Law Firm Management

In May 2015, the streaming music service Pandora acquired the music industry data collection company Next Big Sound, which extensively tracks sales, social and streaming data. In the Internet era, the entertainment and other industries are awash with data, all of it with varying degrees of copyright protection. The Pandora/Next Big Sound deal presents a good moment for a primer on this copyright protection.

As more and more commercial clients move their legal teams in-house, competition among law firms continues to grow. With the legal industry still feeling negative impacts from the financial crisis, a considerable number of law firms have been pooling expertise and gaining market share through mergers and acquisitions.

Strong agreements are essential for any cloud service that supports critical IT systems. While the circumstances of each cloud implementation are different, this article provides an overview of key areas that need to be considered for any agreement to acquire cloud-based services.

The modifier "social" is supposed to separate social media from other forms of marketing and PR. But the tactic's social aspect is also the part that either prevents us from using it or from using it as the two-way communication tool it's supposed to be.

Like their larger counterparts, small and midsize law firms are facing escalating scrutiny from clients over their efficiency, project management and costs. But not all small and midsize firms are reacting in the same way.

The majority of law firms faced with generational change do not survive into the next generation after the founders retire. This risk of decline or dissolution can be greatly mitigated if your firm plans ahead of time for succession.

As one of its core principles, Legal Project Management (LPM) emphasizes the need for effective project scoping as a crucial first step for delivering legal services efficiently, predictably, on time and on budget. Most experienced lawyers tell us they scope engagements quite well. In our experience, many of them don't.

In this column, we bring the views and opinions from the client's perspective into focus on issues involving pricing, service, marketing, strategy, differentiation and more. This month, we reached out to Michael Chartock, who has a multi-dimensional lens on these issues.