-
Marketing The Law Firm
COVID 19: Selling in Times of Uncertainty
Debra Baker
The natural instinct during times of chaos is to move into a place of scarcity. The single best gift you can offer clients is courage and confidence about the path forward.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
How to Make Working from Home, Work for You
Sharon Meit Abrahams
In the legal industry it is time for a paradigm shift. Many firms have struggled with allowing people to work from home for a myriad of reasons. At this point, we have no choice. To help you get off on the right foot, the following are some best practices as we move forward into this new working environment.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Make It Stick: Eight Strategies to Make Your Business Development Training More Effective
Eric Dewey
One factor in the slack of demand for law firms that is not being talked about is the state of the business development training and coaching that firms use to build their business development capabilities in the firm.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Linking Partner Pay to Strategic Firm Objectives
J. Mark Santiago
In general law firms have been slower to adopt pay for performance systems. What law firms need now, and this article describes, is an approach to partner compensation that closely links a partners pay to their ability to contribute to the achievement of the firm’s strategic objectives.
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Supreme Court Defers to State Law on Ownership of Tax Refund
Michael L. Cook
Federal courts should “turn to state law to resolve” a “fight over a tax refund,” held a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Rodriquez v. FDIC (In re United W Bancorp., Inc.).
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The State of Legal Finance in 2020
Ari Kaplan
Legal industry analyst Ari Kaplan interviewed 32 lawyers from Finland, France, Hong Kong, Norway, Singapore, the UK and the U.S. about the evolution of legal finance. He also surveyed 20 in-house lawyers at Fortune 500 companies and 18 law firm lawyers from Australia, the Cayman Islands, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Singapore, Sweden, the UK, and the U.S. about emerging trends in legal finance. Below are some of his findings and what they indicate about the current state of the sector.
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Mergers and Predictions for the Year 2020
Marcus Dyer
2019 went down as another record year for law firm mergers. But what do the numbers teach us? Did the tendency to merge apply to law firms across the board? Is the merger mania likely to continue in 2020? What was the impetus for record number of mergers? This article breaks down the available data to answer these questions and attempts to give us a glimpse into the future.
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Client Maximization: Doing Well by Doing the Right Things
Linda Hazelton
Making the most of your firm’s client base need not be a costly undertaking. There are several steps a firm of any size can undertake to improve client experiences, ultimately, while also increasing the firm’s chances of thriving.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Selling in Times of Uncertainty
Debra Baker
The natural instinct during times of chaos is to move into a place of scarcity. The single best gift you can offer clients is courage and confidence about the path forward.
Read More ›
-
Sales Speak: Selling in Times of Uncertainty
Debra Baker
The natural instinct during times of chaos is to move into a place of scarcity. The single best gift you can offer clients is courage and confidence about the path forward.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Client Maximization: Doing Well by Doing the Right Things
Linda Hazelton
Making the most of your firm’s client base need not be a costly undertaking. There are several steps a firm of any size can undertake to improve client experiences, while also ultimately increasing the firm’s chances of thriving.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Competitive Intelligence: Helping Your Client Know Their Client
Patricia Ellard
We hear more and more that exceptional client service and in-depth knowledge of the clients’ business and industry are the differentiators in keeping current clients and winning new ones. Value far outweighs cost when it comes to long-term client relationships, bet-the-company work and ongoing client success.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
In the Know: Top 5 Legal Technology Trends for the 2020s
Deb Dobson
Technology is changing more rapidly than ever impacting our work, and personal lives. With technology playing such a huge role, it is important for legal marketers to be familiar with technology trends to understand the potential impact on our clients and law firm.
