Law firms are a natural breeding ground for developing strong, effective leaders. Most often though, when selecting an attorney to assume leadership responsibilities for their practice group, office or as managing partner, the nod goes to the most financially successful attorney who has established a baseline of trust as a knowledge-based expert with clients. Is it any wonder that when these very successful attorneys who are superb at maintaining client relationships by keeping their nose to the grindstone and practicing law without interference from the firm, often stumble when thrown into leadership roles where expectations dramatically shift to the care and feeding of others within the firm?
Bob MurneyTake your lessons in leadership where you can find them.
Recently, on assignment with a large, Midwestern law firm, I spoke with an attorney who had thought through the question of his own effectiveness as a leader without disconnecting that evaluation from his values as a human being.
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An annual tradition continues as we present the responses to our Legalweek question. For 2026, it was "where are we with prompting"?
The volume and sophistication of work hitting law firm marketing departments is accelerating. That moves the burden from responding to being ready: ready with differentiated positioning, ready with competitive intelligence, ready to get a compelling pitch to the right client before a formal process even begins. That requires more sophisticated output, produced faster, by teams that are already stretched past capacity.
In categories where products are difficult to differentiate on performance, and that describes most of the AI industry today, customers do not choose on features, they choose on trust. Brand integrity, in those markets, is a material business asset.
The annals of copyright decisions could provide a reasonably representative catalog of what our culture has been up to over the past 200 years. A Feb. 3 decision from the Southern District of New York is a case in point. It involves a sex-trafficking conspiracy, Tweets attacking a troubled crypto firm, and a claimed transfer of copyright ownership through a restitution order in a criminal case, all over an undercurrent of competing First Amendment and victim-privacy concerns.
Matthew McConaughey secured eight federal trademark registrations covering his voice and iconic catchphrases in a novel legal strategy aimed at combating AI’s unauthorized use of his voice and likeness. The move signals an important evolution in the power dynamics between talent/brands and the companies providing generative AI tools.
