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Marketing The Law Firm
Leadership in Law: Getting a Seat at the Table
Peter A. Johnson
How Law Firm Marketers Can Assume a Leadership Role
The marketing director needs to gain “a seat at the table” in order to have a voice in planning, and to be viewed as an integral member of the firm’s management team. How do you go about earning that seat?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms Enter the Golden Age of Data Mining
Doug Stansfield
Data mining is a relatively new practice in the legal space and the data profiles of firms are highly variable from one organization to another, so identifying the right tools and prioritizing initiatives can be challenging.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
10 Top Strategies for Retaining Tomorrow’s Talent
Sharon Meit Abrahams
All lawyers want to be wanted and valued by their firms. It has become apparent that tomorrow’s legal talent requires even more hand-holding than previous generations. They want to understand why and what’s the payoff of their efforts. By creating a firm culture that addresses these concerns you will heighten your firm’s ability to retain precious talent.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Bursting the Bubble of Associate Compensation
Timothy B. Corcoran
Smart business leaders compete by constantly seeking cost advantages. Yet law firm leaders compete by perpetually increasing associate compensation. As always, this will not end well.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Lawyer Well-Being at Work: It’s a Two-Way Street
John F. Hollway
It’s Not the Number of Hours We’re Billing or the Number of Hours We’re Working; It’s the Way We Feel About How We Spend Those Hours That Matters
Working long hours, tracking those hours and feeling that we have to grind all year to hit a specific number of hours to meet a profitability target can make us feel like fungible, dehumanized automatons rather than highly trained providers of specific and thoughtful solutions to complex legal challenges.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
New Partners Are Worried About Mental Health and a Looming Recession, Annual Survey Finds
Dylan Jackson
Newly minted partners offered up some usual complaints on this year’s New Partners Survey, lamenting unexpectedly low compensation, opaque performance metrics and copious administrative work. But new anxieties have arisen among Big Law’s latest partner class, including the threat of a recession and growing concerns about mental health.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Increasing Client Requirements: Securing Law Firms for the 21st Century
Debra Gray
Clients expect sophisticated and secure systems to keep their information safe. This obviously makes your IT professional’s job much harder. Additionally, attorneys expect instant performance and near 100% up time. Achieving the delicate balance between accessibility and security is a challenge.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Debt Levels Shrink as Partners Put More Skin in the Game
Lizzy McLellan
What Does Widespread ‘Deleveraging’ Mean for Law Firm Health?
Industry watchers say law firms have become less reliant on bank debt over the past decade, as they explore other funding options. Often, that means raising capital from partners, or turning to other, less common sources.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Exit Strategies: Aging Partners Are Forcing Firms to Reconsider Retirement
Dylan Jackson
Baby boomers control an outsize portion of law firm business. As they inch toward retirement, how are firms preparing for the transition process?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Reimagining Business Development Training and Coaching
Debra Baker
Six Pillars of a Successful Bus-Dev Program
For firms wanting to thrive through the next economic downturn and beyond, mastery of business development fundamentals is as essential as mastering legal skills. Yet training and coaching — whether done internally or through outside consultants — requires an investment in time and resources.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Revenues Rise as Demand Accelerates, Citi Reports
Gretta Rusanow
There is a lot of good news in the nine-month 2019 industry results. While we might not end the year with the strong growth levels seen in 2018, we anticipate that 2019 will be a decent year. For the first time this year, revenue growth exceeded expense growth.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Determining Who Should Serve As the Billing Partner
Joel A. Rose
Due to a law firm’s team-oriented approach to business development and client service efforts, it is not always clear who should logically and most efficiently serve as the billing partner for a client or a particular client matter. A person should only be a billing partner if he or she is or will be performing the functions outline herein.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How to Become a Rainmaker
Arnold Keiser
Almost anyone willing to develop the qualities necessary can become a rainmaker.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Marketing Innovative Law Firms
Vivian Hood
Law firms today are increasingly looking at innovation to help distinguish their practice offerings, strategy, and leadership, and need inspiring marketing to develop meaningful campaigns that resonate with their audiences.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Media & Communications: Grab the Wheel and Drive Yourself!: How Law Firm Marketers Can Grow Professionally … and Some Sage Advice
John J. Buchanan
So, you’ve been in your role in the marketing department at your firm for a few years. Things are going well — but you want to expand your skill set, try something new, or take on a fresh challenge. The lawyers you work with routinely attend CLE classes so why shouldn’t you focus on your own professional development?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The ‘Silly Season’
J. Mark Santiago
That term refers to the months of October through December. It's a way of pointing out to partners that the necessary activities of practice management that so many of them had avoided for the first nine or 10 months of the year now had to be addressed. Clients that had not been billed now had to be invoiced. Outstanding invoices, many issued in the cold days of early March and April, now had to be collected and current work would not only have to be billed but collected as well.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
What Is Your Dashboard Report Telling You? Chances Are, Not Much.
