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 4: Lateral Partner Hiring

10.16.19 | Susan Duncan

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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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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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 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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A Race to the Bottom for the AmLaw 200 and Below? Doesn’t Have to Be.

06.14.18 | Susan Duncan

A month ago, at a conference on change management, a managing partner of an AmLaw 200 firm asked a question that likely weighs on the minds of most AmLaw 200 managing partners, some of the AmLaw 100 firms and many of those below the top 200. His question was: We hear all the time that…

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Customer Experience (CX) Part 1 – Is It Different from Customer Service?

04.12.17 | Susan Duncan

Providing exceptional and consistent client service is critical to your firm’s success, but to be a real winner, you will have to deliver an exceptional client experience (CX).  With clients now in the driver’s seat and law firms aggressively competing to hold on to clients or take work away from others, we know that excellent…

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Part 1 of 3: The Next Normal – Will the Traditional Law Firm Model Survive?

06.16.14 | Susan Duncan

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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Culture Part 2: How to Use or Adapt Culture to Succeed in the “New Normal”

08.28.12 | Susan Duncan

Last week, our post entitled Culture Part 1: Does Law Firm Culture Play a Role in Success or Failure? discussed the components that comprise organizational culture. Every law firm has a unique set of interwoven values and characteristics that make up its culture. As firms address the substantial disruptions posed by the economy, technology and supply and…

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What Rainmaker Traits and Skills are Required for Success?

07.31.12 | Susan Duncan

For so many years, the term “rainmakers” has referred to partners in firms who bring in new clients and have “big books of business.”  Merriam-Webster defines a rainmaker as “A person (as a partner in a law firm) who brings in new business.”  Fifty years ago, many firms relied on only one or two or just…

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