Most businesses – especially law firms – must market to some degree. And they do. They have a website. They print business cards. They make sure the logo is used on tombstone ads and sponsorship programs. Law firms do spend some money on marketing, and some of their lawyers even spend time on marketing – [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The ability to rise in a law firm is – let’s face it – very closely related to productivity. But to move into the real power positions of any organization, including a law firm, you need to show that you can think and act strategically. What would this look like in practice? At a recent [...]
Better business results can only be achieved by a change in process or behaviour, so change management is mandatory in law firms. Yet ironically, partners are the ones who most often stand in the way of change. Law firms hire me to help create a strategic plan for their future. They also hire me [...]
We think of scaffolds as a construction tool, but scaffolding is equally important in business. This post defines business scaffolding and promotes its use as a critical business tool. When I was in Hong Kong several years ago I marvelled at the common use of bamboo for scaffolding – even for ten-story buildings. This went [...]
It doesn’t matter how much money the professions spend on programs to keep their people – good people are still leaving in droves. We need a change of strategy. Professional services attrition rates are atrocious, in two ways. First, far too many professionals leave a firm before or in the early stages of partnership. For [...]
The book, “How Will You Measure Your Life” by Clayton Christensen is filled with valuable life and business lessons. The one I’ll focus on today is the difference between deliberate and emergent strategies, and how they can ideally come into play in a firm. Christensen illustrates this point by summarizing Honda’s entry into the North [...]
How many times have you reflected back on a firm retreat and thought “wow, that was money well-spent”? I worry that we’ve become far too comfortable with the underwhelming performance of one of the most expensive management tools a firm will ever engage in. Most professional service firms have held a retreat before and are [...]