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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
For the New Year, Copy High Growth Firms by Prioritizing Marketing Investment
Bill Josten
Firms must be cautious as they re-examine budget priorities to not underestimate the harm that can be caused by failing to consider the long-range damage that can be done to a firm’s brand by cutting back too much on their marketing efforts.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
AI Is Calling Time On the Billable Hour
Jason Brennan
The game has changed substantially for law firms today — the evolution of the legal business model is underway and artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a big role in calling time on the billable hour.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
10 Ways to Prepare for 2021’s Collision of Business and Society
Zach Olsen and Ken Kerrigan
As we enter 2021, we should expect the needs of business and society to continue colliding. But if law firms prepare for those collisions, they can drive better outcomes.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Late Year Collections Could Make or Break 2020 Profitability
Lizzy McLellan
Success in 2020 is likely to come down to who your clients are. If they were hit hard by the pandemic that will trickle down to their vendors, including law firms. But for others, the top line could come out nearly unscathed.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Is Accountant Malpractice Compensation Taxable?
David E. Kahen and Elliot Pisem
If a taxpayer suffers a loss by reason of errors made by a tax advisor, and the tax advisor makes a payment to compensate the taxpayer for the loss. May the payment be excluded from the taxpayer’s income subject to tax?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
COVID-19 Forcing Firms to Keep Work In-House
Phillip Bantz
Legal departments have been reducing outside counsel spending amid the COVID-19 pandemic and keeping more work in-house, where the demand for specialists and legal operations managers continues to grow, according to a new report.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
COVID-19: Economic Stimulus and SBA Loans
Jacob Weichholz, Daniel Mayo and Chris DeMayo
A summary of information on the various Small Business Association (SBA) loans that are available under the new federal economic stimulus package. Continually updated; last update December 29 with an update on the new stimulus bill.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How to Transform Mailroom Operations for Security, IG and Productivity
Steve Irons
A Permanent Change to How Your Firm Operates
Law firms need a best practice Digital Mailroom operation, not the current scan-to-email workaround, which was a triage solution at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. Attorneys and staff working from home must have reliable, secure delivery of daily mail which is arriving at the main office.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Implications of NJ BAIT for Law Firms
Edward J. Sadowski
NJ Senate Bill 3246 established the “business alternative income tax” (BAIT), an elective business tax regime for pass-through entities. Law firms are left wondering if electing to pay the BAIT is the right choice. This article summarizes how the NJ BAIT works, as well as its pros and cons.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Why Lawyers Stink At Business Development and What Law Firms Are Doing About It
Valerie Pennacchio
Why is it that those who are best skilled at advocating for others are ill-equipped at advocating for their own skills and what to do about it?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
With Expenses Expected to Rise in 2021, Will Demand Match?
Dan Packel
Budget season is in full swing at firms whose fiscal year matches the calendar year, and leaders are exercising a newfound scrutiny over every component of next year’s spending as they prepare for an uncertain 2021.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Retirement Planning Under a Biden Administration
Lawrence L. Bell
The election of Joe Biden as President may clear the way for many changes in the retirement planning landscape.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
COVID-19 Dispels Long-Held Law Firm Operations Myths
J. Mark Santiago
During the COVID-19 pandemic, law firms have learned that a large number of “essential” services and Standard Operating Procedure rules and assumptions about how an office works are 1950’s myths that need to be identified, examined and re-engineered or discarded.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Financial Management In An Era of Unprecedented Economic Uncertainty
Ari Kaplan
The pandemic has forced law firms to reevaluate their expenses, refine their budgets, and review their overall operations to adapt to an environment of perpetual uncertainty.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Back to Basics In Times of Uncertainty
Patricia Ellard
One of the keys to success in competitive intelligence is communication. Effective communication builds rapport with your clients, which, in turn, builds trust and instills confidence that you will be able to get what they need to achieve their goals. In the last few months, this element of trust and rapport has never been more important.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Transitioning to Remote, Electronic Signing for Transactions
Will Norton
The recent move to more remote work environments has prompted many to take a second look at not only e-Signature solutions but also remote online notarization. In order to support transactional practice groups and legal department in making the transition to electronic signing and closings, one must understand the challenges and opportunities of these technologies.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Communicating During the COVID-19 Crisis
John J. Buchanan
The COVID-19 pandemic has likely changed how law firms operate from now on, and it has affected all areas, from client service and IT to business development and attorney recruiting and advancement. One area that has been especially hit hard is the communications function.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
It’s 2025: What Did We Do to Successfully Shift Law Firm Operations?
