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.
Generative AI, combined with client education, could signal the slow death knell of the billable hour.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Partnership audit changes present increased exposure to partnerships and their partners, and future legislation may curtail much of the flexibility associated with partnerships.
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.
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.
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.
