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.
Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) programs, which allow employees to use their personally owned smartphones, tablets and laptops in and out of the work environment, are significantly changing information technology (IT). Law firms around the country are embracing BYOD as it lets executives and employees use the mobile devices, service providers and operating platforms of their choice.
Three federal cases indicating growing acceptance of obesity as a condition covered by the ADA, combined with obesity rates among the nation's workforce at an all-time high, portend additional claims from plaintiffs demanding accommodations for their conditions ' and more suits against employers that fail to provide them.
Employers often are faced with tricky legal dilemmas when employees ask to display religious symbols and take time off for religious observance. The most common religious request by retail employees is time off for a religious holiday, followed by requests to be excused from a dress code. Recent developments in both legislation and case law suggest that employers should only deny a religious accommodation when it would cause a quantifiable undue burden.
Law firm management should ensure that partners and senior associates (potential partners) understand the basic concepts pertaining to partners' capital accounts.
The expectations of today's clients cannot be met by the trappings of traditional law practices. Considering the way clients now expect and demand that their lawyers engage with them, using project management is a perfect way to support the process.
This article focuses on the specific areas of law firm partnership agreements that require an accountant's input and expertise.
2013 - BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT IS RARELY SIMPLE OR EASY Growth in a free market is there to be gained. Firms can always find ways to use growth as a powerful marketing asset. But for firms that finally recognize the need to pursue legal business development, two questions need to be asked: First, how can your firm exploit the current marketplace? And second, what long term strategic and pragmatic business development lessons can you learn, firm size…
For legal professionals, the only real choice remains Apple's iPad. The wide selection of legal-specific apps for the iPad cannot be matched by competing Android tablets. Whether intended or not, Apple is winning that market. However, with success comes responsibility, and when it comes to lawyers, accountability, security and saving time is extremely important when serving clients. Here are my "best-practice" recommendations and tips to make the most effective and safest use of iPads for lawyers.
