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New York Real Estate Law Reporter
Appellate Division Complicates the Rules for Municipalities Charging Consultants’ Fees
Steven M. Silverberg and Katherine Zalantis
In a case addressing what consulting fees (in particular attorneys’ fees) can be charged to an applicant before a Zoning Board of Appeals, the Second Department in Landstein v. Town of LaGrange found that the Town had overreached its statutory authority.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Only 30% of Workday Is Spent on Billable Hours, Report Says
Brenda Sapino Jeffreys
U.S. lawyers are still spending too little of their workday on billable hours, a year after an eye-opening report found lawyers devoted only 29% — 2.3 hours — of each eight-hour workday to billable hours.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Cost Recovery in 2018: Predicting Winners and Losers
Rob Mattern
Back in March of this year, we predicted changes and trends the results of the 2018 Mattern Cost Recovery Survey would reveal. At that time, we got our…
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Salary Hikes Not So Impressive After Inflation
Scott Flaherty
Law firms have bumped up starting salaries for associates at top firms over the past few years, prompting Big Law clients to raise a stink about outsized salaries for junior lawyers. But it turns out that this pay falls short of past peaks when inflation is taken into account.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Litigation Funders Face Their Hardest Sell: Big Law
Roy Strom and Ben Hancock
There Is More Money Than Ever In the Hands of Litigation Financiers, But Can They Convince Law Firms to Use It?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The NLJ 500: Large Firm Growth Slows Amid Consolidation and Contraction
Ryan Lovelace
Lawyer Counts Increased By 1%, But Large Firm Growth Was Slowed Due to Consolidation. Just Three of the Top Five Firms on the NLJ 500 Showed Total Lawyer Headcount Growth
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Lawyers and Accountants: Collaborators and Competitors
Mark A. Cohen
Lawyers and accountants are professional allies, but who controls integration and delivery of their services is another story.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Will Law Firms Be Ready When the Next Recession Hits?
Dan Packel
The Bottom Is Eventually Going to Drop on the U.S. Economy, and Many Law Firms Won't Be Positioned to Handle the Fallout
No economic expansion lasts forever. That’s a hard-and-fast truth of macroeconomics, one that’s on the minds of certain law firm leaders.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
Arbitration Impact on Attorney Fees and Film Company Principal
Stan Soocher
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed a district court’s award of attorney fees to Sony Corp. under §505 of the Copyright Act for winning a ruling that a lawsuit over a Sony Music songwriting contest should be sent to arbitration.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Prospering in the ‘New Normal’
J. Mark Santiago
Raising Costs and Declining Demand are Sapping Profits
The “New Normal” of today is one in which raising operating costs, associate salary increases, and reduced realization rates coupled with AFAs and demands from corporate counsel for reduced rates are sapping firm profits and there is no relief on the horizon. Law firm leaders, seeing current conditions, should be asking if there is a better way.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Cash Flow Drought: How to Identify and Deal with It
Bill Sansone
Cash flow management can be particularly challenging. You need to account for the time lag between cash going out and cash coming in. This requires financial and management discipline, strong internal policies and procedures for billing and collection policies, planning and attention to detail.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
The Power of Certifications In the Legal Industry
Jared Coseglia
Part One of a Two-Part Article
The key paths and the corresponding certifications available for lawyers — and nonlawyers — to pursue to help successfully administer a career in the legal industry in the coming decade.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
11 Factors to Collecting Attorney Fees on a Timely Basis
Peter Oliva
Most of the time, delayed payments are a result of actions by the law firms themselves. Let’s take a look at 11 factors impacting the collection of attorney fees on a timely basis and how to avoid these mistakes.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
Counsel Concerns: Ambiguous Offer for Daddy Yankee to Settle Suit Ends in Attorney Fees Denial
Celia Ampel
