Years ago, when lawyer attrition started to reach alarming rates (which for some reason we are more complacent about now), Catalyst in the US conducted research to determine why so many female lawyers were leaving the profession. Not that only female lawyers were leaving; that was simply the focus of their research. They found that [...]
I often get asked “what kind of marketing should we do?” Or I’m asked to “just provide us with a bunch of great marketing ideas”. No time spent determining what the firm wants to look like in the future. No proper assessment of where they are today. No indication of what success would look like. [...]
Instead of business as usual this year, I invite you to consider managing your firm like it's a business instead of a law firm: through business goals and plans. Most law firms only have a general sense of what they want to accomplish this year as a business. Earn more revenues. Grow our client base. [...]
In this second segment of a two-part article, I focus on succession planning for practice groups and individual lawyers. In Part One (published here in October), I explained why proper succession planning is so important. I also touched on why senior partners might be reluctant to retire, and offered advice on how to overcome this [...]
Client teams may be one of the most powerful business development tools at your disposal, but are an oxymoron to most lawyers. As a profession, lawyers aren’t usually known for being team players. By nature, they are individual thinkers and doers. They like their autonomy, and tend to feel that too many rules restrict their [...]
Lawyers are highly intelligent, capable human beings who can probably reasonably do any task placed in front of them. That doesn’t mean that they should. The wise business person focuses on their core competency, and for lawyers, that’s the practice of law. There’s also the belief by some (well, many) that lawyers are typically not [...]
The purpose of any business is to be profitable, and provide conditions for a satisfying work experience for those who work there. The collective intelligence within a law firm should make these goals a slam dunk; unfortunately, in many ways the culture of the typical law firm works against its financial success. See if any [...]
Most law firms are contradictory when it comes to retreat philosophies. They want to ensure that a retreat isn’t a colossal waste of time and money; but they want everyone to have fun. They want to get substantial work done; but they want to focus on team building and the social aspect. They want attendees [...]
In most businesses, the senior-most individuals would be considered the most stable in terms of productivity. Their years of experience coupled with their management and marketing skills and reputation would normally add up to sustainable revenue. But this is not necessarily the case in a law practice. Most Partners do not intuitively have marketing skills, [...]
My 22-year-old son tells me that the days of sexism and racism are gone, and for all I know that may well be the case for his generation, but it’s not for mine. I’m amazed at the constant examples of sexism and racism and other isms that I see regularly in my professional and personal [...]