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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Retirement Succession Can Hedge Against Lateral Partner Acquisition Risks
David Wood
While growing by acquiring lateral partners and practice groups can be lucrative, it carries many risks. Lateral candidates’ projections of the revenue they will bring to a new firm can prove inaccurate, or a particular candidate may simply be a bad fit culturally.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Impact of Gen X and Millennial Law Firm Leaders
Marci Taylor
Generation X lawyers stand poised to wield considerable influence. Often the unsung heroes in discussions about generational dynamics, Gen X professionals bring a wealth of strengths to law firm leadership. Their pragmatic outlook, honed by navigating shifts in technology and societal changes, positions them as adaptable leaders.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Retirement Succession Can Hedge Against the Risks of Lateral Partner Acquisition
David Wood
Increasingly, law firms rely upon acquiring lateral partners and practice groups to grow revenue more quickly than they can by increasing output with existing talent. With this kind of money at stake, a prudent firm is constantly on the lookout for ways to hedge against the risks of acquiring laterals. Implementing an effective retirement succession program is one of them.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
It’s Time for Lawyers to Return to the Office 5 Days a Week
J. Mark Santiago
It’s time for attorneys to return to the office on a five day a week schedule. There is significant evidence that shows remote learning is not as effective as in-person instruction.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Why Are Lawyers Still Working Remote?
J. Mark Santiago
It’s time for attorneys to return to the office on a five day a week schedule. There is significant evidence that shows remote learning is not as effective as in-person instruction.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms Eager to Increase Nonequity Tiers
Andrew Maloney
Last year saw a ”staggering” jump in the number of law firm leaders who said they wanted to increase their nonequity tier going forward. Now it’s clear many of the biggest Big Law players are following through, with several Am Law 100 firms growing their income partner ranks by double-digit percentages in 2023.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Big Law Banks On Contingency Fees to Maximize Profitability
Abigail Adcox
In a quest to maximize profitability, Am Law 200 law firms have grown their share of business tied to contingency fees, a gamble that has paid off for some firms in recent years.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Sensory Designed Hospitality: Enhancing Workplace Experience Through the Five Senses
Petra Parros
Organizations understand that their workplace environment reflects the culture of their organization and are making extraordinary changes to their real estate and fundamental differences in their office operations. But is it working?
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Marketing The Law Firm
Do Gen Xers and Millennials Make Good Law Firm Leaders?
Marci Taylor
Generation X lawyers stand poised to wield considerable influence. Gen X has always served as a bridge — between tradition and innovation, the old and the new. Unlike their predecessors who were more comfortable with tradition and a stare decisis mindset, they infuse a sense of flexibility and agility into management strategies.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms Happy to Trade Falling Realization Rates for Strong Rate Increases
Dan Roe
While some firm leaders pointed to market factors such as economic uncertainty, most indicated that declining realization rates were a price they were happy to pay in exchange for several years of strong rate increases.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
An Early Look: The 2024 Am Law 200 Financials
ALM Staff
As firm financials results stream in, we’re covering them firm by firm, as we’ve always done. You can read those story in this continually updated feed. So bookmark it, check back regularly, and stay tuned for the Am Law 100 and Second Hundred reports coming soon.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Revolutionizing Revenue: How 'Invoice to Cash' Innovation Rescues Firms from Billing Woes
Milan Bobde
More and more, firms are understanding that it’s the firm’s ability to convert its agreed rates through billing and collections to collection realization that really counts. So why is it such a challenge for firms to solve it?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Need to Do More with Less? CRM Could Be the Key
Chris Fritsch
CRM is foundational to the success of marketing and business development teams because it is precisely the tool that allows the firm to efficiently manage and nurture client and prospect relationships.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Leading Legal Department Trends for 2024
Wendy King and David Horrigan
Recent research based on interviews with chief legal officers around the globe found that the increased scope and scale of risk now facing corporations is driving change in how legal teams set their strategies, leverage technology and manage operations.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Is Big Law Ending Its Roller Coaster Ride of Volatility?
