsight. These incremental efforts change the window dressing, but do not change the fundamentals.

So how do we begin the process of truly reinventing the practice of law? Here's my radical proposal — throw out stare decisis. Please understand that I am not talking about getting rid of stare decisis as a tool for judicial decision making. In that context, stare decisis serves an excellent role in providing a reasonable amount of predictability to the consequences of actions. Instead, I am talking about the concept of stare decisis as it applies to the practice of law, and, most important, the running of law firms.

Simply put, we should eliminate the rationales of "because we've done it that way for years" or "this is the way everyone else does it" when exploring how we organize ourselves as business entities.

In practice, this means that when we are looking for new ideas, the best place to start is not to call a legal consultant, or read the pages of a law practice management magazine, or talk to old friends to find out what they're doing. Rest assured I have nothing against getting advice from friends, or law practice management publications, or from the many talented consultants who focus on our industry. In fact, I have a list of those I like best and I can point to many tangible changes our firm has made over the years based on their ideas.

But these changes have all been incremental — learning strategies other firms used to improve billing and collections practices, or improving department group leadership. The truly radical ideas have come from other sources.

For example, Summit Law Group is a 50-person/31-lawyer firm in Seattle, the home of Nordstrom Inc. Nordstrom built its renowned customer service reputation on the foundation of a "no questions asked" return policy. Summit also had customer loyalty and satisfaction in mind when developing a unique approach to law firm billing. For the past six years it has included a "Value Adjustment" line on each of the firm's invoices, where the client can add or deduct any amount from the bill, so that the net amount they pay equals the perceived value of the services received. Has it worked? Summit swears by it.

When my firm faced associate dissatisfaction a few years back, we looked toward our corporate clients for ideas about assuring our associates that they were a true part of the organization and their ideas were valued. We saw that most of the senior executives with whom we worked received some form of annual 360º review, with comments from colleagues, superiors and subordinates. Those executives praised the programs as a means of providing their subordinates with an opportunity to give meaningful feedback and improve working relationships.

We implemented the same process at our firm. After three years, we have seen marked improvements in the feelings of connectedness and involvement among associates as well as nonlawyer staff.

Reinventing our business models won't be easy; breaking longstanding habits never is. In addition to humans' general resistance to change, collectively, lawyers exhibit certain personality traits that make true innovation harder. Research reported by Altman Weill's Larry Richard in a recent article in the periodical Legal Management demonstrates that lawyers are highly skeptical, have a high sense of urgency, are not particularly sociable, are defensive, resist feedback and are hypersensitive to criticism.

It is hard to imagine a worse environment for hatching new ideas than one where the participants are trained to find holes and problems, insist on immediate results and don't like spending a great deal of time in social interactions. That audience would be challenging for most anyone, and it would take a Herculean effort to suggest a novel or untried idea if you were a person who cannot take criticism.

I have no quick and easy answer for how to replace stare decisis in making decisions about law firm organization and management. Still, I have some suggestions. Instead of reaching for the next issue of your favorite legal magazine, read Fast Company and find out how someone remade a dot-bomb, or reinvented a hospital, or fixed a broken manufacturing plant. There will be lessons/ideas you can apply to your law firm.

Hold your skepticism in check and explore the "wild hair" ideas of the true visionaries in your firm, giving them room and resources to try something different. Support them if they fail, and let them pick up and try again. Take nonlegal executives to lunch, ask what frustrates them about the legal industry and explore how they would reengineer things if they were in charge. Heck, gather a whole table full, lay out your business model and ask them what model they would use if they were in charge of the business.

Law firms have periodically loaned a key partner to the local United Way or other charity campaign. The next time your firm has that opportunity, say yes — and task the partner with looking at United Way's business model and coming back to the firm with ideas for change. Jump at the chance to loan lawyers to corporations for months or years to take on business roles. Just insist that they bring back some new ideas when they return to the firm. When they do return, let them try out what they've learned — fail if it comes to that — and try again.

Please be realistic about this process. Do not expect to sit down, read a magazine, and have the next great idea pop into your head. Instead, build quiet time and ample space to nurture ideas as they grow. As Brenda Ueland reminded us in 1938, "ideas come slowly . . . the more clear, tranquil and unstimulated you are, the slower the ideas come, but the better they are."

When the desired result is a fundamental change, there are no quick fixes. At the same time, there's no time like today to get started.