Jim Jarrell
Firms are struggling to capture compelling business intelligence about themselves. Until recently, most operated with a cadre of legacy operating systems, financial platforms and reporting technologies from different manufacturers that have no mechanism for connecting with each other. The disparate nature of these technologies has exacerbated the struggle to leverage data and display results in a reporting mechanism that helps direct the firm’s decision-making.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Producing Breakthroughs in Client Development
Arnold Keiser
It is easy to understand why many lawyers feel that only certain special individuals are blessed with the qualities necessary to be rainmakers. But almost anyone willing to develop the qualities necessary can become a rainmaker.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Leadership Isn’t a Role, It’s a Mindset
Michael A. Gerstenzang and Hy Pomerance
When a law firm does not subscribe to a traditional corporate structure
At most companies, the leadership structure is typically clear and hierarchical. But what does leadership look like at a law firm when a traditional corporate structure doesn’t apply?
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Marketing The Law Firm
10 Common Misconceptions Lawyers Have About Media Relations
Randy Labuzinski
Traditional media continue to evolve and constrict in a marketplace consumed by non-traditional influencers, including bloggers, social media stars, bots. Accordingly, the art of media relations is more important than ever to make sure PR professionals are doing all we can to influence the dwindling number of legitimate journalists while managing and enhancing the public reputations of our law firm clients.
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Marketing The Law Firm
When Being a Star Rainmaker is Not Enough: Why EQ Leads to Even Better Business Results
Marla Grant and Yuliya LaRoe
Why EQ Leads to Even Better Business Results
It is not uncommon for law firms to face negative business outcomes caused by the behavior of a star rainmaker who is unaware of the impact that they have on others. And that’s what emotional intelligence (EQ) is about and why it’s so important to lead to better business results. What can law firms do to help their star partners increase their emotional intelligence to avoid potentially disastrous business outcomes for themselves and their firms?
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Marketing The Law Firm
The 5-Step Path to Meeting Your Firm's Marketing Goals
Jennifer S. Bankston
Law firms of all sizes struggle to define a marketing and business development pathway that strikes the right balance to deliver measurable value at a manageable cost. A well-defined, quantifiable approach (proactive, not reactive) is necessary to execute a law firm’s strategy.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Maximize the Impact of Firm Sponsorships with Social Media
Spencer X Smith
Pro bono work on an individual level is often not publicized, but the work you do in the community as a firm should be. Here’s how to ensure both you and the charities, nonprofits, etc. you’re supporting gain the maximum amount of exposure and awareness for their causes.
