Let Us Help You Reach Your New Year’s Goals

01.08.20 | Susan Duncan

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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Smart Growth Part 7: Organic Growth of Revenue

12.03.19 | Susan Duncan

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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Smart Growth Part 5: Lateral Partner Onboarding and Integration

10.30.19 | Susan Duncan

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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Practice Groups Part 4: Practice Group Leader as Talent Manager and Coach

01.09.19 | Susan Duncan

Perhaps one of the most challenging responsibilities for today’s practice group leaders is the “people” side of the business. In our prior two posts, we have discussed the Practice Group Leader as Strategist and the Practice Group Leader as Financial Steward. While PGLs often get help from others managing the associates and staff in the…

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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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Succession Management Pillar 3 of 5: Client Succession and Transition Management

08.22.18 | Susan Duncan

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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Lawyers Should be Great at Consultative and Insight Selling

06.27.18 | Susan Duncan

When lawyers first started exploring the uncomfortable process of “selling” as early as the 1980s not long after the 1977 Bates decision allowing lawyers to advertise, it was uncomfortable and seen as unseemly even sleazy. Over the decades, consultants have adapted sales approaches shifting from the traditional model into consultative selling. This approach has proven effective…

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Law Firm MDPs and New Delivery Models Part 2 – Subsidiaries

10.18.17 | Susan Duncan

In an effort to offer existing and new clients fuller capabilities and solutions, many law firms have developed wholly-owned subsidiaries often comprised of experts in an industry or service specialty who are not lawyers. As we reviewed in our last post, Law Firm MDPs and New Delivery Models Part 1 – A Primer, clients today…

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Your Personal Brand: (Re)Define It, Burnish It and Manage It

07.12.17 | Susan Duncan

Everyone has a personal brand and it often plays a critical role in professional success, advancement and business development.  Similar to a business’ brand, your brand is a promise of what others will receive from you, what you will be known for and how people react to your personality and approach.  Whether or not you actively…

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Collaboration: Walking the Talk at Morgan Lewis

03.29.17 | Susan Duncan

[Note: This article is being published with the permission of our client, Morgan Lewis & Bockius.] Two of our previous posts on collaboration, True Collaboration Drives Profitability and Collaboration: The Next Law Firm Frontier, discussed the benefits of collaborative cultures and approaches to client representation.   But both articles also alluded to the reasons why collaboration…

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True Collaboration Drives Profitability and Client Loyalty

03.15.17 | Susan Duncan

Collaboration in the workplace is widely recognized as an important success factor in the most effective organizations. It is necessary in order to build and share knowledge, accelerate innovation, break down silos and facilitate connectivity.  A recent Harvard study found that managers and employees now spend 50% or more time in collaborative activities than they…

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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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Who are Law Firms Really Competing With and Why?

01.18.17 | Susan Duncan

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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