Features

Strategies to Avoid or Reduce Billing Rate Discounts
For a large portion of engagements, discounts are not necessary to win the work. In fact, discounts come at a price. Both parties assume a degree of risk when margins are thinned. This article presents several techniques that you can use to re-direct discussions away from discounts and help to minimize their financial impact.
Features

Lateral Partner Survey Casts Doubt on Compensation as King
In a survey conducted by Major, Lindsey & Africa, lateral partners put firm culture and practice support ahead of anticipated compensation when considering a new firm.
Features

Law Firms Enter the Golden Age of Data Mining
Data mining is a relatively new practice in the legal space and the data profiles of firms are highly variable from one organization to another, so identifying the right tools and prioritizing initiatives can be challenging.
Features

Bursting the Bubble of Associate Compensation
Smart business leaders compete by constantly seeking cost advantages. Yet law firm leaders compete by perpetually increasing associate compensation. As always, this will not end well.
Features

New Partners Are Worried About Mental Health and a Looming Recession, Annual Survey Finds
Newly minted partners offered up some usual complaints on this year's New Partners Survey, lamenting unexpectedly low compensation, opaque performance metrics and copious administrative work. But new anxieties have arisen among Big Law's latest partner class, including the threat of a recession and growing concerns about mental health.
Features

Increasing Client Requirements: Securing Law Firms for the 21st Century
Clients expect sophisticated and secure systems to keep their information safe. This obviously makes your IT professional's job much harder. Additionally, attorneys expect instant performance and near 100% up time. Achieving the delicate balance between accessibility and security is a challenge.
Features

Law Firm Debt Levels Shrink as Partners Put More Skin in the Game
What Does Widespread 'Deleveraging' Mean for Law Firm Health? Industry watchers say law firms have become less reliant on bank debt over the past decade, as they explore other funding options. Often, that means raising capital from partners, or turning to other, less common sources.
Features

Law Firm Revenues Rise as Demand Accelerates, Citi Reports
There is a lot of good news in the nine-month 2019 industry results. While we might not end the year with the strong growth levels seen in 2018, we anticipate that 2019 will be a decent year. For the first time this year, revenue growth exceeded expense growth.
Features

Determining Who Should Serve As the Billing Partner
Due to a law firm's team-oriented approach to business development and client service efforts, it is not always clear who should logically and most efficiently serve as the billing partner for a client or a particular client matter. A person should only be a billing partner if he or she is or will be performing the functions outline herein.
Features

A Primer for Forming Loan-Out Corporations
In the entertainment industry, it can take years for actors, musicians and others to reach a point where their efforts begin bringing in a notable return. If and when these types of clients begin to make a consistently significant income, one method that deserves consideration for protecting the hard-earned pay is to organize a loan-out corporation.
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