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The Bankruptcy Strategist
Bankruptcy Court Rules Limited Partnership Agreement Is Not an Executory Contract
Andrew C. Kassner and Joseph N. Argentina Jr.
Certain types of agreements, such as real estate leases, clearly are executory contracts subject to assumption or rejection in bankruptcy cases. But what about the partnership agreement itself?
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Marketing The Law Firm
Without Mandatory Retirement, Lack of Succession Plans Threaten Small and Midsize Firms
Dan Roe, Justin Henry and Jessie Yount
In the post-pandemic era, widely adopted flexible work arrangements have given lawyers a new view of their work. But in a profession without mandatory retirement policies, a partner’s decision to keep practicing may not entail a discussion of the ultimate succession of their practice and clientele.
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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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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Amending the Law Firm Partnership Agreement
Arthur J. Ciampi and Maria L. Ciampi
Many law firms with a written agreement stick it in a drawer, rarely read it, and do not amend it. Failing to amend the agreement can cause harm to the firm and its partners.
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Marketing The Law Firm
To Have or Not to Have Partner Reviews: A Reflection of Firm Culture
Sharon Meit Abrahams
Firms are conducting their mid-year associate reviews around this time. What about partners? Typically, partner feedback is given by means of their new annual compensation. If your firm is not doing partner reviews now is the time to start. As firms are looking for ways to increase retention and survive the great resignation conducting partner reviews might hold the key. Doing reviews makes a statement about your firm’s culture.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms Are Using Clawback Provisions to Stop Lateral Departures
Jessie Yount
As law firms face mounting pressure from the talent wars, many are attaching strings to their partnership agreements in order to protect their partnerships and forestall lateral departures in a high-demand market.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
Players on the Move
A look at moves among attorneys, law firms, companies and other players in entertainment law.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
Players On the Move
A look at moves among attorneys, law firms, companies and other players in entertainment law.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms Need to Look At Partnership Behaviors to Manage Profitability
Hugh A. Simons
In the decade ahead, the mechanism for offsetting the effects of external market forces on profitability will shift from changing partnership composition to transforming a partnership’s behavioral norms, centering on how partners behave toward each other and help each other become the best possible version of their professional selves.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Who Benefits, and Who Doesn’t, from Returning to the Office
Patrick Smith
When the pandemic sent everyone home in March 2020, it was a seismic shift in work, but one that had a clear reasoning behind it, and, oddly, was remarkably uniform in execution for all involved. The return to the office is much more complicated, and it isn’t just about logistics.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Pension Plans Changes: Will Retiring Partners Shoulder the Risk?
Dylan Jackson
For some firms in the Great Recession, reduced revenues combined with the overwhelming pressure from multimillion-dollar pension liabilities — a holdover from the days when pensions were simply a promise firms made to retiring partners — were too much to bear. But with the Great Recession now a decade in the past and another recession brewing, has the industry learned from its mistakes?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How a Law Firm’s Comp System Affects Profitability and Partner Satisfaction
Hugh A. Simons
Compensation systems are typically a strategic afterthought, seen as the means by which to allocate the spoils of a successful strategy. They’re viewed as affecting the level of grousing among partners, but not a firm’s performance. The data, however, indicates the reverse is true.
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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.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Linking Partner Pay to Strategic Firm Objectives
J. Mark Santiago
Pay for performance is not a new concept in this country. The ideas and concepts underlying a graduated pay scale based on contribution and merit are deeply ingrained in our society. However, 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.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Lateral Partner Survey Casts Doubt on Compensation as King
Dylan Jackson
In a survey conducted by Major, Lindsey & Africa, lateral partners put firm culture and practice support ahead of anticipated compensation when considering a new firm.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Lawyer Well-Being at Work: It’s a Two-Way Street
John F. Hollway
It’s Not the Number of Hours We’re Billing or the Number of Hours We’re Working; It’s the Way We Feel About How We Spend Those Hours That Matters
Working long hours, tracking those hours and feeling that we have to grind all year to hit a specific number of hours to meet a profitability target can make us feel like fungible, dehumanized automatons rather than highly trained providers of specific and thoughtful solutions to complex legal challenges.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
New Partners Are Worried About Mental Health and a Looming Recession, Annual Survey Finds
Dylan Jackson
Newly minted partners offered up some usual complaints on this year’s New Partners Survey, lamenting unexpectedly low compensation, opaque performance metrics and copious administrative work. But new anxieties have arisen among Big Law’s latest partner class, including the threat of a recession and growing concerns about mental health.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firm Debt Levels Shrink as Partners Put More Skin in the Game
Lizzy McLellan
What Does Widespread ‘Deleveraging’ Mean for Law Firm Health?
