How to Enable Value with Clients: Part 2

04.15.20 | Susan Duncan

In our March 4th post, How to Enable Value With Clients: Part 1, we discussed the need for law firms to build and deliver more innovative and efficient service to clients. Part 1 addressed the first two components of innovative, value-enabled service delivery: knowledge management and process/project management. In this article we will address data…

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How to Enable Value with Clients: Part 1

03.04.20 | Susan Duncan

Firms continue to make efforts to better understand and deliver more efficient and effective services by utilizing systems, people and technology. However, many partners in firms still resist change and are not aware of or comfortable with the many ways that their firms can and should be aggressively pursuing alternative and innovative processes to both…

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Innovation Case Study 3: Perkins Coie

08.07.19 | Susan Duncan

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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Innovation Case Study 2: Davis Wright and Tremaine – Fostering Service Delivery

07.26.19 | Susan Duncan

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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Innovation in Law Firm Operations: Takeaways from LMA’s P3 Conference

06.26.19 | Susan Duncan

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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The Skills Gap Part 1: What Competencies will Lawyers Need to Stay Relevant in the Future?

05.15.19 | Susan Duncan

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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Innovation Part 3: ALSPs Are Expanding and Aren’t “Alternative” Any More

04.17.19 | Susan Duncan

[Editorial Note: We apologize for the error in our last post Innovation Part 2: Insights from the Experts. We mistakenly referred to Bill Deckelman as John. ] The most recent Alternative Legal Service Providers 2019 Report* was released in January. In the two years since the survey was conducted last, the ALSP market has grown…

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Innovation Part 2: Insights from Experts

04.03.19 | Susan Duncan

The 2019 Legalweek conference hosted presentations by many experts who represented various players in the legal ecosystem: law firms, in-house lawyers, technology companies, ALSPs and consultants.  In our prior post, Innovation Part 1: What It Is and What It Isn’t, we provided the framework for how to think about innovation in law. In this post,…

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Practice Groups Part 3: Practice Group Leader as Financial Steward

12.12.18 | Susan Duncan

As firms continue to grow in size and complexity, it often is no longer possible for them to drive, manage and measure the revenue growth of the firm only through the central leadership. The concept of practice groups operating as business units is that they now have primary responsibility for overseeing major aspects of their…

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Practice Groups Part 2: Practice Group Leader as Strategist

11.28.18 | Susan Duncan

It is surprising how many law firms, their leaders and partners eschew the discipline of planning and strategy. Many firms still don’t require annual plans or even the process of planning from their partners, or practice groups and many don’t even have a strategic plan for the firm. A survey conducted by Patrick McKenna and David…

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Practice Groups Part 1: The Framework and Leadership Role

11.07.18 | Susan Duncan

Most law firms have implemented a  practice group structure. Even those firms that retain the traditional, larger umbrella department structure (for example, corporate/transactional, litigation/disputes, regulatory,) most break down the management of the practice into smaller strategic business units that are used to: Organize lawyers and manage talent with specific skills and specialties Develop, execute and monitor…

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Industry Group Strategy Part 2: How to Execute IGs Effectively

09.06.17 | Susan Duncan

In our prior post, Industry Group Strategy Part 1 – What are They and Why Have IGs? we clarified the difference between sectors and industries and discussed the benefits and goals of having them.  In law firms, Industry Groups, like client teams, straddle multiple practice groups and lawyers may be members of several practice groups…

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Healthy Client Road Map: 25 Tips to Keep Clients Happy, Satisfied and Loyal

03.01.17 | Susan Duncan

Despite all the talk about clients not being loyal anymore and only being interested in pushing matters to the least expensive “bidder,”  many things about relationships still matter to most clients.  In our last blog post Sales and Service: The Loyal Client Lifecycle, we touched upon some of the ways to nurture and advance client relationships….

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Sales and Service: The Loyal Client Life Cycle

02.15.17 | Susan Duncan

Law firms continue to compete aggressively for new clients and new work from existing clients.  We know from recent surveys by Citi and Altman Weil that client demand for outside lawyers remained flat in 2016 and is expected to do so again in 2017.  With the same or less work to go around, this means…

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Value Post 1: What Does Value Mean in Law Firms?

04.15.13 | Susan Duncan

“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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