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How Law Firms Are Overcoming New Business Development Challenges
Julie Savarino
With the intense competition for new legal work, demands on lawyers’ available time and the increasing discounts clients demand, it’s getting harder for law firms operating under a billable-hour business model to support the consistent development of new legal work by investing in and maintaining a marketing department alone.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Better Law & Better Life Through Emotional Intelligence
Rich Bracken
As more and more attorneys realize that turning to mental awareness education and consulting is a sign of strength and not weakness, the ship of despair is beginning its turn toward better days of mentally strong and agile teams. So, where does one start this new practice? Enter emotional intelligence.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Law Firms Adopt a Legal Operations Perspective
Megan Miller
Law firms are clearly in important player in the legal services value stream; as the legal operations movement continues to take hold in corporate client organizations, in-house teams are looking to outside law firms to join them in their efforts to reduce operating costs, improve staffing, take greater advantage of technology, and improve project management processes.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Linking Content into the Client Journey: Why Content Experience Matters
Jennifer S. Bankston
One of the most effective components of legal marketing is thought leadership content. With today’s available palette of media tools, law firms are able to design, build and customize the content that their client’s experience like never before. Ensuring that this “content experience” is profound and impactful is a necessary and critical endeavor.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Sales Speak: Strategies to Avoid or Reduce Billing Rate Discounts
Eric Dewey
Requests for discounts have become a routine step in the legal services purchasing process. Lawyers face the uncomfortable task of defending their billing rates in both RFPs and client pitches. But too often, lawyers don’t make an effort to resist giving a discount when asked. Mostly because they haven’t been trained in how to do it.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Why Accountability in Law Firms Is So Challenging
Marcie Borgal Shunk
In an era of “what’s in it for me,” leaders seeking to ensure the long-term well-being of the firm and its talent often find change initiatives especially challenging.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Digital Dive: The Not-Doing List: Focusing Your Strategic Marketing Plan
Sometimes, we over-engineer solutions. And most often, we don’t need to.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
How Law Firms Are Overcoming New Business Development Challenges
Julie Savarino
With the intense competition for new legal work, demands on lawyers’ available time and the increasing discounts clients demand, it’s getting harder for law firms operating under a billable-hour business model to support the consistent development of new legal work by investing in and maintaining a marketing department alone.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Competitive Intelligence: Identifying Business Indicators That Lead to Legal Needs
Stacy Zinken
It’s not enough these days to simply react to clients, the best attorneys are those who can anticipate a legal need before it happens and be proactive in reaching out to clients. To be first to a client, lawyers need a keen understanding of how business indicators connect to legal needs and have a strategy to track and analyze the path as it unfolds.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Leadership in Law: Getting a Seat at the Table
Peter A. Johnson
How Law Firm Marketers Can Assume a Leadership Role
The marketing director needs to gain “a seat at the table” in order to have a voice in planning, and to be viewed as an integral member of the firm’s management team. How do you go about earning that seat?
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Marketing Tech: 5 Challenges Facing Firms Trying to Boost Marketing With Tech
Frank Ready
Firms are embracing new technologies to help drive marketing efforts and reach new audiences, but doing so may require some uncomfortable changes to the ways that attorneys have traditionally thought about building their brands.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Digital Dive: Data-Driven Marketing for Law Firms — Metrics for Success
Amanda Sexton
The best way to make the most of your initiatives? Track them, and adjust according to the data. But that’s easier said than done
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Reimagining Business Development Training and Coaching
Debra Baker
Six Pillars of a Successful Bus-Dev Program
For firms wanting to thrive through the next economic downturn and beyond, mastery of business development fundamentals is as essential as mastering legal skills. Yet training and coaching — whether done internally or through outside consultants — requires an investment in time and resources.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word, Even When It’s the Right One
Carlos Arcos
In this era of social media and a 24-hour news cycle, each day seems to bring a fresh story of PR missteps, whether it be a brand, organization or high-profile individual. Although you may feel you’ve read enough about these latest public relations nightmares, one area on which you might want to focus is the importance of an apology.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
10 Top Strategies for Retaining Tomorrow’s Talent
Sharon Meit Abrahams
All lawyers want to be wanted and valued by their firms. It has become apparent that tomorrow’s legal talent requires even more hand-holding than previous generations because the “just do it” attitude, does not work. They want to understand why and what’s the payoff of their efforts. By creating a firm culture that addresses these concerns you will heighten your firm’s ability to retain precious talent.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Determining Who Should Serve As the Billing Partner
Joel A. Rose
Due to a law firm’s team-oriented approach to business development and client service efforts, it is not always clear who should logically and most efficiently serve as the billing partner for a client or a particular client matter. A person should only be a billing partner if he or she is or will be performing the functions outline herein.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Digital Dive: New Report Reveals Opportunities for Improvement on Digital Marketing Strategy for Law Firms
Jamie Diaferia and Jennifer Johnson Scalzi
For those of us who have devoted more years in legal marketing than we’d care to admit, it’s heartening to see the field receiving the recognition it deserves. The demand for top talent has never been higher and marketing plans are getting more attention from firm management. Still, there is more work for law firms to do. That’s particularly true in digital marketing.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Professional Development: Proactive Marketing for the Win
Meg Pritchard
I Tend to Think of Marketing and Business Development Efforts In Four Buckets: Passive Marketing, Active Marketing, Reactive Marketing and Proactive Marketing
The view of (most) law firm leadership has evolved, but there is a long expanse of ground between viewing the marketing function as a cost center and recognizing — and capitalizing on — its potential to drive revenue and profits.
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Determining Who Should Serve As the Billing Partner
Joel A. Rose
Due to a law firm’s team-oriented approach to business development and client service efforts, it is not always clear who should logically and most efficiently serve as the billing partner for a client or a particular client matter. A person should only be a billing partner if he or she is or will be performing the functions outline herein.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
How to TOOT Your Own Horn: Exceptional Self Evaluations
Sharon Meit Abrahams
It’s that time again. As the year comes to a close many firms are beginning the associate review process. Even if your firm does not have a formal review process I recommend that you write a self-evaluation that outlines your achievements and specifies your goals for the coming year.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Professional Development: Reimagining Business Development Training and Coaching
Debra Baker
Six Pillars of a Successful Bus-Dev Program
For firms wanting to thrive through the next economic downturn and beyond, mastery of business development fundamentals is as essential as mastering legal skills. Yet training and coaching — whether done internally or through outside consultants — requires an investment in time and resources.