Industry watchers say law firms have become less reliant on bank debt over the past decade, as they explore other funding options. Often, that means raising capital from partners, or turning to other, less common sources.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Exit Strategies: Aging Partners Are Forcing Firms to Reconsider Retirement
Dylan Jackson
Baby boomers control an outsize portion of law firm business. As they inch toward retirement, how are firms preparing for the transition process?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
Players on the Move
A look at moves among attorneys, law firms, companies and other players in entertainment law.
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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.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Leadership for the Strong
Silvia Coulter
There are a few things about being an effective leader that books and professors don’t seem to directly address. Here are some tips to help partners who lead operational teams, offices, practices, departments, or the firm itself, to implement for leadership impact.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Sales Speak: Overcoming the Doer-Seller Dilemma
Debra Baker
Rethinking Sales As an Act of Service
Lawyers are one of only a handful of professionals whose job requires them both to do the work and generate the business. This “Doer-Seller” Dilemma is particularly vexing for lawyers because of a long-held belief that sales is somehow beneath the legal profession and because lawyers have a limited view of what successful selling looks like.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Key Tax and Financial Considerations for New Law Partners
John Fitzgerald and Christopher Imperiale
Being asked to join the partnership of a firm is a measure of success as a legal professional. With that achievement comes tax and financial responsibilities that, surprisingly, few attorneys are fully prepared to deal with. These responsibilities include the unexpected individual federal and state and local tax filing and payments.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Five Keys to Successfully Transitioning Clients Across Generations
Kent Zimmermann
Strengthening Cultural Expectations Is Key
Client relationship succession planning is a top concern among law firm leaders. Firms of all stripes frequently develop goals in their strategic plans to facilitate more effective client relationship transitions. However, there is room for many firms to take a more formal and proactive approach to effectively transition client relationships across generations.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
L.A. Sees Many Moves Among Entertainment Law Firms
Entertainment practices with well-known clients are in high demand in the Los Angeles legal market, leading to a spate of lateral hires among American Lawyer 200 firms in the latter part of 2018.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
A New Philosophy for Managing Partners: Building Consensus Versus Managing As an Autocrat
Joel A. Rose
An Astute Lawyer-Manager Must Achieve the Appropriate Balance of Building Consensus Among the Partners
Applying management techniques to practice areas may introduce to the firm a new take on methods for enhancing profitability.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
New Partners Don't Know What to Expect After Promotion, Survey Shows
Lizzy McLellan
More Law Firms Are Paving the Path to Partner, But What Happens Once One Gets There Is Less Than Certain
In some ways, the country’s most recently promoted partners are more prepared than ever to take on their new roles. But the change still comes with its surprises.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Financial Milestones on the Path from New Associate to Retiree
Justin Peacock
A rundown of the top items lawyers should have on their financial checklists, based on their career stage.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Executive Benefits at Non-Profits after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
Lawrence L. Bell
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made significant changes to certain Internal Revenue Code provisions dealing with highly compensated employees. Among these are restrictions (in the form of excise taxes) on compensation of certain highly paid employees of “applicable tax-exempt organizations.”
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Yes, You’ll Retire Someday. Avoid These Retirement Financial Pitfalls Now.
Justin Peacock
Here are some common retirement planning pitfalls that lawyers often experience.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Listening to the Client: Where Do We Stand?
Jim Durham
If you listen to the marketplace, you will know what to do in connection with client growth and client retention. Are firms listening to this advice?
