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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Accountability and ROI: Building Cybersecurity into Your Budget
Heinan Landa
If we intend to minimize the risk of a successful attack, we must accept cybersecurity as an ongoing, evolving, relentless effort that requires diligence and discipline. And we have to throw more money at it, too.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Business Development: How & Why Law Firms Should Invest In Associates’ Business Development Efforts
Randi Rosenblatt
Many attorneys don’t actually know how to scale business and require guidance in order to develop and exercise that muscle. This is precisely why law firms should invest in their associates’ business development efforts from the start.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms Try to Hold On to 2020 Savings
Andrew Maloney
A once-in-a-lifetime pandemic caused once-in-a-lifetime expense reductions that could forever alter the business of law. After those cost savings fueled double-digit profit growth for many firms in 2020, don’t be surprised if Big Law leaders try to make some of those gains stick.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Scorecards and Client Book Due Diligence Can Improve Lateral Hiring Performance
Eric Dewey
The lateral partner challenge is, essentially, a vetting challenge. And yet, few law firms take a strategic approach to vetting and hiring laterals.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Pandemic Drives Law Firms and Clients to Common Ground on Pricing
Dan Packel
The current circumstances are giving rise to conversations about pricing, and driving both sides of the law firm-client relationship to seek common ground — both in the form of tried-and-true alternative fee arrangements and those that reflect a more innovative approach.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Digital Dive: The Digital Buyer’s Journey: How to Nurture Your Potential Clients
Spencer X. Smith
Is there an elegant and effective way to use the power of online media to nurture your potential clients? Yes, and here’s a process to follow for each of the steps of that journey:
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Providing Superior Value to Clients In a Rocky Economic Climate
Roger E. Barton
What kinds of firms are best positioned to provide superior value to clients and why this is such a critical consideration in the current economic climate.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Firms Adding Financial Analysts to Calculate Profitability
Andrew Maloney
Law firms are increasingly adding new staff members and software to calculate their profitability, helping firms determine partner compensation and make other business decisions.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How ALSPs Can Effect Law Firms’ Bottom Line
Chad Van Horn
As alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) continue to take root with significant growth across the legal world, law firms have to consider how these niche companies affect their bottom line and how to react to this burgeoning parallel industry.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
For the New Year, Copy High Growth Firms by Prioritizing Marketing Investment
Bill Josten
Firms must be cautious as they re-examine budget priorities to not underestimate the harm that can be caused by failing to consider the long-range damage that can be done to a firm’s brand by cutting back too much on their marketing efforts.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
AI Is Calling Time On the Billable Hour
Jason Brennan
The game has changed substantially for law firms today — the evolution of the legal business model is underway and artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a big role in calling time on the billable hour.
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Marketing The Law Firm
For the New Year, Copy High Growth Firms By Prioritizing Marketing Investment
Bill Josten
In the chaos of this past year, it is easy to lose sight of long-term priorities for the sake of addressing short-term crises. Firms must be cautious as they re-examine budget priorities to not underestimate the harm that can be caused by failing to consider the long-range damage that can be done to a firm’s brand by cutting back too much on their marketing efforts.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Late Year Collections Could Make or Break 2020 Profitability
Lizzy McLellan
Success in 2020 is likely to come down to who your clients are. If they were hit hard by the pandemic that will trickle down to their vendors, including law firms. But for others, the top line could come out nearly unscathed.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Is Accountant Malpractice Compensation Taxable?
David E. Kahen and Elliot Pisem
If a taxpayer suffers a loss by reason of errors made by a tax advisor, and the tax advisor makes a payment to compensate the taxpayer for the loss. May the payment be excluded from the taxpayer’s income subject to tax?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
COVID-19 Forcing Firms to Keep Work In-House
Phillip Bantz
Legal departments have been reducing outside counsel spending amid the COVID-19 pandemic and keeping more work in-house, where the demand for specialists and legal operations managers continues to grow, according to a new report.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Right-Resourcing Legal Services
Chase D’Agostino and Andy Banquer
What is the right strategic approach for a legal department to optimize its return on investment for the resources it deploys to render legal services?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Implications of NJ BAIT for Law Firms
Edward J. Sadowski
NJ Senate Bill 3246 established the “business alternative income tax” (BAIT), an elective business tax regime for pass-through entities. Law firms are left wondering if electing to pay the BAIT is the right choice. This article summarizes how the NJ BAIT works, as well as its pros and cons.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
With Expenses Expected to Rise in 2021, Will Demand Match?