Andrew Maloney
It’s still early in 2024, but law firms may finally be disembarking from a nearly four-year “roller coaster” of volatility, and returning to something that more closely resembles the pre-pandemic era.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
AI and Hospitality: Transforming Law Firm Workplaces for the Future
Anthony Davies
As the world ushers in a new era post-pandemic of hybrid operations, it’s really no surprise that workplace experience is a top, strategic lever law firm leaders are driving in conjunction with re-envisioning the space their professionals are occupying.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Strategic Planning for 2024: New Considerations for Legal Industry Leaders
Yuliya LaRoe
The business landscape over the last few years has been changing at an ever-increasing speed, and 2024 promises to be no different. To effectively navigate the challenges and opportunities that present themselves, leaders need to adopt a fresh approach to strategic planning.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
White Box vs. Black Box Compensation Systems
J. Mark Santiago
Having a compensation system that clearly outlines partner expectations, provides the partners with the ability to validate the results by communicating the results back to them does more to build collegiality than an opaque system that, by its design, promotes distrust and ill will among partners.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Case for Partnering with a Financial Advisor
Bryce Sanders
Unless you carry the correct licenses, it makes sense to develop a relationship with several financial advisors and refer business from time to time.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Five Trends that Promise to Impact the Legal Workplace In 2024
Marcie Borgal Shunk
Talent is the single most valued asset within a law firm. And, the role and influence of talent in law firms is on the rise. How law firms engage with, respond to and anticipate changing talent needs has the power to transform the legal landscape and dictate which firms come out ahead.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Mitigating the Potential Consequences of Partnership Audit Changes
Mark L. Lubin
Partnership audit changes present increased exposure to partnerships and their partners, and future legislation may curtail much of the flexibility associated with partnerships.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Start 2024 By Considering The Synergy Between Retirement and Succession Planning
Sharon Meit Abrahams
Attorney retirement and succession planning are critical issues that are often overlooked at the management level of law firms. A key question arises: What should come first, retirement or succession planning? Although they go hand in hand, many firms avoid addressing both.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Start 2024 By Embracing the Synergy Between Retirements and Succession Planning
Sharon Meit Abrahams
Attorneys retiring and succession planning are critical issues are often overlooked at the management level of law firms. A key question arises: What should come first, retirement or succession planning? Although they go hand in hand, many firms avoid addressing both.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Nurture Your Clients To Develop, and Deepen, Relationships
Yuliya LaRoe
Business development is, first and foremost, about people and your relationships with these people. While marketing and visibility activities (speaking, writing, etc.) are critical, it’s the people who ultimately make the hiring decisions. As a lawyer, while time is rarely on your side, developing your Nurture System will help you strengthen and deepen your important relationships in ways that are sustainable and effective.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Advantages and Limitations of a Two-Tier Partnership Structure
Miten Shah
The two-tier partnership structure has gained wider acceptance as a key tool for increasing profitability, as well as talent acquisition and retention. Let’s explore how this model is reshaping law firm dynamics, offering new opportunities and challenges in the war for legal talent.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How Legal Finance Can Bridge Risk Gaps and Support Growth
G. Andrew Lundberg
Like a threaded coupling or an electrical converter that allows non-matching mechanical or electrical components to be joined seamlessly together, legal finance can be the “adapter” that brings together lawyers with compatible talents but different economic outlooks and comfort levels.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Experience Management: Selecting Best of Breed Solutions for Better Business Outcomes
Jason Noble
Experience management is vital not only in terms of raw time savings and cost efficiencies but is pivotal in the firm’s ability to win new business.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Want to Get Your Attorneys More Engaged? Get Them In the Office
AshLea Allberry
Law firm leaders are increasingly concerned with lack of engagement. With law firm demand down and office attendance policies in flux, many firms don’t believe their workforce is optimally motivated and are struggling with disengagement. The concern is that psychological investment changes when professionals don’t see co-workers in the office, making it easier to develop distance, and disconnect.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
What Law Firm Bus Dev Teams Can Learn from the Fortune 500
Joel Wirchin
Marketing and business development for law firms increasingly complex. As competition intensifies, RFPs and marketing output rise, and maintaining brand consistency across changing markets, regions and diverse work settings becomes a critical concern. It’s time to think big.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Cyberaccountants Offer a New Line of Defense Against Digital Disruption
Sharon L. Levin and Bruce DeGrazia
As cybercrime intensifies, it is revealing a skills shortfall among those who defend our financial infrastructure. It has become critically clear that we need to radically rethink the way we prepare our frontline defense to include more experts with both technical savvy and accounting expertise. In other words, we need an army of cyberaccountants.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Law Firm Leadership: Beyond Coffee and Client Alerts: Strategizing Your Client Nurture System for Multidimensional Relationships
Yuliya LaRoe
Business development is, first and foremost, about people and your relationships with these people. While marketing and visibility activities (speaking, writing, etc.) are critical, it’s the people who ultimately make the hiring decisions. As a lawyer, while time is rarely on your side, developing your Nurture System will help you strengthen and deepen your important relationships in ways that are sustainable and effective.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Billable Hours Frustrate In-House Attorneys, So Why Aren’t They Demanding Alternatives?
