Law Firm Management

Compounded by the current recession, demands of clients and competition among law firms are causing fairly dramatic changes in the pricing of legal services, away from straight hourly billing.

During turbulent economic times, organizations need to be especially vigilant to minimize potential risks that could ultimately affect the bottom line or shareholder ROI.

Who's going where; who's doing what.

Michael Robinson, a senior vice president of a leading crisis communications firm, Levick Strategic Communications, discusses the new business and communications challenges posed by the economic downturn and the role of corporate counsel in preventing and managing crises.

Unlike an employer's internal e-mail system, which is generally understood to be under the ownership and control of the employer, personal Web-based accounts accessed at work raise new and unsettled questions about an employee's expectations of privacy.

Today's information-rich organizations must be prepared to quickly find and produce ESI that may be relevant to a given litigation matter or request for information. The trouble is, many organizations do not have a well-thought out response plan in place, which makes the timely production of relevant information difficult, time-consuming and potentially very costly.

The survey results strongly suggest that, to prove their value, business development consultants must now play a more instrumental role in generating significant new revenue. Among the key findings, 36% of respondents say that the work of business development consultants they've retained has real bottom line impact, while 57% say the work has been helpful but not decisive - or that it was initially helpful but less so as the engagement continued. The message is clear…

Among the many categories of management styles, there are two that are rarely seen without a measure of astigmatism. Both are extensions of the personality of the manager.