As part of my strategic planning process with clients, I conduct interviews with each lawyer and a representative group of staff. One of the many questions I ask them is this: how will your client base shift in the coming five years, and how might that affect how you will provide legal services to them? [...]
Recruiters make a lot of money helping to place Associates in law firms. It’s a great service, but their motivation places emphasis on movement in the marketplace rather than stability. And movement follows because most Associates don’t really know what they’re looking for and how to assess if firms have those things. And most law [...]
Despite hiccups on vaccine receipt and distribution, we now know that by the end of the year, there’s a very good chance we’ll all be back to normal. That means there’s still another considerable block of time to get through first. We don’t want to be in either survival or neutral mode forever. So as [...]
Lawyers are some of the most intelligent people in this country. But from a business management perspective, I’d put them in the bottom 50%. That’s because lawyers don’t like to plan, they don’t like to ask how they are doing, and they don’t like change. But mostly, it’s because when they do get good advice, [...]
(This article first appeared in SLAW. While it's no longer a "first of the year" piece, it still have value for those firms wondering if the pandemic will ever end, what business will look like on the other side, and whether they should be doing things differently now). Despite hiccups on vaccine receipt and distribution, [...]
Law firms are getting better at planning. This includes a strategic plan, and marketing plan, plans for practice groups, even plans for individual lawyers. Firms can feel pretty sanctimonious about having taken the time (and money) to develop such plans. But more often than not, by the end of the year the plan has been [...]
(This post first appeared in SLAW) Most firms have come to appreciate the value of practice groups in their management and marketing; but not everyone knows why they are more powerful than operating without them, which may result in their under-utilization. In this post I’ll explain the evolution of practice groups, what they look like [...]
Aside form the obvious challenges facing firms in a global pandemic, the next biggest concern for my clients is their inability to find and keep good staff. Here are my suggestions for addressing this concern. Hire better: The first step toward repairing a high attrition rate is to improve your hiring process. Can’t find qualified [...]
(This article was originally published in SLAW). When I ask lawyers what their firm’s business goals are for the year, it’s shocking how few know the answer, often because those goals don’t exist. So, it’s understandable that when I ask those same lawyers for their personal business goals are, they don’t know those either. Firms [...]
Like most writers, I get inspiration from real-world events. Currently, I’ve been observing as the President of the United States refuses to concede the election to the President-Elect. While in many ways we’ve come to expect this kind of behavior from the current President, it reminded me of the importance of removing ego from leadership [...]