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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Innovation Case Study 1: Levenfeld Pearlstein

07.10.19 | Susan Duncan

Levenfeld Pearlstein is a 75-lawyer firm in Chicago. Its innovative CEO, Angie Hickey, recently shared her insights at the P3 Conference about how the firm has adopted a corporate style Customer Experience culture that sets it apart.  Their client focus permeates everything the firm does both internally and externally. The firm was founded in 1999…

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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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Change Management 2: Strong Leadership and Collaboration are Required to Drive Change

10.24.18 | Susan Duncan

Making meaningful and sustainable change will require collaboration and strong leadership. As discussed in Change Management Part 1, effectuating change in law firms is more difficult than other professions and industries and managing partners cite the reluctance or refusal of the vast majority of their partners to change.  Given the dynamic shifts occurring in the…

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Change Management Part 1: The Framework

10.10.18 | Susan Duncan

The instability, disruption and resulting anxiety in the legal profession at times feels like a roller coaster: ups and downs, twists and turns, peaks and valleys, fast and slow, feelings of risk, exposure and vulnerability and a lack of control over our destiny. We are more or less along for the ride, which admittedly is…

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Succession Management Pillar 4 of 5: Leadership Succession and Knowledge Transitions

09.12.18 | Susan Duncan

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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Law Firm Partnership Part 2: Becoming and Remaining an Equity Partner

12.14.16 | Susan Duncan

Our last blog post, “Law Firm Partnership Part 1: Do True Partnerships Still Exist?” explored the changes that have occurred in the partnership model in recent decades and the core aspects to healthy partnerships.  In this post, we will examine the qualities needed to advance to equity partner status and what it takes to be…

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Do Your Law Firm Leaders Lead or Manage?

10.26.16 | Susan Duncan

Leadership is not a title or a position. The best leaders have developed competencies that enable them to drive their firms forward, think conceptually and strategically and effectively build and rely on teams and networks. According to the 2016 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends report, eighty-nine percent of companies see leadership as an important or…

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Succession Part 2: Transitioning to Tomorrow’s Leaders

08.06.13 | Susan Duncan

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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How Can We Help Practice Group Leaders to be Successful?

09.11.12 | Susan Duncan

The role of the Practice Group Leader (PGL) has become extremely demanding and complex. As firms have grown, they have developed additional ways to organize and manage themselves through industry groups, client teams and practice groups. Most firms now use PGs as their primary business units through which revenue is generated and measured, work is…

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