Attorneys who sued “Despacito” artist Daddy Yankee for defamation should have heeded the song’s title and drafted their settlement offer slowly, a federal appellate court ruled.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Relationship Between Leadership and Management in More Successful Law Firms
Joel A. Rose
Financial stability within a law firm practice does not guarantee harmony within the partnership itself — far from it. Law firm management that does not acknowledge or reflect the importance of firm leadership and the contributions and needs of its members endangers a firm’s cohesiveness and its very existence, no matter how many clients come through the front door.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Cost Recovery in 2018: An Evolving Internal and External Strategy
Rob Mattern
It’s now been 10 years since the economic crisis of 2008, and just under 10 years since we saw the greatest dip in demand for services experienced by the legal market. The market has stabilized since then, but growth has remained, year-over-year, flat. The Thomson Reuters 2018 Report on the State of the Legal Market shows this trend will continue as we see a market characterized by flat to sluggish growth, a continued decline in productivity, modest rate increases and the continued downward pressure on realization.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
More Developments in NFL Concussion Litigation
Max Mitchell
Several leading law firms in the National Football League concussion settlement litigation are taking issue with an expert report that suggested slashing attorney fee recoveries. More than 10 law firms have filed responses to a December expert report that recommended capping attorney fees.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Litigation Funding Changes Legal Landscape for Boutique and Small Firms
Monika Gonzalez Mesa
The Growth of Third-Party Litigation Funding Has Been a Boon to Small Firms, But Boutique Firms Are Taking a Hit
The growth of litigation funding has widened the pool of law firms that can take on big cases, but their increasing popularity means boutique firms that have traditionally landed multimillion-dollar lawsuits by taking them on contingency or offering alternative fee arrangements are now taking a hit.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Can Millennials Save Your Law Firm?
Lizzy McLellan
After Years of Complacency About Their Business Model and the Pipeline for Talent, There’s a Reason Law Firms Are So Worried About Managing the Millennial Generation
For law firms wringing their hands about how to manage the millennial generation — or asking why they should adapt to this crop of young lawyers in the first place — here's the bad news: If you're still clinging to traditional models for training associates and running the partnership, you've already fallen behind. The millennials are here, they're climbing the ranks, and they've already begun to transform the industry.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
AIM 1-2-3
Lawrence Bell
There is a patented methodology that follows the same path that the introduction of depreciation followed, with the impact being similar in its influence, power and effect: The AIM (Actuarially Initiated Measurements) Program. An employer using this methodology realizes the ability to uncover and maximize missed opportunities to control fluctuations and variations in earnings per share (EPS).
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Read This Before You Set Your 2018 Billing Rates
Hugh A. Simons
Setting the next year's billing rates follows a simple formula at most firms: last year's rate plus a common percentage increase across all lawyer cohorts. A more disaggregated approach is needed -- firms should set higher percentage increases for senior lawyers and lower increases for junior lawyers.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Are Law Firms Charging Less or Just Making Less?
Roy Strom
In a market where clients are struggling to deliver more legal services for less cost (the challenge), RichardSusskind says a law firm may be tempted to undercut its competition on price in hopes of winning more work. But is it actually happening?
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The Corporate Counselor
Alternative Fee Arrangements in Complex Litigation
Overton Thompson III and David Rue
The Case for Value Billing
Alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) are about value, a benefit legal departments are increasingly pressured to bring to their companies. When hiring an outside lawyer, clients are not looking for "hours," and they certainly are not looking for tenths of hours. They seek value.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Cost of Making Partner
Brenda Sapino Jeffreys
Making partner isn't cheap, and the cost is more than just the years of hard work and stress that associates put in as they reach for the brass ring.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
When Will Disruption Hit the Legal Industry?