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Marketing The Law Firm
15 Free Things to Do for Clients That Will Make Them Love You More
Stacy West Clark
There is a huge bonus to doing free things for clients at their place of business: You can bring as many lawyers from your firm with you as you like.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Litigation Support, E-discovery and the Recovery of Costs
Nathan Curtis
The Data Explosion vs. Recovery Model Stagnation
Firms are struggling with a legacy practice of writing off litigation support/e-discovery and related costs but have been challenged to identify and implement recovery models or managed services models that are both acceptable to the firm and to their clients. On top of all of this, many firms simply fail to dispose of the data at the matter closing and costs continue to accumulate year over year. Mattern has launched the first ever e-Discovery and Litigation Support Cost Recovery Survey to gather that needed data to help drive firms’ better business decisions.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Leadership for the Strong
Silvia Coulter
There are a few things about being an effective leader that books and professors don’t seem to directly address. Here are some tips to help partners who lead operational teams, offices, practices, departments, or the firm itself, to implement for leadership impact.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
When Being a Star Rainmaker Is Not Enough
Marla Grant and Yuliya LaRoe
Why EQ Leads to Even Better Business Results
It is not uncommon for law firms to face negative business outcomes caused by the behavior of a star rainmaker who is unaware of the impact that they have on others. And that’s what emotional intelligence (EQ) is about and why it’s so important to lead to better business results. What can law firms do to help their star partners increase their emotional intelligence to avoid potentially disastrous business outcomes for themselves and their firms?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Caste System Persists Among Attorneys and Business Professionals
Dylan Jackson
While the last decade has brought a revolution of global law firms employing thousands of attorneys and an army of professional staff — pricing executives, marketers and legal operation specialists, among many others — many professional law firm staff tell stories of a two-tiered system that minimizes their role and contributions. Observers said the caste system is a long-standing cultural mindset that stems from an age when firms were smaller and more informal, without hundreds of employees.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Data-Driven Law Firm: The Next Frontier
Marcie Borgal Shunk
The next generation of elite law firms may have little in common with today’s leading global providers of legal services. Whereas historically top-performing law firms combine stellar talent with marquee clients, brand reputation and client-focused excellence to rise to the top, future leading law firms are equally likely to rise to power using a distinctly different recipe: namely, a mixture of market savvy, strategic agility and operational effectiveness powered by data.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Diversity Roundtable
Steve Salkin
Creating an Environment Attractive to Diverse Lawyers Where They Can Rise to the Leadership Level
A roundtable discussion with four prominent leaders in law and recruiting who weigh in what firms are doing — and can do — to create environments that are attractive to diverse lawyers and enable them to rise to the leadership level.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Voice of the Client: 9 Ways You Could Be Hindering New Business Efforts
Mike Mellor
Nine ways you may be hindering your efforts to win new legal business, and a few ideas on how subtle improvements can maximize both success and overall win rates for firms and attorneys.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
9 Ways You Could Be Hindering New Business Efforts
Mike Mellor
Nine ways you may be hindering your efforts to win new legal business, and a few ideas on how subtle improvements can maximize both success and overall win rates for firms and attorneys.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Continual Assessment: Preparation for the Next Recession
Phillip Bantz
Assess your legal departments regularly to find and fix inefficient spending and work habits while also implementing new tech solutions now — before it’s too late.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Leadership In Law: Leadership for the Strong
Silvia Coulter
Law firms have many leaders. Yet in many cases, no formal leadership training takes place, leaving others in their groups or offices performing at less than optimal levels and on their own to get the job done often feeling pressured and stressed. Here are some tips to help partners who lead operational teams, offices, practices, departments, or the firm itself, to implement for leadership impact that books and professors don’t seem to directly address.
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Marketing The Law Firm
The Time to Improve Administrative Performance Is Now
J. Mark Santiago
This article focuses on what a firm can do now that will improve future firm economics regardless of what the future may hold. It identifies three areas that offer the great opportunity for improving a law firms’ economics and better positioning them for whatever the future may bring.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms Tackle Mental Health, 1 Initiative at a Time
Dan Packel
Forty firms out of the Am Law 200 offered details on the steps they’re taking to improve mental health and wellness among attorneys and staff.
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Marketing The Law Firm
The Importance of Social Skills: Technology and Data Are Not Enough to Grow Your Firm’s Business
Jamie B. Field
Data is taking over our lives. And preceding that is all of the applications and technology that exists that helps us measure that information. But technology and data are not going to be the only growth drivers of a firm in the future. What’s going to become most important in the face of the technological changes that are occurring in law firms is a lawyer's "soft-skills."
