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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Strategies to Improve Security and Optimize Your Technology Spend
Mike Henderson, Whitney Jones, and Bill Pitcairn
Uncertain and challenging markets are times when firms and organizations of all types conserve cash. If this can be achieved without cutting needed projects, equipment or services to ensure successful returns to the office, then this is clearly an ideal financial strategy. In fact, leasing and financing not only helps firms conserve cash, but when done right, helps firms also maximize their IT budgets.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Financial Strategies that Improve Security and Optimize Your Technology Spend
Mike Henderson, Whitney Jones, and Bill Pitcairn
Shifting large IT purchases over to a predictable monthly expense is a pricing model that has taken over most industries with the introduction of cloud services, and this can be a particularly useful model during challenging markets.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Legal Operations Success In an Uncertain Economy
Ari Kaplan
In the uncertain economy that is characterizing the first quarter of the year, there remains a significant emphasis on demonstrating value to secure new resources.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Top 7 Reasons Firms Are Leveraging Experience Data
Jason Noble
Looking forward, firms appear to be counting on rate increases to maintain profitability, but there are signs that clients are likely to be more resistant to further rate hikes as payments slow down and realization was in decline at the end of 2022.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Profitability and Learning from the Past
J. Mark Santiago
Future partners will be identified, developed, and elected from the associate ranks, so they truly represent the future of the firm. Reducing the number of associates from which to choose future partners is a risky undertaking.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Financial Strategies to Optimize Your Technology Spend
Mike Henderson, Whitney Jones, and Bill Pitcairn
Uncertain and challenging markets are times when firms and organizations of all types conserve cash. If this can be achieved without cutting needed projects, equipment or services to ensure successful returns to the office, then this is clearly an ideal financial strategy.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Despite Aggressive Rate Increases from Law Firms, Clients Have Room to Negotiate
Andrew Maloney
Rate increases across the legal industry haven’t been as big as the conventional wisdom implies, and clients have more room to negotiate than they probably realize.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Embedded Finance Is Changing the Business of Law
Kevin Gallagher
A revolution is underway in small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) banking and payments and will impact the way legal, accounting and other professional services firms manage their finances.
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Marketing The Law Firm
What Hybrid Work Plans Are Working?
Anthony Davies
Starting in late 2021, the drumbeat of “return-to-the-office” began and now — somewhere in the neighborhood of two years later of that — it begs the question: how are firms doing with their return-to-office? What programs — if any — have been successful?
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Marketing The Law Firm
Strategies for Reining In Expenses During Down Market
Rob Mattern
What strategies can firms take to rein in expenses during a challenging, down market to avoid further layoffs? Look no further than the firm’s back-office operations. This article provides a brief overview of five areas where your firm can not just “cut costs” but actually improve operations while doing so.
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Marketing The Law Firm
What’s Behind the Surge In Law Firms Launching Crisis Management Practices?
Dave Poston
Over the last year or so, there has been a surge in law firms launching “crisis management” practice groups. Does this move reflect expanding relationships beyond one-off litigation matters? Is this just a collaboration and renaming or repackaging of existing attorney expertise and practices? Or is there something deeper going on?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Expense Right-Sizing In a Challenging Economy
Rob Mattern
What strategies can law firms take to rein in expenses during a challenging, down market to avoid further layoffs? Look no further than the firm’s back-office operations. This article presents a brief overview of five areas where your firm can not just “cut costs” but actually improve operations while doing so — this is expense “right-sizing.”
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
What Successful Hybrid Firms Are Doing
Anthony Davies
We are seeing is a variety of successful measures that are designed to help attorneys get what they want: a best-of-both worlds scenario where they keep some work-from-home and fold-in an opportunity to intentionally connect and collaborate with colleagues in the office.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Improving Firm Profitability Through Contracts
J. Mark Santiago
The best and most effective way to drive firm profitability is through influencing partner behavior. The best way to incent the partners is by linking their compensation clearly and directly to the achievement of the firm’s business strategy.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Techniques That Up Your Team Management Skills In 2023
Sharon Meit Abrahams
Being a good team leader is not easy. It is your responsibility to manage everything about the people and the positions you oversee. Good team leaders create an environment in which attorneys and staff work hard, are loyal, and add to profitability. Setting expectations and goals is an essential step in becoming an effective team leader.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Layoffs, Expenses and Return-to-Office Policies Top Worries of Law Firm Leaders In 2023
Andrew Maloney and Patrick Smith
While economic troubles and fears of a recession are top concerns for law firm leaders now, some shifts within the legal industry are also triggering alarm bells. Interviews with more than a dozen law firm leaders identified a growing list of challenges that law firm leaders are grappling with now,
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
A Legal CIO’s Guide to Technology Procurement In 2023
Ted Theodoropoulos
For a legal CIO, one of the key responsibilities is to establish that the organization has the right technology in place to support its operations and achieve its business goals. This can be challenging, as there are many factors to consider when choosing new technology for your organization. One bad decision can have a material impact on not only the bottom line, but on the ability of your firm to compete in an ever-changing legal market.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Two Techniques That Up Your Team Management Skills In 2023
Sharon Meit Abrahams
Good team leaders create an environment in which attorneys and staff work hard, are loyal, and add to profitability. Setting expectations and goals is an essential step in becoming an effective team leader. Make a commitment this year to up your management skills with these two key techniques.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Using Feedback To Improve Team Performance
Mark Beese
The problem with giving feedback is that it often comes across as criticism. Human beings tend to react defensively, resulting in a denial of the feedback or worse, entrenchment in the behavior or attitude that may be derailing them in the first place. How can we give feedback in a way that minimizes defensiveness?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Why Are Some Bills Easier to Collect Than Others?
