Law Firm Partners

  • In its astonishing "Free the Law" project, Harvard has teamed up with a California start-up called Ravel Law to digitize every state, federal, territorial and tribal judicial decision since colonial times by feeding over 40 million pages physically cut from the books shelved in the Harvard Law Library into a high-speed digital scanner.

    January 01, 2017Pamela Woldow
  • A true partnership requires a compensation structure that rewards partner-like behavior — collegiality, mentoring, expansion and transition of client relationships to fellow partners, and a consensus to pursue long-term strategies promoting institutional stability rather than maximizing short-term profit metrics.

    January 01, 2017Steven J. Harper
  • Self-promotion makes many people uncomfortable and unsure. However, to really maximize your hard work as a lawyer, you need to let the world know about your successes — and nobody can do it all for you.

    January 01, 2017Carol Morganstern
  • This article discusses the importance of accounting for digital assets in an estate plan, provides practical considerations for handling their disposition after death, and describes the current state of the law for the handling of digital assets after death.

    January 01, 2017Patrice P. Jean and Vanessa Ann Woods
  • No one can deny that cyberattacks are the new norm. Such risks will increasingly challenge our ability to operate our businesses. In the world of cybercrime, everyone — from individuals to nation-states — is a target. However, some targets are more alluring than others.

    January 01, 2017Michael Kemps and Kimberly Pease
  • The boomer generation — 75 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 — and a tiny cadre of over-70s Silent Generation lawyers currently make up just under half of partners at Am Law 200 firms. As partners with the greatest seniority, they constitute a majority in the equity and management ranks, and control an outsize share of client relationships. The impacts of retirement are amplified because a long surge in hiring and promotion that began when boomers entered law firms has halted since the financial crisis.

    November 01, 2016Julie Triedman
  • Although a handful of law firms has hired non-lawyer sales teams, most still rely upon individual attorneys or practice groups to generate new client matters (i.e., to sell) even though the majority of them have never received business development skills training. This article describes some of the important characteristics and habits shared by attorneys who have built successful practices.

    November 01, 2016Cynthia Sharp
  • Law firm leadership is at a proverbial fork in the road. The people running law firms can continue to do business as usual, or they can lead their firms toward a model of business that reflects the new and still evolving client expectations and market demands.

    November 01, 2016James A. Durham
  • Optimal Insights Through Inter-Departmental Initiatives

    As dizzying amounts of resources and the need for the timeliest insights grow, the conduit and collaboration between business development and an organization's information management department, especially, becomes more critical than ever.

    November 01, 2016Peter Ozolin