Hugh A. Simons and Nicholas Bruch
Economics tells us an industry that experiences a drop in aggregate demand, adds production capacity, and increases the market overlap among competitors will suffer price erosion and profitability decline. Law firms fit this profile. Yet, in talking with law firm partners, you don't get the sense that any such "disruption" is happening. Perhaps economics has bypassed law?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Smaller Firms' Message To Big Law on Alternative Fees: Join the Club
Miriam Rozen
Microsoft's vow to make its outside lawyers bill nearly all their work under alternative fee arrangements caused a stir, given large law firms' traditional devotion to the billable hour. But for a growing number of mostly smaller firms, those anxieties highlight a Big Law business model they've already left behind.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Law Firm Value Proposition
Glenn Tannous
How to Successfully Hire Lateral Partners
While a law firm asks for specific education, experience, contacts and portables at certain law firms, what if the candidates were to ask for their own list of must-haves? How would a firm measure up?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Motivating Attorneys To Accomplish Firm Objectives
Joel A. Rose
Absent the willingness or inability of first tier partners to create an environment in which blossoming attorneys can achieve their personal, professional and economic objectives, the likelihood is that these very attractive partners may leave to join other law firms.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
IP News
Jeff Ginsberg and David Cooperberg
Federal Circuit Affirms Non-Infringement Decision Based on Prosecution Disclaimer
Federal Circuit Decisions Offer Guidance on Award of Attorney Fees under Section 285
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Enhancing Lateral Partner Opportunities and Compensation
Randi Lewis
You are a partner in a law firm and you have decided to make a lateral move. You want it to be the right move to a better platform. Where do you start and how do you maximize the likelihood of a successful outcome? The more you are prepared to answer and ask questions, the greater the likelihood this next move will be an optimal one for you and the firm you are joining.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How Analytics Is Shaping the Current and Future Practice of Law
Jeff Pfeifer
Anyone following the news headlines of late is aware that artificial intelligence (AI) is being heralded as the technology that will transform industries far and wide — including the legal profession. The evolution of technology in the practice of law today has already led to significant advances in data analytics and data visualization, each of which are having a significant impact on legal work.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Alternative Legal Services Providers: Changing Buyer Perceptions
David Curle
A common perception of today's legal services industry is that buyers of legal services have many more choices because legal services are disaggregating and unbundling. No longer are law firms the only option for clients with legal work; they now have a wider menu of providers from which to choose.
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The Corporate Counselor
Finding the Right Outside Counsel for Your Company
Javier A. Lopez and Monica McNulty
Smart Strategies
In today's challenging, competitive business environment, finding qualified outside counsel with the right fee structures is a top priority for corporate counsel. This article presents some practical guidance to help corporate counsel achieve this goal.
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Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report
The Possible Consequences of Pursuing Outstanding Legal Fees
Sue C. Jacobs
The attorney-client relationship is not one that always ends well. The client is able to discharge the attorney at any time, but outstanding legal fees must be addressed.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Results Don't Lie: Mattern & Associates Cost Recovery Survey 2016
Rob Mattern
2017 has arrived with a bang: expenses are back on the rise and demand growth is trending negative. Last year in the March issue of this publication, we hypothesized what the results of the 2016 Mattern & Associates Cost Recovery Survey would reveal. With the results tabulated, let's see how accurate our predictions were as well as analyze the results.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Possible Consequences of Pursuing Outstanding Legal Fees
Sue C. Jacobs
The attorney-client relationship is not one that always ends well. The client is able to discharge the attorney at any time, but outstanding legal fees must be addressed. If the client either ignores the correspondence or refuses to pay the fees, the attorney may determine to commence an action seeking the legal fees. What follows is a long, unhappy, expensive experience for each party.
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The Corporate Counselor
DE Chancery Court Strikes Down Fee-Shifting Bylaw
Gary W. Lipkin, Alexandra Rogin and Justin M. Forcier
In Solak v. Sarowitz, the Delaware Court of Chancery held that a corporate bylaw ran afoul of 8 Del. C. Section 109(b), as recently amended, where it purported to shift attorney fees and expenses to an unsuccessful stockholder that filed an internal corporate claim outside of the state of Delaware.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Lower Pay for Women Partners
Lizzy McLellan and Katelyn Polantz
In the face of a glaring pay gap between male and female law firm partners, some firm leaders point to the emphasis on origination credit (bringing in new business) as the key culprit. But moving away from such a model may not be so easy.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
As Rates Soar, Some Firms Profit by Coming Down to Earth
Nell Gluckman
With overall law firm billing rates rising fast, firms that increased their rates more slowly are reaping rewards in the form of greater revenue growth, according to a new study.
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