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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Increasing Client Requirements: Securing Law Firms for the 21st Century
Debra Gray
Gone are the days of “basic security.” What used to be optional is now standard: two factor authentication, complex passwords, clean desk policies, data encryption at rest and in transit, mobile device management and up-to-the-minute patching. Clients expect these items to already be in place and are further expanding their expectations.
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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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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
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
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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Delaware Supreme Court Theater Ruling Addresses Party’s Deposition Demeanor
Jenna Greene
There are difficult depositions. Unproductive depositions. Ones where people cry or are rude or angry. And then, as the Delaware Supreme Court noted, there’s Carole Shorenstein Hays. The 70-year-old Tony award-winning theater producer’s behavior during her deposition prompted the Delaware Supreme Court to issue a 20-page addendum blasting her.
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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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Marketing The Law Firm
Sales Speak: Relationship Building: Systemizing Prospect Engagement
Jennifer Bettencourt
Building rapport with prospective or existing clients and referral sources requires intentional ongoing communication and patience. When relationships fail to progress, it is most often due to a lack of follow-up.
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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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Marketing The Law Firm
Competitive Intelligence: How Client Intelligent Is Your Firm?
Stacy Rowe
Ready, Set, Benchmark!
Underlying great client service is a strong understanding of the client’s business and goals. There are many barriers to success when it comes to helping lawyers develop a strategic client mindset. So, how do you break down these barriers to create a Client Intelligent Law Firm?
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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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Marketing The Law Firm
In a VUCA Environment, Empower Your CMO to Collaborate and Lead
Tammy Mangan
VUCA is an acronym we don’t often hear in the legal industry. It stands for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, and was coined by the U.S. Army to describe the post-Cold War world. Buyers of legal services are more sophisticated than ever and are redefining the meaning of value, some are involving procurement professionals in the buying process.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Best Ways to Expand Key Client Relationships
Julie Savarino
Part Two of a Two-Part Article
This two-part article defines the specific and best actions lawyers and law firms can take to expand client relationships. This second part covers what law firms as institutions can do to help the firm’s departments, practice groups, teams and lawyers expand client relationships.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Best Ways to Expand Key Client Relationships from the Lawyers’ and Firms’ Perspectives
Julie Savarino
Part One of a Two-Part Article
For a variety of reasons, many law firms and lawyers struggle to effectively cross-sell or cross-service. This article defines the specific and best actions lawyers and law firms can take to expand client relationships.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Lawyers: Being Paid Shouldn’t Be Like Pulling Teeth!
Peter A. Johnson
What Lawyers Can Learn From Dentists
Nobody enjoys visiting the dentist, but everybody knows you still must pay him or her on the day of service. Attorneys, however, have historically let the client lead the payment dance. Lawyers do the work and hope/expect to be paid without waiting too long or discounting the invoice too steeply. What can we do differently?
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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
Voice of the Client: So Important, It Comes First
Catherine Alman MacDonagh
It is vital to have effective marketing and communications, but if legal and business professionals don’t listen for — and hear — the Voice of the Client, we risk missing the mark in our strategy, messaging and positioning.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Professional Development: 10 Performance Tips for Your Presentation
Sharon Abrahams
Finally, it has happened. You have reached the stage in your career that others want to hear from you and learn what you know in your area of expertise. You have been invited to speak at a conference. What now?
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Marketing The Law Firm
Competitive Intelligence: The Wolf of Law Firms — Sell Me This [Insert Legal Service Here]
Stacy Rowe
While we can’t always create the need; we can work to identfy a need. Clients buy because they have a need or want, and successful salespeople do their homework to uncover this intelligence.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Media & Communications: Advising a Client on Crisis Communications — The Three Rs and Three Fs
Janet Falk
If you have not already encouraged your partners to advise their clients of the need to develop a crisis communication plan in advance, and provided some guidance on best practices, do so immediately. As a complement to a well-developed plan, here are two mnemonic approaches to managing communications in a crisis: the three Rs and the three Fs.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Big Law’s Trojan Horse: Are the Big Four Preparing an Invasion?