Rob Mattern
A Look Back from the Future
If we look back at 2020 five years from now, what will we point to as the key actions that brought law firms back, and which of those are still in play.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Drumming Up Business While Trumpeting Your News
Vivian Hood
An Integrated Strategy
Despite the current uncertainty, though, developing solid plans with accountability, results and measurement can be done. Preparing a comprehensive business development strategy — one that is integrated with public relations — is more critical than ever to avoid being considered pleasant but boring elevator music.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Communicating During the COVID-19 Crisis
John J. Buchanan
The COVID-19 pandemic has likely changed how law firms operate from now on, and it has affected all areas, from client service and IT to business development and attorney recruiting and advancement. One area that has been especially hit hard is the communications function.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Year End Is 90 Days Away, Make Every Day Count.
J. Mark Santiago
We are now into the sixth month of the COVID-19 pandemic and law firms across the country are entering the critical last quarter of the year. Historically, law firms collect between 30% and 50% of their annual revenues in the final 90 days of the calendar year. This year will be more challenging than prior years for a number of reasons.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
COVID-19 and Benefit Planning
Lawrence L. Bell
The COVID 19/Pandemic/Shutdown has caused turmoil and upended benefit planning.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Redefining Law Firm Financial Management In An Era of Unprecedented Economic Uncertainty
Ari Kaplan
The pandemic has forced law firms to reevaluate their expenses, refine their budgets, and review their overall operations to adapt to an environment of perpetual uncertainty. To understand their approach, options, and considerations, LSQ engaged Ari Kaplan Advisors to benchmark a range of metrics and perspectives from leaders at an array of organizations.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Profitability Expected to Be Stable for 2020 Despite Decreased Revenue
Dan Packel
Economists are increasingly gravitating to the concept of a “K-shaped” recovery following the steep plunge of the early days of the coronavirus crisis. With a slight tweak, that “K” may well serve as a useful depiction of law firm profitability in 2020: just add a horizontal third line at the center.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Undercutting the Cost of Underperforming Attorneys
Sharon Meit Abrahams
As a firm leader it is your fiscal responsibility to address underperforming attorneys. With COVID-19 are your underperformers flying under the radar? The cost to a firm is not only to the bottom line, but to your reputation as a leader.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Technology Investments for Law Firms Moving Forward Post-COVID
Christopher Zegers
We’re never going back the way we were — and this will be to the benefit of firms, profitability, clients and lawyers if we make the right technology investments. Here’s some specific ways firms can capture these benefits.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The SECURE and CARES Acts Change Required Minimum Distributions
Sidney Kess
A key aspect of saving for retirement through qualified retirement plans and IRAs is deferring taxes until required minimum distributions (RMD) begin. Even with Roth IRAs, beneficiaries who inherit them must also follow RMD rules despite the tax-free treatment of the distributions. The SECURE Act and the CARES Act made dramatic changes in RMD rules for 2020 and beyond.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Buying In to the ALSP Market
Dan Packel
Some Firms Are Forming Subsidiaries to Deliver Legal Services In New Ways
Buyers have a broader slate of options in 2020 than ever before, whether that means handling more work in-house, hiring temporary lawyers during a crunch, or turning to a recently launched “alternative provider” to address the massive pile of contracts they need to manage.
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Marketing The Law Firm
The Critical Role of Law Firm PR During the COVID-19 Crisis
Randy Lauzinski
PR is earned and sustainable, especially during a crisis. That’s why PR is positioned to step up, take a leadership position and have the greatest impact on company reputation during tumultuous times. The focus and approach necessarily changes during a crisis, but the work should go on.
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Marketing The Law Firm
A 3-Step Formula to Maximize Your Social Media Effectiveness
Spencer Smith
The Ben Franklin Strategy
Benjamin Franklin will never know this, but he gave us the only social media strategy we need: “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” In the middle of the COVID-19 health crisis, there’s never been a better time for a legal marketing professional to look for the good she or he can highlight within their communities, within their firms or companies, or for individual people.
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Marketing The Law Firm
How Cultivating Existing Client Relationships Can Boost Business Development
Scott Wallingford
Strategic business development is critical to support firm growth, and CRM software is the backbone of a data-driven approach. This article highlights a few ways to leverage data and software to improve your client experience and create future opportunities.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Want to Increase Creativity to Solve Marketing Challenges During the Pandemic?
Cindy Kremer Moen
Skip the Doritos and Try Meditation
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
COVID-19 and Working Remotely: Embracing the Changes and the Challenges in a Pandemic
Experts share their experience and insight around workplace trends and the value of technology tools to drive productivity and engagement in a roundtable discussion.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Accounting for the Coronavirus
John Drum and Melissa Rutzen
This article examines challenges facing accountants due to economic and financial stress increasing at the same time that oversight may be relaxing, provides insight into the question of whether we should expect a rise in accounting manipulations, and concludes with comments on mitigating hindsight bias.
