This article was written by Tory Ruttenberg, who is a RainMaking Oasis Affiliate Consultant and President of Ruttenberg Consulting, LLC and was originally published in PD Quarterly magazine. It is reprinted here with permission from both. Due to the unique nature of law firms, succession planning can be more difficult for them than for other…
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Law firms are facing stiff competition when it comes to holding onto their clients, much less gaining market share. Given the flat growth in available legal work, law firms have been having to “steal” work from other firms to gain share. BTI Consulting’s Market Outlook and Client Service Review 2017 reports that while legal spending…
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In 2017, lawyers will be under more pressure than ever to succeed at business development, and yet many of them remain skeptical about whether or not CMOs, CBDOs and their teams really add value. Even at firms with the most enlightened partners in leadership roles, the role and effectiveness of business development and marketing is…
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Our last blog post, “Law Firm Partnership Part 1: Do True Partnerships Still Exist?” explored the changes that have occurred in the partnership model in recent decades and the core aspects to healthy partnerships. In this post, we will examine the qualities needed to advance to equity partner status and what it takes to be…
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Citi Private Bank has released its third quarter report on law firm growth and it indicates a slow-down since their mid-year report. The following findings are important to note: Demand was nearly flat at .3% Revenue growth other than due to billing rate increases was only .3% Firms have seen an increase in compensation expenses…
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Leadership is not a title or a position. The best leaders have developed competencies that enable them to drive their firms forward, think conceptually and strategically and effectively build and rely on teams and networks. According to the 2016 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends report, eighty-nine percent of companies see leadership as an important or…
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Recent surveys show that less than a third of law firms have a formal retirement or succession planning process in place. Those that have one tend to focus more on retirement age and phase-down compensation approaches usually with a focus only on a few partners expected to retire within two to five years. A much…
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Our two prior blog posts examined a number of trends, challenges and changes that will affect legal service businesses of the future. “Legal service business” is used here intentionally to suggest that many legal services of the future will more frequently be provided by non-traditional law firms (many of which won’t even be called or…
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In Part 1 of 3: The Next Normal – Will the Traditional Law Firm Model Survive?, we suggested that the traditional firm model will not survive in the future (or perhaps even the present for many.) The law firm or legal service organization of the future will employ numerous types of people who have various skills,…
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This article is the first in a series to look at the “Next Normal” for law firms. Part 1 focuses on the traditional law firm model and why it is unlikely to remain as it is, Part 2 focuses on lawyer skills and talent management in the future, and Part 3 will address whether and…
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What’s the difference between a client and a customer? Lawyers, like other professional service providers, consider the term client to be more prestigious and most eschew any reference to clients as customers. But it may just be time to reconsider. First, clients are beginning to act more like custmers and second, law firms could benefit…
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As we enter into a new year, firms would do well to renew their commitment to really focusing on and taking care of their key clients. Too often, clients are taken for granted or viewed merely as a source of revenue. Firms focus on getting new matters, cross-selling and pitching, often without much attention to…
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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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