Dan Packel
Budget season is in full swing at firms whose fiscal year matches the calendar year, and leaders are exercising a newfound scrutiny over every component of next year’s spending as they prepare for an uncertain 2021.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Retirement Planning Under a Biden Administration
Lawrence L. Bell
The election of Joe Biden as President may clear the way for many changes in the retirement planning landscape.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
COVID-19 Dispels Long-Held Law Firm Operations Myths
J. Mark Santiago
During the COVID-19 pandemic, law firms have learned that a large number of “essential” services and Standard Operating Procedure rules and assumptions about how an office works are 1950’s myths that need to be identified, examined and re-engineered or discarded.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Financial Management In An Era of Unprecedented Economic Uncertainty
Ari Kaplan
The pandemic has forced law firms to reevaluate their expenses, refine their budgets, and review their overall operations to adapt to an environment of perpetual uncertainty.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Back to Basics In Times of Uncertainty
Patricia Ellard
One of the keys to success in competitive intelligence is communication. Effective communication builds rapport with your clients, which, in turn, builds trust and instills confidence that you will be able to get what they need to achieve their goals. In the last few months, this element of trust and rapport has never been more important.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
It’s 2025: What Did We Do to Successfully Shift Law Firm Operations?
Rob Mattern
A Look Back from the Future
If we look back at 2020 five years from now, what will we point to as the key actions that brought law firms back, and which of those are still in play.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Year End Is 90 Days Away, Make Every Day Count.
J. Mark Santiago
We are now into the sixth month of the COVID-19 pandemic and law firms across the country are entering the critical last quarter of the year. Historically, law firms collect between 30% and 50% of their annual revenues in the final 90 days of the calendar year. This year will be more challenging than prior years for a number of reasons.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Redefining Law Firm Financial Management In An Era of Unprecedented Economic Uncertainty
Ari Kaplan
The pandemic has forced law firms to reevaluate their expenses, refine their budgets, and review their overall operations to adapt to an environment of perpetual uncertainty. To understand their approach, options, and considerations, LSQ engaged Ari Kaplan Advisors to benchmark a range of metrics and perspectives from leaders at an array of organizations.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Profitability Expected to Be Stable for 2020 Despite Decreased Revenue
Dan Packel
Economists are increasingly gravitating to the concept of a “K-shaped” recovery following the steep plunge of the early days of the coronavirus crisis. With a slight tweak, that “K” may well serve as a useful depiction of law firm profitability in 2020: just add a horizontal third line at the center.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Undercutting the Cost of Underperforming Attorneys Is Your Responsibility
Sharon Meit Abrahams
As a firm leader it is your fiscal responsibility to address underperforming attorneys. With COVID-19, are your underperformers flying under the radar? The cost to a firm is not only to the bottom line, but to your reputation as a leader.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Undercutting the Cost of Underperforming Attorneys
Sharon Meit Abrahams
As a firm leader it is your fiscal responsibility to address underperforming attorneys. With COVID-19 are your underperformers flying under the radar? The cost to a firm is not only to the bottom line, but to your reputation as a leader.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Technology Investments for Law Firms Moving Forward Post-COVID
Christopher Zegers
We’re never going back the way we were — and this will be to the benefit of firms, profitability, clients and lawyers if we make the right technology investments. Here’s some specific ways firms can capture these benefits.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The SECURE and CARES Acts Change Required Minimum Distributions
Sidney Kess
A key aspect of saving for retirement through qualified retirement plans and IRAs is deferring taxes until required minimum distributions (RMD) begin. Even with Roth IRAs, beneficiaries who inherit them must also follow RMD rules despite the tax-free treatment of the distributions. The SECURE Act and the CARES Act made dramatic changes in RMD rules for 2020 and beyond.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Buying In to the ALSP Market
Dan Packel
Some Firms Are Forming Subsidiaries to Deliver Legal Services In New Ways
Buyers have a broader slate of options in 2020 than ever before, whether that means handling more work in-house, hiring temporary lawyers during a crunch, or turning to a recently launched “alternative provider” to address the massive pile of contracts they need to manage.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Accounting for the Coronavirus
John Drum and Melissa Rutzen
This article examines challenges facing accountants due to economic and financial stress increasing at the same time that oversight may be relaxing, provides insight into the question of whether we should expect a rise in accounting manipulations, and concludes with comments on mitigating hindsight bias.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Preparing for the LIBOR Phase Out: Contract Remediation Starts with Contract Intelligence
Ryan Drimalla and Karl Dorwart
The London Interbank Offered Rate has long been the global basis for agreements that include a variable interest rate component. However, LIBOR would be replaced by other benchmarks by the end of 2021. Key to assessing risk of exposure, quantifying the financial impact, developing remediation plans and communicating material information to stakeholders will be the identification, analysis and remediation of LIBOR-based contracts.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How to Ensure Financial Health Ahead of an Economic Downturn
Derek F. Meek and Hanna Lahr
The economic downturn that is projected to come out of the shutdowns mandated due to COVID-19 is likely to be more wide-ranging than the Great Recession of 2008 in light of the non-discriminative impact of the virus. Given this outlook, now is a critical time for companies to reassess their business and finances so that they can be prepared for the future.
