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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
AI, the Billable Hour and Improving Client Service
J. Mark Santiago
The ultimate guardian of the quality of client service is the partners’ own judgement but properly utilizing AI can set expectations that will benefit the clients and the firm and end forever the “End of the Billable Hour” stories.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Generative AI and Law Firm Pricing
Isha Marathe
Generative AI, combined with client education, could signal the slow death knell of the billable hour.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms Are Rethinking Comp Systems to Recruit and Retain High Performers
Justin Henry
No matter the approach, firms appear to have a common goal in mind when widening the ratio in pay for the highest and lowest-paid partners in order to better recruit and retain high performers.
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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
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
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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The Bankruptcy Strategist
Litigation Finance Offers Significant Benefits for Restructuring Matters
Jeffery Lula
In today’s volatile economic climate, companies need to be more creative to find ways to mitigate risk. Litigation finance is one of those out-of-the-box solutions that can provide benefits.
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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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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
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
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
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
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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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How to Build the Law Firm of the Future
Joel Wirchin
The onus is on law firm leaders to balance risk and opportunity. How can firms guide through an increasingly perilous landscape rife with opposing hazards to start building the law firm of the future today?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Old Dog, New Tricks: Time to Retire Associate Lockstep Compensation
J. Mark Santiago
This article maps out a system that would enable law firm management to implement a meaningful pay-for-performance system that drives positive associate performance and enhances the firm’s culture.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Future of IRS Summonses After Supreme Court ‘Poselli’ Ruling
Jeremy H. Temkin
In Polselli v. Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously refused to limit the IRS’s ability to issue summonses without notice to situations in which it seeks records of accounts in which a delinquent taxpayer has an interest. This article discusses the court’s decision, Justice Jackson’s concurring opinion, and the potential for future challenges to the IRS’s issuance of summonses without notice.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Midsize Firms Outpace Am Law 200 In Key Growth Metrics
Justin Henry
While many of the country’s largest law firms contend with financial volatility that has resulted in financial declines and workforce overcapacity, the 20 midsize firms included in the Am Law 200 outperformed the 2023 Am Law Second Hundred in key financial metrics.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms Saw Moderate Revenue Growth In Q1 Despite Challenging Demand Environment
Gloria Gomez-O’Rourke and Mike McKenney
Strong inventory levels at the end of 2022 helped the law firm industry post moderate average revenue growth during the first quarter of 2023, though the demand environment remains challenging for law firms.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Why Law Firms and 3Ls Alike Should Consider Deferring
Hugh A. Simons
We can expect that soon some enlightened Big Law firms will level with their incoming associates (or at least the corporate ones) and explain that market conditions are such that the firm cannot assure them of the volume of work necessary for their normal growth and development and, accordingly, the firm is offering a stipend (and health insurance) to those who choose to defer for a year.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Financial Strategies that Improve Security and Optimize Your Technology Spend
Mike Henderson, Whitney Jones, and Bill Pitcairn
Shifting large IT purchases over to a predictable monthly expense is a pricing model that has taken over most industries with the introduction of cloud services, and this can be a particularly useful model during challenging markets.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Legal Operations Success In an Uncertain Economy
Ari Kaplan
In the uncertain economy that is characterizing the first quarter of the year, there remains a significant emphasis on demonstrating value to secure new resources.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Financial Strategies to Optimize Your Technology Spend
Mike Henderson, Whitney Jones, and Bill Pitcairn
Uncertain and challenging markets are times when firms and organizations of all types conserve cash. If this can be achieved without cutting needed projects, equipment or services to ensure successful returns to the office, then this is clearly an ideal financial strategy.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Despite Aggressive Rate Increases from Law Firms, Clients Have Room to Negotiate
Andrew Maloney
Rate increases across the legal industry haven’t been as big as the conventional wisdom implies, and clients have more room to negotiate than they probably realize.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Embedded Finance Is Changing the Business of Law
Kevin Gallagher
A revolution is underway in small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) banking and payments and will impact the way legal, accounting and other professional services firms manage their finances.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Expense Right-Sizing In a Challenging Economy
Rob Mattern
What strategies can law firms take to rein in expenses during a challenging, down market to avoid further layoffs? Look no further than the firm’s back-office operations. This article presents a brief overview of five areas where your firm can not just “cut costs” but actually improve operations while doing so — this is expense “right-sizing.”
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Improving Firm Profitability Through Contracts
J. Mark Santiago
The best and most effective way to drive firm profitability is through influencing partner behavior. The best way to incent the partners is by linking their compensation clearly and directly to the achievement of the firm’s business strategy.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Layoffs, Expenses and Return-to-Office Policies Top Worries of Law Firm Leaders In 2023
Andrew Maloney and Patrick Smith
While economic troubles and fears of a recession are top concerns for law firm leaders now, some shifts within the legal industry are also triggering alarm bells. Interviews with more than a dozen law firm leaders identified a growing list of challenges that law firm leaders are grappling with now,
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Why Are Some Bills Easier to Collect Than Others?
