Law Firm Management

There have been four waves of change over the last 50 years. We are now entering the fifth wave and this one will be a tsunami. The lawyers who do not recognize the trends will not be able to enter a new era and survive. The fifth wave will turn partnership leverage, compensation systems and the business model upside down. There is not much time to make the incremental changes that will support sustained profitability in law firms.

A powerful business plan can change your life, especially if you are in a moment of transition with your practice. Any lawyer who wants to have his or her own clients ' or more of their own clients ' should outline their plan to obtain that goal. Arguably, the most critical juncture is when you are looking at other firms in hopes of making a lateral move, but there are no bad times to put together an action plan for expanding your practice.

Your OWN network is just as important to develop and maintain as it is for any professional. Because we spend so much of our time helping others to focus on cultivating their networks, we often neglect to tend to our own.

In 1992, the American Bar Association called upon members of the legal profession to provide leadership and education in eradicating sexual harassment. According to the 1992 ABA report, "[l]awyers play a special role in educating society about sexual harassment and eliminating it from the workplace.

While recently preparing for a middle school presentation, my son was struggling with accidental omissions in his delivery. In striving for perfection, his fear of someone in the audience recognizing his error grew. Like many who engage in public speaking, he had convinced himself that the only way to be successful is to be flawless. That is the great myth of public speaking, and one can that easily be overcome by remembering that most people have no idea what you are going to say, so they will never recognize your mistake.

For the inside counsel revolution to succeed, the General Counsel must follow a basic dictum: Hire the best. The key to the legal function's credibility with the CEO and senior line executives is to seek broad-gauged lawyers who are outstanding technical experts, wise counselors and effective leaders to occupy the top specialists jobs in the company and to be general counsel in the main operating divisions.

Leveraging advanced technologies can empower corporate counsel and law firms alike to take control of the ongoing challenge that today's "information on demand" expectations present. When access, disaster recovery, scalability and security are paramount requirements, a migration to the cloud could be the most effective route to help ensure this is accomplished.

Last month, in Part One of this article, we discussed the fact that one size does not fit all when it comes to social media training for lawyers. We continue herein with a look at the inevitable changes in ways that lawyers do business.