Features
Sales Speak:Stop 'Selling Stuff '
Given that lawyers are not sales professionals and only spend a small amount of their time focused on business development, and given that they already have a full-time job, it's important to keep the business development approach as simple as possible. Some ideas related to keeping it simple follow:
Features
Equity Joint Ventures
When a client seeks representation on an equity joint venture, there are eight primary structural considerations that provide the framework for documenting the venture: 1) initial capital contributions; 2) future capital needs; 3) cash distribution waterfall; 4) governance; 5) transfers; 6) exit rights; 7) restrictive covenants; and 8) affiliate transactions.
Features
The Paper-to-Digital Law Firm
Even though the costs and inefficiencies of paper records are an obvious strain on the law firm business model, law firms struggle with less-paper initiatives for one key reason: according to ILTA members informally surveyed in over 20 cities domestically, about half of today's attorneys would still prefer to work with paper, even if the entire file is digitally available from the DMS.
Features
Deferred Compensation Plans Under Section 409A
Everything you need to know about deferred compensation plans.
Features
Linking Business Development to Partner Compensation
In recent years, as client fee pressure has increased and client loyalty has decreased, law firms are investing significant time and money in business development programs. Some partners receive training to dust off selling skills that were largely unnecessary during a time of plenty. Other partners receive training, then individualized coaching, then more training, then more coaching, in an often-futile attempt to turn everyone into a capable rainmaker.
Features
Social Media Scene: Using Your E-mail Newsletter
Attorneys are at a disadvantage when it comes to marketing themselves and their firms. So, how does a firm balance its need for client touch points without annoying a client who doesn't need these services at the moment?
Features
Proactive Information Governance
Information governance (IG) is how organizations tackle growing data volumes ' identifying what's important, what isn't, and what to do with it all.
Features
Marketing Tech: Five Steps to a Strategic Marketing Technology Budget
Drafting a technology budget that adds value to the firm is increasingly important, and following these five steps will go a long way in ensuring that is the case.
Features
When Clicks Don't Count
There's a lot of allure when it comes to viral content. The thought of law firm marketing whizzing through the Web, without cost to the firms, is enough to make a person cry. But the attempt to make something go viral can actually backfire.
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- Private Equity Valuation: A Significant DecisionInsiders (and others) in the private equity business are accustomed to seeing a good deal of discussion ' academic and trade ' on the question of the appropriate methods of valuing private equity positions and securities which are otherwise illiquid. An interesting recent decision in the Southern District has been brought to our attention. The case is <i>In Re Allied Capital Corp.</i>, CCH Fed. SEC L. Rep. 92411 (US DC, S.D.N.Y., Apr. 25, 2003). Judge Lynch's decision is well written, the Judge reviewing a motion to dismiss by a business development company, Allied Capital, against a strike suit claiming that Allied's method of valuing its portfolio failed adequately to account for i) conditions at the companies themselves and ii) market conditions. The complaint appears to be, as is often the case, slap dash, content to point out that Allied revalued some of its positions, marking them down for a variety of reasons, and the stock price went down - all this, in the view of plaintiff's counsel, amounting to violations of Rule 10b-5.Read More ›
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