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Marketing The Law Firm
4 Challenges for Law Firm Management In 2020
Jessica L. Mazzeo
Challenges facing us in 2019, while seemingly very distant, deserve attention in addition to the new obstacles our firms face during what may be a temporary flattening of the COVID-19 curve. Here are four areas that law firms must continue to address to remain on the right side of 2020.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Preparing for the LIBOR Phase Out: Contract Remediation Starts with Contract Intelligence
Ryan Drimalla and Karl Dorwart
The London Interbank Offered Rate has long been the global basis for agreements that include a variable interest rate component. However, LIBOR would be replaced by other benchmarks by the end of 2021. Key to assessing risk of exposure, quantifying the financial impact, developing remediation plans and communicating material information to stakeholders will be the identification, analysis and remediation of LIBOR-based contracts.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How to Ensure Financial Health Ahead of an Economic Downturn
Derek F. Meek and Hanna Lahr
The economic downturn that is projected to come out of the shutdowns mandated due to COVID-19 is likely to be more wide-ranging than the Great Recession of 2008 in light of the non-discriminative impact of the virus. Given this outlook, now is a critical time for companies to reassess their business and finances so that they can be prepared for the future.
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Marketing The Law Firm
7 Steps to Pivot Your Business Now
Kimberly Rice
With national shelter-in-place orders in place now for several months with information on resuming business in the new normal changing every day, lawyers must consider pivoting how they operate their businesses in today’s sub-normal climate.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Match Your Business Development Plan With Your Personality
Glennie Green
It is critical that lawyers determine strategies that match their skills, personalities, and perceptions and experiences.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How Cultivating Existing Client Relationships Can Boost Business Development
Scott Wallingford
Strategic business development is critical to support firm growth, and CRM software is the backbone of a data-driven approach. It not only helps your firm prospect for future clients, but also helps you strengthen and expand existing client relationships.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Virtual Training & Mentoring for Summer and First Year Associates
Sharon Meit Abrahams
Conscientious development of associates through training and mentoring enables them to become dynamic, professional, and ethical attorneys who provide high quality service that clients expect.
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The Bankruptcy Strategist
Estate Professionals Can Be Compensated for Services Performed Before Entry of a Retention Order, Even Without Nunc Pro Tunc Orders
Sheryl P. Giugliano
Bankruptcy professionals should be relieved by a recent decision holding that although nunc pro tunc orders approving a professional’s retention are now considered “inappropriate” in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Juan, there is nothing in the Bankruptcy Code, Bankruptcy Rules, or applicable case law preventing an award of compensation before a retention order is entered.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Introducing Pricing Transparency to Legal Services
Nathan Cemenska
The COVID-19 crisis has caused a money crunch across industries, and CLD budgets are tightening. This downturn demands that CLDs stop writing blank checks for services of indeterminate scope and duration. Here are some ideas for law departments looking to do better.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Pouring Resources Into Business Development and Coaching Provides Mixed Results
Patrick Smith
The largest law firms are pouring substantial resources into business development training, cultivating leadership skills and professional coaching, according to a new report, and they’re fielding teams of marketing professionals and lawyers to court and maintain clients. But the report found that the efforts — and the results — have been uneven, especially when it comes to developing leadership and building effective client teams.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Legal Analytics and the Evolving Practice of Law
Josh Becker
While we may use analytics differently in our respective companies, one thing is certain: Legal analytics is the future and it’s time to jump on board.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
Davis Wright Forms Entertainment Industry Reopening Advisory Group
Dylan Jackson
As millions of Americans turned to television and movies for diversion and comfort amid the coronavirus pandemic and resulting business shutdowns, the companies that create that content were left scratching their heads about how to resume business safely when they are allowed. Davis Wright Tremaine launched a new group in hopes of providing the answers.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Jump-Starting Business Development After Living in a Socially Distant World
Deborah C. Scaringi
How do we go back to conducting productive business without seeming callous to the harsh realities many people are experiencing?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Demand for Contract Lawyers Is Rising from COVID-19 Business Disruptions
MP McQueen
Recruiters say the demand for contract attorneys in corporate and government legal departments and law firms is rising as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic creates more of certain types of legal work.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Small Law, Big Changes: The Coming Disruption in the Legal Industry
Rinky S. Parwani and Greg Garman
The billable hour is still profitable from a transactional perspective, but from a strategic perspective, in today’s economy, that profitability has begun to erode. That’s because our economy has fundamentally transformed into a service economy that is based on leverage and scale.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
COVID-19 Downturn Likely Won't Impact Health of Law Firm Billable Hour
Frank Ready
Not even the economic downturn imposed by the COVID-19 virus may be able to take credit for eliminating the billable hour. While attorneys could be relying more on legal tech to help defray costs, transitioning to a new pricing infrastructure in the midst of so much uncertainty could prove to be a bridge too far.
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