Law Firm Management

A Silver Tsunami of aging partners is threatening the legal profession. There's a way to higher ground.

The global COVID-19 pandemic forced lawyers — individuals whose relationships formerly depended upon firm handshakes and looking their clients directly in the eye — to build client trust through a tiny camera lens. Here's a Q&A with GCs to discuss what matters most to their companies when hiring outside counsel.

While acquiring the skills necessary to develop business is certainly a life-long journey, here are five critical elements to consider from the outset.

Partnerships are relationships, ideally relationships built on trust and a common goal. Successful partnerships require all parties working together — working together to service a client fully, generate revenue and to build a business. This requires openness and coordination.

A once-in-a-lifetime pandemic caused once-in-a-lifetime expense reductions that could forever alter the business of law. After those cost savings fueled double-digit profit growth for many firms in 2020, don't be surprised if Big Law leaders try to make some of those gains stick.

Attorneys can utilize accountability partners to fuel the advances one truly wants to make in their efforts to build books of business.

The lateral partner challenge is, essentially, a vetting challenge. And yet, few law firms take a strategic approach to vetting and hiring laterals.

The current circumstances are giving rise to conversations about pricing, and driving both sides of the law firm-client relationship to seek common ground — both in the form of tried-and-true alternative fee arrangements and those that reflect a more innovative approach.