Hugo Guzman
Alternative-fee arrangements help establish a link between outside counsel costs and the value provided.. Yet, adoption of AFAs remains sluggish — even as outrage over outside counsel hourly rate increases grows.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Online Extra: 'Across-the-Board' Cost Increases Expected To Have Major Impact On 2024 Legal Ops
Andrew Maloney
Although the inflation rate is down, law firms are still fighting “across-the-board” cost increases, including for talent and technology, as well as overhead costs for occupancy. Those costs are expected to have an outsize influence on law firm operations going into 2024.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
It’s Hoteling, Not Moteling
Anthony Davies
Hoteling has a negative connotation in the legal industry as little has been done to make the experience reliable and something to look forward to. The fact is, hoteling has worked very well in other industries for many years, and lessons learned here can help law firms.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Breaking Boundaries: Unleashing the Power of Flexibility In Law Firms for Recruitment, Retention, Diversity and Client Expansion
Teresa Bult
Embracing flexibility can provide law firms with a range of competitive advantages, from attracting and retaining top talent to fostering diversity and expanding their client bases. This article delves into the numerous benefits of flexible law practices and explore how those practices could contribute to the growth and success of modern law firms.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
When Does Zero Equal More? The Add-In Budget
J. Mark Santiago
This article is about putting more money into the distributable income line on your monthly financial report; how to rethink and profit from your annual budget-planning cycle, which should be underway now and not postponed for January after the “year-end” collection silly season.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Unleashing the Power of Flexibility In Law Firms for Recruitment, Retention, Diversity and Client Expansion
Teresa Bult
Embracing flexibility can provide law firms with a range of competitive advantages, from attracting and retaining top talent to fostering diversity and expanding their client bases.
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Marketing The Law Firm
The Visibility Factor: Overcoming Not Being Seen
Jennifer S. Bankston
In most law firms, there are walls that can prevent all of us from being both seen and heard by all within an organization. However, these obstacles can be overcome in most settings, despite the different factors that may keep employees, supervisors and team members from prevailing over them.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Outdated Compensation Plans Leave Young Lawyers Disenchanted About Leadership Roles
Jessie Yount
Without recognition for their varied contributions, young lawyers are likely to feel more disenchanted or disinterested in career longevity or leadership duties at a law firm.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms Might Meet Budget, But Uncertainty Looms
Andrew Maloney
With the end of the year in focus, most law firms may well finish in line with their budget plans. But analysts and observers also described the end-of-year profitability picture in Big Law as “tepid,” “flat-ish” and “volatile,” with 2024 promising plenty of uncertainty as well.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
‘Do More With Less’ Is Theme from New Legal Ops Report
Trudy Knockless
The overarching finding of Thomson Reuters Institute’s “2023 Legal Department Operations Index” is that workloads are increasing but budgets aren’t. The phrase “do more with less” appears three times in the report and similar sentiments appear on nearly every page of the its 25 pages.
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Marketing The Law Firm
When Should Law Firms Speak Out On An Issue?
Elizabeth Lampert
In an era of ESG characterized by heightened awareness of social justice issues, including terrorism, racial injustice, and reproductive rights, the question of whether law firms should take a public stance has become a significant discussion among firm leaders, businesses, and their employees.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Embracing Drivers of Performance Other Than Billable Hours Can Be More Efficient and Resilient to Change
Tracy LaLonde
By shifting some focus away from input (billable hours) and embracing output (results), law firms can become more efficient and resilient to industry changes, improve client satisfaction, attract top talent and be better equipped to meet other, more long-term financial targets.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Lack of a Succession Plan Can Lead to the Death of a Law Firm
J. Mark Santiago
Firms with aging managing partners should develop a succession plan for transferring clients and management responsibilities (over a five-to-ten-year transition period) to the firm’s younger attorneys.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
New Partner Training Is a Key Component of Law Firm Success
Sharon Meit Abrahams
Training new partners helps them develop the necessary skills to become successful attorneys and eventually leaders in their firms. This investment demonstrates the commitment the firm has to the young partner which will reduce attrition and enhance engagement.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Billing Harmony: 5 Tips for Crafting Clear Billing Guidelines
Jennifer Sherman
Clear billing guidelines are essential for effectively managing client relationships and preventing costly and time-consuming billing disputes. Well-defined billing standards set expectations upfront, ensure consistent application of rates and procedures and provide transparency around what work will be performed and how it will be billed.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Best Practices In Building Contingency Fee Practices
Philip Iovieno
There are two major factors motivating firms to move in the direction of more risk sharing and more contingency work. The first is client-driven, the second is basic law firm economics.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
2023 GC Compensation Survey: Pay Rises, But Not Everyone Is Happy About It
Chris O’Malley
Tech companies grabbed six of the top 10 slots on the list, which ranks by total compensation. The five most-highly paid legal chiefs received more than $20 million, while all the top 10 collected more than $15 million.
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Marketing The Law Firm
A Key to Success: Start the Difficult Conversation You’re Avoiding
Rudhir Krishtel
This article addresses why difficult conversations are especially challenging in the legal environment, the value of having them, and offers a framework with a few extremely valuable tools for navigating these sticky situations to engage in these dialogues more directly and effectively.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Mastering Collaboration: Enhance Productivity With Your Outside Marketing Agency
Melanie Trudeau
For law firms seeking to thrive in today’s competitive landscape, partnering with a specialized marketing and PR agency is a strategic imperative. Agencies possess a deep understanding of the intricate balance between legal expertise and effective brand communication.
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