Alex Geisler
Why do some people sail through the entire budgeting, billing and collection process, while for others collection always means trepidation?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
An Innovator’s Approach to Hybrid: Empathy and Iteration
Alaa Pasha
This is a time of innovation, and one way law firms can prepare for a future we can’t yet see is through leveraging two key levers: the need for empathy and iteration.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Investing In Resources That Make a Law Firm Hum
Jennifer Johnson and Haley Revel
Firm leadership must think about their talent (and that means all their talent) differently than they do today: as a core business asset whose managed value can make or break the firm’s success.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Litigation Financing 2.0: Financing the Business of Law
Joshua Libling
It is not accidental that funding the creation or growth of law firms and practice groups has tended to follow a traditional path. Rather, this circumstance is a combination of traditional legal temperament and structural barriers to innovation. Recently, there have been changes to both.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Conflict Strategies: Three Keys to an (Almost) Drama-Free 2023 for Your Law Firm
Susannah Margison
Office drama can be a big problem for law firms. Whether it is showing up as office gossip, the partner who is terrible to their associates and staff, two people who just cannot seem to get along, or a revolving door of lawyers or staff, drama can be distracting, hamper productivity, and reduce billable hours.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How Attorneys Can Have Their (Hybrid) Cake and Eat It, Too
AshLea Allberry
No one would have predicted hybrid operations — but hybrid is here to stay. Firms have a lot to gain in terms of creating a new culture that attorneys love but that new culture will be built on flexibility and dynamism only technology can manage.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Amending (or Terminating) Deferred Compensation Plans Without Penalties
Lawrence L. Bell
This article reminds readers of §409A’s draconian penalties and specific guidance of amending modifying, amending or terminating existing nonqualified deferred compensation plans.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Meeting Client Expectations
Alex Geisler
The New Reality, for which law firms are scrambling to equip themselves, is that law firms no longer define their own service levels. Now it’s the clients, and they have clear expectation parameters.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The DOL and Benefit Planning for Independent Contractors
Lawrence L. Bell
The U.S. Department of Labor has proposed a rule that would make it more difficult for independent broker-dealers (IBDs), insurers, and other companies to treat professionals who want to flourish in the gig economy as independent contractors.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Outsourcing and the Difference Between Service and Hospitality
Anthony Davies
Today we see outsourcing accelerating as the pandemic has served to highlight the traditional benefits of outsourcing: cost reduction, flexibility, expertise and efficiency. But providers need to do something more to increase satisfaction rates among their law firm clients.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Hiring for Long-Term Success
Corey Castillo
Many law firms are hunting for talent with a focus on traditional “industry experience” and prestigious educational backgrounds as familiar criteria in their candidate search process. But what if law firms are missing high value talent — on both the legal and administrative side — that may be right under their nose?
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Marketing The Law Firm
The Difference Between Service and Hospitality
Anthony Davies
Today, we see outsourcing accelerating as the pandemic has served to highlight the traditional benefits of outsourcing: cost reduction, flexibility, expertise and efficiency. But providers need to do something more to increase satisfaction rates among their law firm clients.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Are You Stuck With the Hasty Tech Decisions Made In Crisis Mode?
Tomas Suros
In March 2020 and the months immediately following, many firms found themselves scrambling to implement tools that would meet the needs of new remote work realities. Understandably, many of these decisions were done quickly without the normal level of due diligence. Now, the same firms are realizing that those hasty, though necessary, decisions should be revisited or undone.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Billing Rates Have Increased, But Not Enough to Beat Inflation
Andrew Maloney
Law firm billing rates have increased across all law positions in 2022, but not necessarily enough to keep pace with inflation. That’s according to news reports that point to some more challenges for law firm profits.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Are We Over Thinking Office Return Strategies?