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Time to Improve Administrative Performance Is Now
J. Mark Santiago
This article focuses on what a firm can do now that will improve future firm economics regardless of what the future may hold, identifying three areas that offer the great opportunity for improving a law firms’ economics and better positioning them for whatever the future may bring.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Litigation Expense Deductibility: New Appellate Court Decision
Daniel Mayo
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a decision that explains some of the requirements for deducting litigation expenses. The facts of the case are bizarre, but the controlling legal principles are not.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Voice of the Client: Hearing the Client Through the Noise
Jennifer Simpson Carr and Amy Knapp
At the end of the day, a lot of noise is created in the effort to hear the voice of the client. We propose that while these efficiencies and innovations in law are valuable, the clients keep asking for something different: a lawyer who deeply understands their business and their specific issue — at the time they need it.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Best Ways To Expand Key Client Relationships from the Lawyer and Firm Perspectives
Julie Savarino
Part Two of a Two-Part Article
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Revenue Rose as Demand Dropped in the First Quarter of 2019
David Altuna and Gretta Rusanow
The legal industry saw greater revenue growth during the first quarter of 2019 than it did to start the strong year of 2018. However, the drivers of that growth were much different, as the demand growth that characterized 2018 gave way to a demand decline during the first quarter of 2019, and much of the revenue growth came in the form of cash collections from 2018 inventory.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Mergers and the Economic Outlook for 2019
Marcus Dyer
As law firms endeavor to survive in an increasingly competitive world, one strategy picking up steam is the law firm merger. In this article, we recap law firm merger activity in 2018 and consider the economic outlook for law firm mergers for 2019.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
IRS Issues New Plan 457(f) Non-Profit Exam Guidelines
Lawrence L. Bell
Planning for executive benefits for top hat employees at non-profit organizations has undergone a frenzy of regulatory roadmap changes. Nonprofit NonQualified Benefits are largely directed and controlled by IRC §457.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Orion Prebill Survey Shows Law Firms Are Troubled by Inefficient, Paper-Heavy Prebilling Processes
Kevin Harris
Prebilling, the process of generating invoice drafts and circulating them for annotation/adjustment, is one of the most important monthly tasks a law firm conducts. Since prebilling involves bringing money into the firm, the more efficient the process becomes, the better off the law firm is financially.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Best Ways to Expand Key Client Relationships from the Lawyers’ and Firms’ Perspectives
Julie Savarino
Part One of a Two-Part Article
This article defines the specific and best actions lawyers and law firms can take to expand client relationships. This first part includes specific actions individual lawyers can take to expand client relationships.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Clients Drive Information Governance: Business Benefits Flow to Firm
Stephen Cole
Information governance and the protection of corporate data are top concerns for law firms. To ensure standards are met, some clients are now tying payment to compliance with Outside Counsel Guidelines (OCG). OCG have moved from guidelines to actual contracts that provide for indemnification of the client for cyber breach and violation of privacy laws.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Sales Speak: Overcoming the Doer-Seller Dilemma
Debra Baker
Rethinking Sales As an Act of Service
Lawyers are one of only a handful of professionals whose job requires them both to do the work and generate the business. This “Doer-Seller” Dilemma is particularly vexing for lawyers because of a long-held belief that sales is somehow beneath the legal profession and because lawyers have a limited view of what successful selling looks like.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Creating a Culture of Intelligence
Patricia Ellard
We hear about the ongoing cost pressures clients face, which force in-house counsel to do more with less, and the pressures on outside counsel to provide greater efficiencies and cost predictability. We also hear that clients hate to be cross-sold. However, this does not mean that clients are not interested to be introduced to new colleagues who can provide insight.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Why Should Law Firm CMOs Care About Social Responsibility and Sustainability?
Pamela Cone
Because Clients Do
Given the increasing challenges facing our planet and our society, and considering our role in creating the current state of affairs, it is up to us to change the way we do business to slow and reverse the damage. CMOs can and should be among the leadership voices to help their firms recognize this as an obligation and an opportunity.
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