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How to Become a Rainmaker
Arnold Keiser
Almost anyone willing to develop the qualities necessary can become a rainmaker.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Competitive Intelligence: Assumptions and CI Don’t Mix
Patricia Ellard
Sometimes I assume my clients know what I can do for them and what they should ask for. You all have heard the old adage about what happens when you assume. I still laugh when I think of my elementary teacher saying it, but It’s such a basic idea, and applies in so many situations. Here are just a few of which I’ve been reminded.
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Preparing the Next Generation of Lawyer Leaders
Marcie Borgal Shunk
A new crop of leaders is gearing up to take the helm. Like their brethren before them, they have little in the way of formal experience or training for the roles they are about to inherit.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Sales Speak: Five Ways to Start a Business Development Streak
Ari Kaplan
Since business development is often comprised of a series of incremental efforts that generate momentum, embrace the idea of connecting daily streaks to obtain results.
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Global 100 Are in the Midst of a Growth Spurt
Dan Packel
The World’s Largest Firms Turned In a Second Straight Year of Robust Revenue Gains Amid Near-Universal Progress
Mergers, rapid growth among Chinese law firms, and a healthy American market coalesced to turn 2018 into a spectacular year for the world’s largest law firms.
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Resolving Fee Disputes: It’s in Your Best Interest, Too
Patricia King
Lawyers should know that they ignore clients with questions at their peril. The first thing to remember is the client is entitled to an accounting of the fee and costs. No matter how exasperating the client, or how stupid the question appears to be, client questions need to be resolved.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Podcasts Are the New Black for Law Firm Business Development
Gina Rubel
Before jumping into the podcast foray, law firm leaders must think strategically about podcasting as a tool for marketing and business development. Resources, bandwidth and buy-in are needed to produce a successful podcast — along with patience as podcasting success is determined by long-term results.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Marketing Innovative Law Firms
Vivian Hood
Law firms today are increasingly looking at innovation to help distinguish their practice offerings, strategy, and leadership, and need inspiring marketing to develop meaningful campaigns that resonate with their audiences.
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Media & Communications: Grab the Wheel and Drive Yourself!: How Law Firm Marketers Can Grow Professionally … and Some Sage Advice
John J. Buchanan
So, you’ve been in your role in the marketing department at your firm for a few years. Things are going well — but you want to expand your skill set, try something new, or take on a fresh challenge. The lawyers you work with routinely attend CLE classes so why shouldn’t you focus on your own professional development?
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
Digital Dive: 9 Best Practices for Blogging that Gets You New Business
Larry Bodine
Becoming a renowned expert in your field will bring you the best files from the most profitable clients — and the shortest path to becoming a thought leader is to write a blog.
Read More ›
-
Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Increasing Client Requirements: Securing Law Firms for the 21st Century
Debra Gray
Gone are the days of “basic security.” What used to be optional is now standard: two factor authentication, complex passwords, clean desk policies, data encryption at rest and in transit, mobile device management and up-to-the-minute patching. Clients expect these items to already be in place and are further expanding their expectations.
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The ‘Silly Season’
J. Mark Santiago
That term refers to the months of October through December. It's a way of pointing out to partners that the necessary activities of practice management that so many of them had avoided for the first nine or 10 months of the year now had to be addressed. Clients that had not been billed now had to be invoiced. Outstanding invoices, many issued in the cold days of early March and April, now had to be collected and current work would not only have to be billed but collected as well.
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
What Is Your Dashboard Report Telling You? Chances Are, Not Much.
Jim Jarrell
Firms are struggling to capture compelling business intelligence about themselves. Until recently, most operated with a cadre of legacy operating systems, financial platforms and reporting technologies from different manufacturers that have no mechanism for connecting with each other. The disparate nature of these technologies has exacerbated the struggle to leverage data and display results in a reporting mechanism that helps direct the firm’s decision-making.
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Producing Breakthroughs in Client Development
Arnold Keiser
It is easy to understand why many lawyers feel that only certain special individuals are blessed with the qualities necessary to be rainmakers. But almost anyone willing to develop the qualities necessary can become a rainmaker.
Read More ›
-
Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Leadership Isn’t a Role, It’s a Mindset
Michael A. Gerstenzang and Hy Pomerance
When a law firm does not subscribe to a traditional corporate structure
At most companies, the leadership structure is typically clear and hierarchical. But what does leadership look like at a law firm when a traditional corporate structure doesn’t apply?
Read More ›
-
Marketing The Law Firm
10 Common Misconceptions Lawyers Have About Media Relations
Randy Labuzinski
Traditional media continue to evolve and constrict in a marketplace consumed by non-traditional influencers, including bloggers, social media stars, bots. Accordingly, the art of media relations is more important than ever to make sure PR professionals are doing all we can to influence the dwindling number of legitimate journalists while managing and enhancing the public reputations of our law firm clients.
Read More ›
