We published 24 articles in 2019 on topics geared toward law firm leaders and managers as well as those geared toward individual lawyers and professionals. This recap includes only the high-level points made in many of those posts, but we encourage you to go back to the original posts to receive the more thorough analysis…
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In our prior post, Smart Growth Part 6: Organic Growth of Talent, we discussed the need for growing your talent organically as well as through lateral hiring of associates and partners. Today, when leaders and consultants talk about organic growth, they often are referring to the revenue side of organic growth. In a highly competitive environment…
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In our first post on Smart Growth, we cited the 2019 Altman Weil Law Firms in Transition Survey, which reported that the number one growth strategy law firms intended to use was organic growth at 96%, followed by acquiring laterals at 92% and acquiring groups at 76%. We rarely focus on organic growth as a…
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Our last post, Smart Growth Part 4: Lateral Partner Hiring discussed the statistics of lateral recruiting, the level of activity, the failure rates and the cost of failures. Improving your process by aligning strategy to hiring, laying out the business case and criteria for lateral hires and comprehensively vetting candidates will go a long way…
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As we discussed in Smart Growth Part 1, hiring lateral partners or small groups of partners and associates provides law firms with short and long-term opportunities to add partners with strong client relationships and portable books of business to shore up their revenue numbers. Whether adding well-known and positioned rainmakers to a practice or industry…
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Our second post in our Growth series, Your Strategy Must be Much More Than a Plan, suggested new, more creative and aggressive ways to think about your strategy. Both Porter’s 5 Forces and the Blue Ocean strategy described in that post require a foundation in good research and intelligence that when converted into analysis and…
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In our prior post, Smart Growth Part 1: The Why and How of Growth, we reviewed the reasons for and types of growth that law firms typically follow. In this post, we will explore the role that strategy plays in growth and why firms must be much more aggressive, creative, forward-thinking and discerning than ever…
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As we enter the fourth quarter of the year, it is an important time to be thinking about your firm’s growth strategy for the future. Law firms, like any other business, must grow and adapt to stay relevant and viable. The last ten years of disruption have increased (1) competition from other law firms, clients’…
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Our prior three law firm case studies have featured a 75-lawyer firm in Chicago, a 550-lawyer US firm and a 1,100-lawyer firm all based in the United States except for 13 full-time lawyers in China. This case study is about global law firm Morgan Lewis, with more than 2,000 lawyers across 17 offices in the…
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In our two prior posts, Innovation Case Study 1 and Innovation Case Study 2, we described two different law firm approaches to innovation. This third case study describes the efforts at Perkins Coie with a focus on those being led or shepherded by Toby Brown, the firm’s Chief Practice Management Officer. Toby has been in the…
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At the recent P3 Conference (P3 stands for Pricing, Project Management and Process Improvement,) Sam Davenport, Business Innovation and Finance Director, DWT/De Novo, DWT and Brian Fanning, Director of Practice Economics at Davis Wright & Tremaine, shared their approaches to how they support and expand a culture of innovation at the 550-lawyer firm that has…
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Levenfeld Pearlstein is a 75-lawyer firm in Chicago. Its innovative CEO, Angie Hickey, recently shared her insights at the P3 Conference about how the firm has adopted a corporate style Customer Experience culture that sets it apart. Their client focus permeates everything the firm does both internally and externally. The firm was founded in 1999…
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Nearly four hundred professionals gathered for the 7th annual P3: Practice Innovation Conference focusing on project management, process improvement and pricing and hosted by the Legal Marketing Association. It was an impressive group of experts and very instructive to see how law firms continue to expand their commitment to legal operations and innovation in their…
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Our last blog post, Skills Gap Part 1: What Skills Will Lawyers Need to Stay Relevant? described the expanded set of competencies necessary for lawyers in law firms and legal departments today. The types of skills needed and the level of competency in each will vary according to a firm’s practice mix, its strategic positioning…
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Our last three posts have addressed different aspects of innovation that are occuring in the legal profession: Innovation Part 1: What It Is and What It Isn’t, Innovation Part 2: Insights from Expertsand Innovation Part 3: ALSPs Are Expanding and Aren’t Alternative Anymore. Inherent in all of this client-driven change and digital transformation is the…
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