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The Bankruptcy Strategist
Estate Professionals Can Be Compensated for Services Performed Before Entry of a Retention Order, Even Without Nunc Pro Tunc Orders
Sheryl P. Giugliano
Bankruptcy professionals should be relieved by a recent decision holding that although nunc pro tunc orders approving a professional’s retention are now considered “inappropriate” in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Juan, there is nothing in the Bankruptcy Code, Bankruptcy Rules, or applicable case law preventing an award of compensation before a retention order is entered.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Introducing Pricing Transparency to Legal Services
Nathan Cemenska
The COVID-19 crisis has caused a money crunch across industries, and CLD budgets are tightening. This downturn demands that CLDs stop writing blank checks for services of indeterminate scope and duration. Here are some ideas for law departments looking to do better.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Legal Analytics and the Evolving Practice of Law
Josh Becker
While we may use analytics differently in our respective companies, one thing is certain: Legal analytics is the future and it’s time to jump on board.
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The Bankruptcy Strategist
Corporate Resiliency: How to Ensure Financial Health Ahead of an Economic Downturn
Derek F. Meek and Hanna Lahr
Proper planning is key to ensuring a company’s financial health when facing an economic downturn. Although companies will come into such planning with different levels of financial health, the same considerations can be helpful in determining the best path forward.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Small Law, Big Changes: The Coming Disruption in the Legal Industry
Rinky S. Parwani and Greg Garman
The billable hour is still profitable from a transactional perspective, but from a strategic perspective, in today’s economy, that profitability has begun to erode. That’s because our economy has fundamentally transformed into a service economy that is based on leverage and scale.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
COVID-19 Downturn Likely Won't Impact Health of Law Firm Billable Hour
Frank Ready
Not even the economic downturn imposed by the COVID-19 virus may be able to take credit for eliminating the billable hour. While attorneys could be relying more on legal tech to help defray costs, transitioning to a new pricing infrastructure in the midst of so much uncertainty could prove to be a bridge too far.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Adopting COVID-19 Cuts, Law Firms Balance Image and Economics
Patrick Smith
Firms Are Applying Communications Lessons from the Great Recession As They Deliver Bad News During the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Many firms have appeared in recent weeks to be signaling compassion, embracing (relative) transparency and sharing sacrifices across lawyers and staff. That can help make even painful cuts less harmful for a firm’s internal morale and outside reputation.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How a Law Firm’s Comp System Affects Profitability and Partner Satisfaction
Hugh A. Simons
Compensation systems are typically a strategic afterthought, seen as the means by which to allocate the spoils of a successful strategy. They’re viewed as affecting the level of grousing among partners, but not a firm’s performance. The data, however, indicates the reverse is true.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How to Survive (and Even Thrive) During and After the COVID-19 Lockdown
Valerie Chan
The ability to adapt, be nimble and pivot as necessary is crucial to surviving and thriving in ever-changing economic climates. Communicating in the age of social distancing requires a new way of thinking and being — not just in the virtual workplace with our peers but also how we communicate and partner with our clients.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Linking Partner Pay to Strategic Firm Objectives
J. Mark Santiago
In general law firms have been slower to adopt pay for performance systems. What law firms need now, and this article describes, is an approach to partner compensation that closely links a partners pay to their ability to contribute to the achievement of the firm’s strategic objectives.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Supreme Court Defers to State Law on Ownership of Tax Refund
Michael L. Cook
Federal courts should “turn to state law to resolve” a “fight over a tax refund,” held a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Rodriquez v. FDIC (In re United W Bancorp., Inc.).
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The State of Legal Finance in 2020
Ari Kaplan
Legal industry analyst Ari Kaplan interviewed 32 lawyers from Finland, France, Hong Kong, Norway, Singapore, the UK and the U.S. about the evolution of legal finance. He also surveyed 20 in-house lawyers at Fortune 500 companies and 18 law firm lawyers from Australia, the Cayman Islands, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Singapore, Sweden, the UK, and the U.S. about emerging trends in legal finance. Below are some of his findings and what they indicate about the current state of the sector.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Recovery Models for e-Discovery and Litigation Support Services that Make an Impact
Nathan Curtis
In 2019, Mattern went to the market to conduct its first deep dive into e-discovery and litigation support cost recovery in the 2020 e-Discovery and Litigation Support Cost Recovery Survey. Some of the results surprised us.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Mergers and Predictions for the Year 2020
Marcus Dyer
2019 went down as another record year for law firm mergers. But what do the numbers teach us? Did the tendency to merge apply to law firms across the board? Is the merger mania likely to continue in 2020? What was the impetus for record number of mergers? This article breaks down the available data to answer these questions and attempts to give us a glimpse into the future.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Client Maximization: Doing Well by Doing the Right Things
Linda Hazelton
Making the most of your firm’s client base need not be a costly undertaking. There are several steps a firm of any size can undertake to improve client experiences, ultimately, while also increasing the firm’s chances of thriving.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Outsourcing: How to Do Better Than Flipping a Coin
Rob Mattern
The legal industry is on the cusp of transformational change making the “siren song” of a successful outsourcing engagement ever more alluring: increase expertise and flexibility while lowering costs, and significantly mitigating risk.
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