Law Firm Partners

  • 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.

    January 01, 2018Sharon 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.

    January 01, 2018Sharon Meit Abrahams
  • 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.

    January 01, 2018Arthur J. Ciampi
  • 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?

    December 01, 2017Daniella Isaacson
  • Failure to increase senior billing rates differentially, and thus to rebalance the source of margin from junior to senior lawyer time, will result in a calamitous decline in profitability. It can be avoided if firms start now to gradually change their billing rate structures.

    December 01, 2017Hugh A. Simons
  • After Years of Complacency About Their Business Model and the Pipeline for Talent, There's a Reason Law Firms Are So Worried About Managing the Millennial Generation

    For law firms wringing their hands about how to manage the millennial generation — or asking why they should adapt to this crop of young lawyers in the first place — here's the bad news: If you're still clinging to traditional models for training associates and running the partnership, you've already fallen behind. The millennials are here, they're climbing the ranks, and they've already begun to transform the industry.

    December 01, 2017Lizzy McLellan
  • Security first is a holistic approach that views security not as an information technology nuisance in need of tight cost-management controls, but as a competitive advantage to differentiation from traditional business offerings. Here's what you need to know.

    December 01, 2017Mark Sangster
  • It is widely recognized that Big Law has surplus partner capacity. What is less well recognized is just how massive this surplus has become, how unevenly it is spread across firms in different profitability cohorts, and what it portends for when the next downturn hits.

    December 01, 2017Hugh A. Simons
  • For the most part, law firms continue to structure themselves in a traditional operating and employment models with a dedicated workforce of talent arranged in an organizational hierarchy. In today's Gig Economy, this will unlikely hold.

    December 01, 2017Michael DeCosta