The Heiman Research Institute conducts an annual survey of worldwide organizations to determine what differentiates those that are the best in sales from all the others. While all types of companies were included in the survey, the report breaks out professional service firms from the rest. Relative to other types of businesses, professional service firms, a category…
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Our last post Why Aren’t There More Women Leaders and Why Should Firms Care? addressed many of the reasons that women are not advancing to top levels in their firms. Many of the impediments and biases we summarized also can be found in the discrepancies between male and female compensation for equity partners. According to “Closing the Gap,” a…
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As noted in our previous post Succession Part 1: Holding onto Clients When Senior Rainmakers Retire, over the next ten years over 65% of baby-boomer, equity partners are expected to retire. (Since we focused on Transitioning Clients in that post, we will not address it again in this one.) Many of these partners likely also are…
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As if law firms don’t have enough to worry about in this era of more discerning and demanding clients, pressures on rates and profitability and more stringent competition, it is estimated that over the next ten years sixty-five percent of baby boomer equity partners will retire. While some firms are using early retirement and de-equitization…
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Two things are clear right now. First, dramatic changes have already occurred and will continue to occur in the legal profession (actually, most are affecting all sectors of the economy.) Second, these and other new changes will be permanent, i.e., this is not a pendulum swing that will swing back. The marketplace is driving these…
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As law firms continue to strive to run themselves as businesses, more are hiring senior level business executives who do not have law degrees or who have joint JD/MBA degrees but who likely have more experience in business than practicing law. Most law firm CEOs in the US and UK, however, are lawyers, many of whom still…
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Like many things occurring in the profession right now, this is a trend that is here to stay. Clients want their legal work done faster, cheaper and smarter and they know that there are good practices in place in other professions and businesses that can be adapted to the practice of law. Companies like GE…
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As we proposed in our previous post Value Post 3: Like Law Firms, GCs Must Deliver More Value to Their Clients, general counsel face many of the same pressures that their outside lawyers do when it comes to demonstrating their value to their clients – the business side of their companies. Much of the legal press…
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Law firms have been so wrapped up in their own challenges that they often neglect to think about the fact that legal departments are also under substantial pressure to deliver value to the business. General Counsel may consider their outside lawyers a “necessary evil,” but many company executives and boards consider their in-house lawyers a…
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Our last post Value Post 1: What Does Value Mean in Law Firms? discussed the meaning of value in the law firm/client context including the ways that clients define and measure the value they receive from their lawyers. This second post explores how firms can articulate value to help them differentiate and excel in attracting, satisfying and…
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“Value” is one of the most commonly used buzzwords of the first part of this century. Everyone is talking about it, promoting it, writing about it, offering it, demanding it, trying to measure it and bragging about it. First, let’s start with the Merriam-Webster definition of value: 1: a fair return or equivalent in goods,…
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All the disruption, uncertainty and competition afflicting law firms today is creating a lot of anxiety and fear. Plenty of lawyers are questioning why they chose law as a profession and whether they should retool into another career, law firm leaders question how they will lead their firms through this time of turbulence, and most…
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The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines col•lab•o•ra•tion [kuh-lab-uh-rey-shuh n] as: (1) the state of having shared interests or efforts (as in social or business matters;) (2) the work and activity of a number of persons who individually contribute toward the efficiency of the whole. In today’s business environment, technology tools and platforms facilitate effective collaboration. So there…
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In our last blog post In 2013, Will More Firms Finally Understand that Client Feedback = Better Revenue and Profitability?, we discussed why it is critical to seek feedback from clients and to ensure that they are not only satisfied but extremely satisfied. Extremely satisfied clients lead to truly loyal clients who are much more profitable to…
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According to a recent ALM Legal Intelligence Survey, 68% of law firms put “Growing the Firm’s Revenue” as their top business strategy priority and 54% listed “Improving Firm Profitability” as their number three priority. “Client Performance Management and Client Satisfaction Measurement” was a fourth priority, however, only 56% of law firms said they plan to track…
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