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Marketing The Law Firm
How to Leverage Media Relations Throughout an Attorney’s Career
Janet Falk
A lawyer can utilize the platform of media outlets to share insights that will develop business by attracting the attention of potential clients and referral sources.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Breakthrough Thinking: How to Discover and Drive Motivation in Business Development and Lead Attorneys to Greater Prosperity
Kimberly Rice
Despite all the strategic planning CMOs may devote to individual attorney coaching and training, it is often not enough to support the lawyer client in connecting the dots of relationship building, reputation enhancing and contact management over the course of a career to make a remarkable difference.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Commentary: America’s Modern ‘Throwaway’: 401(K) Retirement Savings
Tom Hawkins
While 401(k) cashout leakage may not stink in our streets, its economic effects are deplorable. Each year, this slow-motion train wreck robs millions of Americans of their retirement security and converts their retirement savings into wasted consumption and avoidable tax penalties.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Death of the Law Firm Partnership Vote?
Gina Passarella Cipriani
With an Eye on Efficiency, Firms Are Ditching Old Methods for a More Corporate Form of Governance
A growing number of firms in the United States and the United Kingdom are eschewing historical partnership norms in favor of more centralized management, and with that comes fewer and fewer partnership votes.
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Marketing The Law Firm
'Professional Development:' Embracing and Improving Your Leadership Style
Anne Collier
To achieve your highest potential, to be more “actualized,” you must embrace your leadership style. What is your style? Are you an Achiever, Affirmer, or Asserter? Which of the Nine Attributes of Actualized Leaders do you need to focus on to improve your leadership?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Relationship Between Leadership and Management in More Successful Law Firms
Joel A. Rose
Financial stability within a law firm practice does not guarantee harmony within the partnership itself — far from it. Law firm management that does not acknowledge or reflect the importance of firm leadership and the contributions and needs of its members endangers a firm’s cohesiveness and its very existence, no matter how many clients come through the front door.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Leadership: No Immunity: Sexual Harassment & the Legal Industry
John Hellerman
For members of a conservative industry that — literally — wrote the rulebook on sexual harassment, law firms need to be ready for a day of reckoning that seems inescapable (and may have already happened by the time this article is published).
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
How Will Generation X Lead Big Law?
Lauren Still Rikleen
Stop Obsessing About the Millennials (for Now)
For decades, members of Generation X have been stuck between two behemoth, attention-draining generations, wondering if they would forever be relegated to back-bench leadership — mere seat-warmers for ambitious millennials waiting for baby boomers to retire. Now, as boomers slowly face their own mortality and aging bodies after a lifetime of devotion to work, there is no longer a need to question whether Gen X will have an opportunity to lead.
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Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report
2018: What Last Year's Trends Can Mean for Big Law
Scott Flaherty, Chris Johnson, Meghan Tribe, Roy Strom, Miriam Rozen and Lizzy McLellan
With the new year upon us, law firms have just been through the typical year-end crush of collections, budgeting, compensation decisions and more. The authors recently took a look at 2017's hottest trends, and explored what we could expect from them in 2018.
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Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report
To Train or Not to Train? That Is the Question
Sharon Meit Abrahams
Before starting a training program, conduct a needs assessment when performance is inappropriate or inadequate. This means when one or more attorneys or staff are not doing what they should be doing, or they are doing something they should not be doing. Here's how to proceed.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Professional Development: Marketing Plans for Partners
Sharon Meit Abrahams
Better Yet: 'Personal Strategic Plans'
If law firm partners thought of themselves as their own small business and not just a member of their firm, they would embrace the idea of creating a personal strategic vision. No need to hire a consultant; it just takes thought and time to memorialize it.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
2017 Roundup: Equity vs. Non-Equity Membership
Arthur J. Ciampi
Last Year Saw a Number of Interesting Decisions Concerning the Identity, Rights and Obligations of Non-Equity Owners, Including Partners and Shareholders
2017 saw a number of interesting decisions concerning the identity, rights and obligations of non-equity owners, including partners and shareholders. As more firms utilize non-equity members to play vital roles within their firms, it will become more important for them to take note of these decisions and the guidance they provide.
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Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report
Five Ideas Lawyers Can Learn from the Military
Michael P. [email protected]
A Different Perspective
Here are five ideas that lawyers can learn from the military. They just might work for you and your firm.
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Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report
Lack of Gender-Diverse Partnership: Is It the Woman or the Firm?
Daniella Isaacson
Data-Driven Research by ALM Intelligence Suggests Three Reasons Why Gender-Diverse Partnership Fails
It is now common knowledge that female headcount within the ranks of Big Law partnership, both equity and non-equity, has held steady for the past few years at around 20%. The obvious question is, why?
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