Dan Packel
Law Firms Partner With the Big Four to Serve Their Clients, But the Accountants Pose an Existential Threat. What Will Happen If — or When — They Turn Competitive?
For law firm leaders, rank-and-file partners and everyone else in the law firm ecosystem, the Big Four shouldn’t be a laughing matter. They are serious about selling legal services, and clients are listening.
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Marketing The Law Firm
A Chief Client Service Officer in Action
Kimberly Rice
Marketing the Law Firm recently interviewed Jennifer Papantonio, Chief Client Service Officer of Peckar & Abramson about her significant role, which includes the successes she and the firm have achieved in recent years, how she works collaboratively with firm leadership to create innovative solutions, and her recommendations to law firms which may be considering engaging a Chief Client Officer.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Voice of the Client: Put Your Best Foot Forward in the New Year — Revaluating Content Strategy
Jen Betterncourt
While reputation goes a long way in attracting new clients, having a solid content strategy is a critical component of the legal sales cycle at all turns, including retaining the clients you have.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Competitive Intelligence: Become More Relevant – Meet Your Clients’ Needs Every Time
Patricia Ellard
Becoming and staying relevant is a process. It is not static but always evolving. Your clients change, their needs and requests change, you change, and, throughout these experiences, you learn steps to implement and how to implement them in given situations.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Active Listening Wins Clients
Kimberly Rice
All too often, we read studies, which report clients’ pet peeve with their services providers whom do not listening to them. Or, cited another way, clients…
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Meritas’ New Cybersecurity Standard Requirement Assures Legal Clients
Victoria Hudgins
Meritas, a nonprofit association of law firms, now requires its law firm members to follow a new cybersecurity standard. The reason for this new standard? Law firms’ clients.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Sales Speak: Grow Your Clients: MLF’s Challenge
Beth Cuzzone
As you approach your clients during the upcoming holidays and new year, think creatively. This Q&A with Aon COO Audrey Rubin provides more than a dozen examples of ways to add value and build stronger relationships with our clients. The MLF team challenges you to undertake one or two of these in your next go-to-market strategies.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Voice of the Client: Chief Client Service, Experience and Value Officers in Law Firms
Julie Savarino
Roles, Results & Roadblocks
An increasing number of the world’s largest law firms are conducting business at such a scale that having a dedicated, full-time client service or experience officer adds significant value to the firms and their clients.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Marketing Tech: How CMOs Can Use Retargeting to Attract New Business
Larry Bodine
Retargeting combines two of the most important aspects of digital marketing: automation and personalization. Marketers use retargeting to stay in front of the consumer across devices and to ultimately try to reach them at the right time — the moment of purchase intent.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Do Your Lawyers Think as Business Owners or Employees?
Kimberly Rice
There are two types of lawyers — those who have their own business and those who work for those who do. How do your lawyers size up?
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Business Crimes Bulletin
Protecting Privilege Before and After a Cyber Breach
Robert W. Anderson and Eric B. Levine
Critical to any counsel working to prevent a cyber attack or respond to a successful cyber intrusion is an understanding of why and how to properly utilize both attorney-client and work-product privilege.
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The Bankruptcy Strategist
State Attorney-Client Privilege Rule Incorporated into Federal Law
Robert J. Stearn, Jr., Cory D. Kandestin and Christopher M. De Lillo
Delaware Bankruptcy Court Protects Communications with Financial Professionals Originating In Delaware
Because state law applies at the time the transaction is negotiated, the parties might assume — reasonably so — that state privilege law will govern communications with their attorneys and financial professionals. But what happens if, years later, a fraudulent transfer plaintiff files suit in federal court and brings claims under federal law? Does state privilege law still apply?
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Business Crimes Bulletin
The Seizure of Attorney-Client Communications: Fighting Back
Ronald H. Levine
The government’s seizure of attorney-client communications, a headline event when it involves the President’s lawyer Michael Cohen, actually is a recurrent problem in white collar criminal investigations due to the convergence of several trends.
