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A conversation with Stephen French, Legalbill
Nashville Business Journal
Date: Friday, December 3, 2010, 5:00am CST
James Yates, Nashville Business Journal
Stephen French oversees a Nashville company that looks to help companies control legal expenses and deal with compliance and other issues.
As a co-founder and top executive at Legalbill, Stephen French oversees a Nashville company that looks to help companies control legal expenses and deal with compliance and other issues. Law firms and corporate legal departments alike talk about the pressure to control legal costs, especially in light of the recession that puts pressure on bottom lines. Legalbill looks to occupy that market by lowering and expediting payments, developing attorney/client relationships and providing compliance help and business research.
What is the most outside-of-the-box idea you have ever had in your professional career?
Starting Legalbill, a legal information services and consulting company that tracks and analyzes legal spend for corporate legal departments.
What was the result?
A global company that is an innovator in legal spend management and analytics.
What single thing makes your organization stand out?
The quality and commitment of our people.
What does your organization have in the works for 2011?
Expansion of service lines and employees.
How did you wind up in your current position?
I am co-founder. My business partner, Jeffrey McCandless, and I realized early on that there existed a need for a service that could provide expertise to help corporations reduce their outside legal costs. No such service existed in 1992, and we were determined to fill that void.
What makes an effective business leader?
The willingness to listen twice as much as you speak.
What word best describes your leadership style?
Free rein.
Goal yet to be achieved?
Becoming the man God perfectly created me to be.
Professional pet peeve?
Someone with an unteachable spirit.
What keeps you up at night?
Very little that is important.
What do you do to relieve stress?
Go to my boat.
Can you name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader?
Hal Hadden, CEO and founder of the Christian Leadership Concepts. He is a man with vision who articulated his leadership message in a simple yet effective package.
What is the simplest thing you never learned to do?
I still struggle with saying no to people when things aren’t working out. My tendency is to give the benefit of the doubt for too long.
Favorite hobbies?
Golf, skiing and boating.
Person outside of your family you would most like to spend time with on an island?
Martin Luther, the German theologian who inspired the Protestant Reformation.
Pets?
None.
What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?
Eternal life.
You’ve just been given $100,000 to donate to charity. Where would you give it?
Today’s Choices and Christian Leadership Concepts, equally. Today’s Choices changes the lives of the poorest of young women in the African nation of Ghana through the development of the spirit, intellect and vocational skills. Christian Leadership Concepts changes the lives of men who lead their families, churches and businesses.
When faced with two equally qualified candidates, how do you determine whom to hire?
The one with the most sound character and teachable spirit.
What would you like to cross off your “bucket list” next?
I’ve been blessed to experience far more than I could have hoped for or imagined at this point in my life. I love the fact that the next 40 years will be equally unexpected.
What line of work would you pursue if you couldn’t work in your present one?
Doctor.
Biggest professional mistake and how you overcame it?
Fell in love with a startup company and invested too much money even after I knew it was a mistake. Overcame it after seven years of hard work and sacrifice.
Organization or company other than your own that you most admire?
Christian Leadership Concepts, a spiritual organization that equips men to be leaders in their home, church, work and community.
What skill would you most like to improve?
Learning how to say no.
What is there about you that people would be surprised to learn?
I listen to rap music.
What is the one behavior or trait that most often derails leaders’ careers?
Pride and self-sufficiency.
They’re making a movie of your life. Is it a drama or comedy and who plays you?
A drama. Anthony Hopkins.
If you could live a double life, the other would be:
No different.
Stephen French
Age: 56
Title: Co-founder, managing partner
Company: Legalbill
Address: 732 Melrose Ave., Nashville 37211
Web: legalbill.com
Employees: 50
Most recently read book: “The Servant Leader” by Ken Blanchard
Favorite music artist: TobyMac
Education: Southeast Missouri State University
Community involvement: Strong Tower Bible Church, Christian Leadership Concepts, Today’s Choices
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