Law Firm Management

The primary reason we chose Aderant Total Office was because of integration and that very few of the vendors the firm considered could provide both case and financial management software.

MARKETING IS LIKE ALGEBRA Newer partners, senior assoicates and even third-years have been given their marching orders -- seek out new opportunities, pursue leads, get in front of prospects and close those deals. As in the Marco/Polo kids game, start popping up whenever and wherever there are prospects. A few of the basic business development tools we find simplest to implement for our clients are discussed below and in following posts. They are designed for firm leadership…

Prognostication is a game for which the prize for getting it right is at least bragging rights, at best successful planning. Statistically, it seems, there are few winners ' but that seems to stop no one from doing it. Gambling is OK for sport, I guess, but ' except for calculated business risk ' not so hot as a planning or management tool.

Redoing your firm's website is a collaborative process with specific steps that you should try to follow. The purpose of this three-part article is to review each of those steps so that law firm professionals have a better understanding of website design and development in order to better manage internal expectations when they undertake a website redesign project.

When lawyers no longer feel they are at a place that can support and reward the ambitions they have for their practice, they head for the door.

Without Standard Operating Procedures, law firms suffer from inconsistency, chaos and lack of control. Having SOPs is a must for legal IT departments. From lost equipment to lost passwords and data, not having written policies and procedures can create liability and losses that are sometimes unrecoverable.

A recent study published by Altman Weil listed the ways in which chief legal officers would like to see their outside counsel embrace service improvements and innovation. The top four responses were greater cost reduction, non-hourly pricing, more efficient project management and improved budget forecasting. To anyone paying even cursory attention to the legal marketplace in the last half decade, these should not come as a surprise.

In a law firm environment, great leaders are necessary to provide client service, build client relationships, develop more junior lawyers, and generally ensure the profitable use of firm resources. This requires everyone's best thinking. How does a leader harness the group's best thinking? The most effective leaders use coaching skills. In other words, all they do is ask the right questions.