Anthony Davies
Routines based around ‘work from home’ are calcifying, and commuting, parking, sandwich shops and childcare are fading into distant memory. With each passing week, the challenge to win attorneys back into the office increases.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Recession Proofing Your Law Firm
Melissa “Rogo” Rogozinski
Whatever term the economists use to describe the slowing pace of commerce, the real question is: how do you protect your law firm’s revenue stream when economic pressures are causing current and prospective clients to tighten their budgets?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Are We Over Thinking Office Return Strategies?
Anthony Davies
Routines based around ‘work from home’ are calcifying, and commuting, parking, sandwich shops and childcare are fading into distant memory. With each passing week, the challenge to win attorneys back into the office increases.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Solving the Information Governance Groundhog Day Syndrome
Ben Schmidt and Nathan Curtis
Security and privacy start with good information governance, and for many firms — trying to get their information governance policy implemented feels a lot like Groundhog Day. Yes, the one with Bill Murray. Let’s take a closer look.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Recession Proofing A Law Firm
Melissa “Rogo” Rogozinski
Whatever term the economists use to describe the slowing pace of commerce, the real question is: how do you protect your law firm’s revenue stream when economic pressures are causing current and prospective clients to tighten their budgets?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms Loosening Mandatory Retirement Rules Creates Challenges With Younger Lawyers
Patrick Smith
Mandatory retirement policies have dogged Big Law for decades, creating partnership tensions and fractures in some law firm client relationships. But more law firms are beginning to loosen their retirement policies, analysts say, even when it creates more challenges with younger generations of lawyers.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Avoid Making Tech Decisions In Crisis Mode
Tomas Suros
Some law firms are realizing that the hasty, though necessary, decisions made to facilitate remote work should be revisited or undone. Many of the tools implemented in an emergency are insufficient to withstand the increasing cybersecurity threats law firms are facing today. The good news, though, is that it’s not too late to implement the right tech to protect your firm.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Why Collaborate: The Future of Legal Services Is Human
Joey Seeber
It is no surprise that in this environment many lawyers are prioritizing qualitative factors, such as work-life balance and feeling appreciated and recognized at work, rather than compensation alone when choosing where to work. Why is it no surprise? Because many of their employers began valuing quality over quantity with their ALSPs years ago. And this shift might do even more for your organization.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Managing Well-Being In the Legal Industry
Vivian Hood
A recent LMA Well-Being Wednesday program provided a range of big ideas and small tips for legal marketers and law firms on implementing a well-being program.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Legal Sales Strategies
Eric Dewey
The “best choice” provider pitch may not be the optimal sales strategy. It's better to adjust to where the prospect is in their buying decision process — whether that means they are looking for providers, they are studying the situation, they already have counsel, or they have decided not to address the issue.
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Marketing The Law Firm
The Four Legal Sales Strategies
Eric Dewey
The ‘best choice’ provider pitch may not be the optimal sales strategy. It's better to adjust to where the prospect is in their buying decision process — whether that means they are looking for providers, they are studying the situation, they already have counsel, or they have decided not to address the issue.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How to Build a Successful Business Development Plan
Melissa “Rogo” Rogozinski
Driving Growth Through Client Success and Thought Leadership
Business development is a critical part of a law firm’s growth strategy. It balances client success, competitive marketing and new acquisitions in order to sustain the firm’s reputation as a high-quality service provider. It is the bridge between marketing and sales. Here are six steps to building a modern business development plan that is guaranteed to drive growth through client success and thought leadership.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Time Well Spent: Make Meetings Valuable
Sharon Meit Abrahams
“Ugh, not another meeting!” Do you hear this from your colleagues and direct reports? If so, you should turn your meetings from a waste of time to a value-added use of time. We know meetings are important. They increase collaboration, set accountability, and create a shared sense of purpose and progress — all important elements of a happy, successful workplace.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Midlevel Survey Shows What Law Firms Are Getting Right — and Wrong
Dan Roe
Midlevel associates aren’t less willing than their predecessors to do the brain-bending amount of work. It’s that after two years of billing massive hours through an isolating global pandemic, they’re completely disloyal to the status quo. They kept firms going, they made partners rich, and now they plan to reshape the profession in their image.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Are You Facing a Problem or a Crisis?
Elizabeth Lampert and Lara Cupit
Recognizing the many degrees of severity and activity levels is crucial when a matter presents itself. Is it time to go scorched earth or take it in stride and allow a situation to fizzle? When defining the spectrum from minor issue to crisis, it is vital to understand how a problem can become a crisis if left unattended or how jumping the gun and overreacting can be disastrous.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms May Make ‘Course Corrections’ to Battle Inflation
Andrew Maloney
If inflation remains at current levels, law firm billing rate increases won’t be able to keep pace. But firm leaders may make other “course corrections” to capture profits through the end of 2022, analysts say, by utilizing leverage and alternative pricing models and making additional investments in technology.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Great Marketing Initiatives Happening Now
Stacy West Clark
Some great marketing initiatives happening in law firms around the country — as well as some recommendations.
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