Alex Geisler
Why do some people sail through the entire budgeting, billing and collection process, while for others collection always means trepidation?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Litigation Financing 2.0: Financing the Business of Law
Joshua Libling
It is not accidental that funding the creation or growth of law firms and practice groups has tended to follow a traditional path. Rather, this circumstance is a combination of traditional legal temperament and structural barriers to innovation. Recently, there have been changes to both.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Amending (or Terminating) Deferred Compensation Plans Without Penalties
Lawrence L. Bell
This article reminds readers of §409A’s draconian penalties and specific guidance of amending modifying, amending or terminating existing nonqualified deferred compensation plans.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Case for Having A Lawyer As Your Financial Planner
Bryce Sanders
The accounting industry picked up on this idea years ago when the big accounting firms set up subsidiaries offering management consulting services. Lawyers are in an ideal position to offer impartial investment advice because they are fiduciaries.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Billing Rates Have Increased, But Not Enough to Beat Inflation
Andrew Maloney
Law firm billing rates have increased across all law positions in 2022, but not necessarily enough to keep pace with inflation. That’s according to news reports that point to some more challenges for law firm profits.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Are We Over Thinking Office Return Strategies?
Anthony Davies
Routines based around ‘work from home’ are calcifying, and commuting, parking, sandwich shops and childcare are fading into distant memory. With each passing week, the challenge to win attorneys back into the office increases.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Recession Proofing A Law Firm
Melissa “Rogo” Rogozinski
Whatever term the economists use to describe the slowing pace of commerce, the real question is: how do you protect your law firm’s revenue stream when economic pressures are causing current and prospective clients to tighten their budgets?
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Marketing The Law Firm
The Four Legal Sales Strategies
Eric Dewey
The ‘best choice’ provider pitch may not be the optimal sales strategy. It's better to adjust to where the prospect is in their buying decision process — whether that means they are looking for providers, they are studying the situation, they already have counsel, or they have decided not to address the issue.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms May Make ‘Course Corrections’ to Battle Inflation
Andrew Maloney
If inflation remains at current levels, law firm billing rate increases won’t be able to keep pace. But firm leaders may make other “course corrections” to capture profits through the end of 2022, analysts say, by utilizing leverage and alternative pricing models and making additional investments in technology.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The 2022 GC Compensation Survey: Pay Spikes After Pandemic Pause
Phillip Bantz
Pay for the nation’s most powerful legal chiefs has rocketed back into the stratosphere following a slump amid corporate austerity measures during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — and a familiar name has reclaimed this year’s cash king crown.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Great Unbundling: Do Law Firms Need to Re-think Outsourcing Strategies?
Anthony Davies
Service “‘bundling” provides economies of scale, lower overheads, a single point of contact and a single invoice at the end of each month. However, the bundling of services to create a single multi-service provider may now be hurting firms who are increasingly looking for specialization, especially with regards to onsite workplace experience services.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Top Law Firms Look to Invest Profits In Future Success
Dan Packel
There’s no doubt that much of the legal industry’s profit gains are simply the result of surging demand. But smart firms were also able to harness booming demand to push through rate increases, owing to clients who were desperate to see their deals go through. There’s no doubt that the firms taking advantage of this confluence are in an enviable position. That doesn’t mean they are sitting on their laurels.
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The Bankruptcy Strategist
The Interplay Between Vendor Finance Agreements and Bankruptcy
Ann Pille, Richard Tannenbaum, Alexis Leventhal and Emily Costantinou
While regularly used among lenders, manufacturers, and dealers, treatment of Inventory financing program agreements in bankruptcy is not uniform, and uncertainty exists with respect to how such agreements may be treated in the context of a manufacturer’s Chapter 11.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Current Economic Climate Likely to Cause Law Firms to Offer Flexible and Creative Fee Arrangements
Nicole R. Rekant and Stevan J. Pardo
The current economic climate will incline lawyers, specifically litigators, to rethink their fee structures. With inflation at a 40-year high, residential and commercial rents rising, and a predicted looming recession, clients are tightening their budgets, but also demanding the same level of service and results from their attorneys.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
After Another Big Year, Law Firms Should Plan for Recession
J. Mark Santiago
Planning for the downturn in a clear, methodical way by investing the existing good fortune that most firms enjoy into strengthening your technical infrastructure, trimming expenses, and rethinking how administrative services are delivered to the attorneys.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Know When to Hold ’Em And Know When to Fold ’Em: 4 Questions to Ask When Thinking of Merging
J. Mark Santiago
Deciding to merge is a process that is best undertaken when a firm has as much information as possible about what their objectives and desired outcome is. Developing that information is best achieved by answering four questions.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
New Approaches to Outsourced Labor
Ben Schmidt
Employees are the lifeblood of an organization. Companies, including law firms, are rightfully attempting to navigate what the past two years have meant to the labor force and make sense of the changes to the landscape so that they can successfully manage their businesses. Included in this mix are outsourcing service providers.
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