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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Be Intentional about Your Personal Marketing and Business Development

01.23.19 | Susan Duncan

Most lawyers recognize the need to actively pursue new work by generating repeat business from satisfied existing clients and by attracting new clients to the firm. Too many, however, still engage in random acts of marketing or “throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks.” Even effective rainmakers could do a better job of…

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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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10 Ways to Make Personal Marketing and Business Development Habitual and Effective

07.26.17 | Susan Duncan

Ask the most successful rainmakers what their secret is to their success and most will tell you that they work on it constantly and relentlessly.  It has become integral to their client work and practice and they do it every day.  Given the pressure lawyers feel to record billable hours, it may seem almost impossible…

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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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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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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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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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Will Law Schools Finally Make Changes the Profession Needs?

12.30.12 | Susan Duncan

2012 brought a great deal of attention to many challenges facing and created by our current legal education system. As recently as early December, Jordan Furlong weighed in with his post “How to kill (or save) a law school.” Brian Tamanaha’s extremely well-written and researched book “Failing Law Schools,” published in 2012, describes in great detail why the system…

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“Effective Client-Adviser Relationships” Part 2: Commerciality

10.08.12 | Susan Duncan

This post is one of four that discusses the findings of a survey conducted jointly by the Financial Times (FT), the Managing Partners’ Forum’ (MPF) and Meridian West. The survey results were pre-viewed at a one day conference hosted by PM Forum in London on September 27. The posts reflect findings from the survey, sessions…

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