There's a wide range of business benefits to leasing that help firms better manage current market challenges beyond cash management — so we asked our law firm clients what they saw as the most compelling business benefits of leasing in today's challenging economy.
Powerful forces are now pushing regulators in the direction of non-lawyer ownership of law firms in the United States. Some of the forces are completely well-intentioned, but some of the forces are not so well-intentioned.
As a result of the TCJA, the owners of pass-through entities are limited in the amount of state and local taxes they can deduct on their Federal income tax return. In response, over 25 states have enacted pass-through entity tax regimes, which allow the owners of law firms to preserve their state and local tax deduction on their income from the law firm.
While many of the country's largest law firms contend with financial volatility that has resulted in financial declines and workforce overcapacity, the 20 midsize firms included in the Am Law 200 outperformed the 2023 Am Law Second Hundred in key financial metrics.
The problem isn't that economies are cyclical, that's a fact of life. The problem here is that Big Law can sometimes have unrealistic reactions to both upturns and downturns. If this happens, it's not in the interests of their own attorneys or their clients. It's inhumane and unhealthy.
Unlike burnout or "quiet quitting," which arguably stemmed from mostly short-term dynamics, observers point to a collision of current and long-term trends, such as post-pandemic work and generational shifts, that have led lawyers today to be less committed to or fulfilled in the profession as they were a decade ago.
No industry is immune from layoffs in a global (and shrinking) economy, and law firms must prepare for this highly delicate situation to hit home. Handling layoffs from a PR and crisis management perspective requires sensitive, transparent and clear communication.
With new employees come new risks; from aspiring insider threats that intend to join a target to extract sensitive information, to insecure processes being exploited due to too much trust being placed in candidates and new hires.
For legal stakeholders seeking to take their existing legal operations programs to the next level or start new programs from scratch, there are a few all-too-easy traps that can stunt growth, cost political capital and cause headaches. Having a strategic plan, budget and critical executive buy-in is not enough to avoid these four common issues.
In an era where the power dynamics in the legal industry are shifting decidedly to talent, a firm's ability to tap into generational differences to invigorate, attract and retain talent is a competitive advantage.
