This is the fifteenth in our weekly series of posts that provide excerpts and tips from our book Building Enduring Client Loyalty: A Guide for Lawyers and Their Firms, just published in February. Click here to save 15%. Enter code ‘AUTHBEC’ at the checkout. Transitioning or turning over clients is one of the most challenging hurdles in…
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Happy New Year! While most reports from Q4 indicate that 2019 was a robust year for law firms, others are cautioning that we are still due for a slowdown in 2020. Now is the time to hone your growth strategies, safely secure your clients and your own talent, and proactively manage into the future. We…
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To our clients and colleagues – It came to our attention that many of you were not on our distribution list until very recently and therefore not receiving our bi-weekly blog. Knowing you are too busy to go to the web site to peruse the list of topics or may not have signed up on…
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In this final post in our five-part series on succession planning, we address perhaps the most challenging aspect of the topic: managing and supporting individual senior partner transitions. In Pillar 1, Pillar 2, Pillar 3 and Pillar 4 we discussed various components of how firms can design and manage approaches to the many facets of succession…
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There are many complex issues related to succession. We have reviewed many of these already in our previous three posts which can be found here, here and here. In this fourth pillar, we will address two important areas that pose particular risk for law firms in two key areas: leadership transitions and loss of knowledge.Loss of…
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This post follows two prior posts and addresses the third pillar of succession management. Like many aspects of law firm management, the subject of succession planning often is limited to internal firm or management discussions and consideration. This is a mistake. Clients know and worry that senior partners may be nearing retirement, and absent any…
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Much of the Baby Boomer/retirement/succession dilemma revolves around money: the firm’s revenues, senior partner’s contribution to and control of client revenue, partner compensation and incentives to transition and other financial aspects of retiring partners.As noted in our recent post: Succession Management: The Problem and a RoadMap, we know that according to Altman Weil, 73% of…
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In our recent blog post Succession Planning: The Problem and a RoadMap, we concluded with a RoadMap for how to establish a framework for an approach to succession planning. This post provides additional detail about five components that comprise the pillars of succession management. Pillar 1 ComponentsDone correctly, as described in our post The Succession…
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Eight adults per minute turn sixty-five and by 2020, 20% of the workforce will be 65 or older. In law firms, the problem is exacerbated as senior rainmakers aged 60 or older often control 50% or more of the client base and key relationships, and often serve in key leadership positions. According to studies conducted…
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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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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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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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