When law firm partners think about operational strategy, they usually focus on external threats. They worry about competing firms stealing their clients, technological disruption eroding their billable hours, or a sudden dip in the local economy. But there can also be internal threats to the firm: Associate churn, Partner under-productivity, a lack of operational efficiency. [...]
For lawyers who are concerned about job stability, or those who wish to eventually move into the Partnership, it is time to focus on positioning yourself to transition from a technical service provider to a work generator. In my experience (primarily based on firms with one to 45 lawyers), true rainmakers represent less than 1% [...]
Lawyers love the comfort of precedent, dusty books, and advice that has been successful for them in the past. For decades, the billable hour has been the gold standard—the undisputed, preferred method of charging clients. It is familiar, it is predictable, and it is how most senior Partners built their success. But the legal landscape [...]
My regular readers know I listen to a lot of podcasts, and that one of my favorites is Freakonomics. A recent episode was titled “Has America Lost the Plot?”. It is a great episode, but the title itself gave me the inspiration for this post. Frankly, I think most of the law firm leaders I [...]
As part of the strategic planning side of my consultancy, I find that many of my clients identify a gap between the need for succession planning, and the willingness of their more senior lawyers to embrace and plan for succession. I can easily convince law firms of the value of these plans. The hard part [...]
When I first studied mediation, it was from the “win-win” camp. I was encouraged to look for ways to build relationships in a dispute by finding common ground, and actively looking for ways to accommodate interests on both sides. Often, this results in more positive outcomes that can, going forward, actually strengthen the relationship between [...]
In an interview with Dr. Michael Gervais (mastery expert and podcaster), Missy Testerman, the 2024 USA Teacher of the Year advised that “great teachers don’t raise kids; they raise adults”. It’s a subtle but important distinction, speaking to a series of actions geared towards a specific future intent. It’s what author Stephen Covey called, “Beginning [...]
Gary Klein can tell law firms a lot about working under pressure and uncertainty. He is a research psychologist and pioneer of the field of naturalistic decision making, as well as author of (among others) the book “Seeing What Others Don’t”. People pay attention to this guy: his work is used by the US armed [...]
When I meet new people, it’s hard to explain what I do for a living so I just say “I’m a business strategist for law firms”. At that point, they either really want to know what that means, or they really don't. For the curious, I’ve recently started to explain the story of Steve Ballmer [...]
Through a recent podcast featuring 24-year-old Harvard-educated author Adam Aleksic on the influence of internet language, I was reminded of the incredible speed of change we are all now facing. Take, for example, use of the phrase “unalive” as a way of saying “dead” which might result in algorithmic censorship. Similarly, a watermelon now represents [...]