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Marketing The Law Firm
'Professional Development:' Those Were the Days: Lessons from Silicon Valley’s Marketing Culture
David McCann
There were elements of the corporate culture in the early Dot-com years that helped shape my perspective on the critical role marketing could (and should) play in driving tangible and bottom-line business results. Those shaping influences, when applied to law firms, can help us legal marketers realize even greater returns for our internal and external clients.
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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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Marketing The Law Firm
Listening to the Client: Where Do We Stand?
Jim Durham
If you listen to the marketplace, you will know what to do in connection with client growth and client retention. Are firms listening to this advice?
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Marketing The Law Firm
Breakthrough Thinking: How to Discover and Drive Motivation in Business Development and Lead Attorneys to Greater Prosperity
Kimberly Rice
Despite all the strategic planning CMOs may devote to individual attorney coaching and training, it is often not enough to support the lawyer client in connecting the dots of relationship building, reputation enhancing and contact management over the course of a career to make a remarkable difference.
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Marketing The Law Firm
'Professional Development:' Owning Your Business: Using Financial Metrics to Drive Business Development
Joe Maguire and Anne Marcotty
Growing the top line requires a systematic approach that maximizes your available time and focuses you on the best opportunities.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Focusing on Client Retention May Mean Restructuring the Firm
Kathryn B. Whitaker
Law Firms Should Double Down on Their Existing Clients By Focusing on Client Satisfaction and Retention Rates Rather Than Billable Hours and Origination Credits
New client acquisition can cost 15 times more than retaining an existing client, and yet most lawyers spend their limited and valuable time chasing new clients.
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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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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Adding Value with a Client Visit Initiative
Brook W. Redmond and Ali C. Ferro
The increasing competition in the legal industry highlights the importance of differentiation and adding value beyond the work product. Face-to-face interactions with clients are a critical component in differentiation because they provide the opportunity to understand better the nuances of clients’ businesses, develop deeper relationships, and drive productive collaboration.
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Marketing The Law Firm
'Sales Speak:' Savvy Salesmanship is a Hallmark of Successful Business Development
Ari Kaplan
At its core, business development is about making authentic connections that grow into meaningful relationships. Rainmakers recognize that principle and apply an array of techniques to fuel their careers.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Finally Finishing Unfinished Business?
Arthur J. Ciampi
How the Recent Heller Ehrman Case Impacts Lawyer Mobility and Clients Choice of Counsel
The law of unfinished business, as applied to cases billed on an hourly basis, has been the subject of much commentary and case law. In Heller Ehrman, the high California court, like the New York Court of Appeals, found that a dissolved law firm did not have a property interest in hourly matters for work performed after dissolution. The case is worth exploring as it impacts, among other things, lawyer mobility and clients choice of counsel.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Showcasing Attorney Expertise: Guidance for Law Firms
Cindy Sharp
Many attorneys already share intellectual capital by writing articles or delivering presentations with the hope of attracting additional business. However, most individuals, and even firms, have not developed a cohesive plan to ensure maximum exposure.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Professional Development: Adding Value with a Client Visit Initiative
Brook W. Redmond and Ali C. Ferro
The increasing competition in the legal industry highlights the importance of differentiation and adding value beyond the work product. Face-to-face interactions with clients are a critical component in differentiation because they provide the opportunity to understand better the nuances of clients’ businesses, develop deeper relationships, and drive productive collaboration.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Marketing Tech: Finding a Few More Minutes for Marketing and Business Development
Ari Kaplan
Years ago, when trying to improve some of my snacking habits, I stopped buying cookies, candy and savory chips. Magically (and perhaps obviously), I quickly found that I ate less junk food. In effort to find a few more minutes a day for marketing, I recently applied this same basic, but effective, technique to my time management and the results have been just as immediate.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Media & Communication: How to ‘Get Your Name Out There’
Nicholas Gaffney
Anyone who has so much as dabbled in marketing or consulted a PR firm has been told they “need to get their name out there.” But it’s not that simple. It’s not just getting your name out there that will reap results — it’s getting your name out there in the right places.
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