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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
It’s Hoteling, Not Moteling
Anthony Davies
Hoteling has a negative connotation in the legal industry as little has been done to make the experience reliable and something to look forward to. The fact is, hoteling has worked very well in other industries for many years, and lessons learned here can help law firms.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
‘Do More With Less’ Is Theme from New Legal Ops Report
Trudy Knockless
The overarching finding of Thomson Reuters Institute’s “2023 Legal Department Operations Index” is that workloads are increasing but budgets aren’t. The phrase “do more with less” appears three times in the report and similar sentiments appear on nearly every page of the its 25 pages.
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Marketing The Law Firm
How Diversity Impacts Daily Operations of A Law Firm
Amie Santos
How effective operational impact and change led by diversity professionals can benefit all members of the workplace.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Mastering Collaboration: Enhance Productivity With Your Outside Marketing Agency
Melanie Trudeau
For law firms seeking to thrive in today’s competitive landscape, partnering with a specialized marketing and PR agency is a strategic imperative. Agencies possess a deep understanding of the intricate balance between legal expertise and effective brand communication.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Building the Law Firm of the Future
Joel Wirchin
As organizations strive for growth into the future, outsourcing helps to find the balance between risk and opportunity, between cost and access to new skills and capabilities, curating innovation, and incorporating new remote working norms.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Effective Hybrid Work Polices Need a Stick to Go with the Carrot
Anthony Davies
While many firms have, in fact, embraced hybrid operations, the meaning of hybrid has evolved from “office optional,” to an average required 2 days a week, to now many firms coming out with four-day work week mandates — this time, with teeth.
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Marketing The Law Firm
New Report Focuses on How Modern Law Firms Are Navigating Digital Transformation
Ari Kaplan
Leadership, Growth, and Profitability in a Post-Pandemic Era: Insights on Navigating Digital Transformation in the Modern Law Firm emphasizes the connection between legal technology and law firm success, the importance of training to ensure technology adoption, the influence of automation and document management on digital transformation, and how law firms are deploying data to create a competitive advantage.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
AI and Law Practice: A Roadmap for Success In Modern Legal Firms
Melissa “Rogo” Rogozinski and Steve Salkin
This article lays out a general roadmap for success in modern legal firms through the strategic incorporation of AI technologies.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
New Report Looks At the Expanding Influence of Legal Operations
Ari Kaplan
The economy, technology, and practice preferences continue to influence a reconfiguration of the corporate legal department in a post-pandemic period.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
The Expanding Influence of Legal Operations: New Report Focuses on AI, CLM, and Law Department Transformation
Ari Kaplan
Operations leaders are driving efficiencies, helping manage the growth of data, and harnessing the power of digital transformation to fuel business success while minimizing risk. They are also taking on greater roles and helping general counsel shape strategies that include embracing CLM, AI, and other tools to enhance the way their teams work.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Business Benefits of Leasing When Combatting the Increasing Costs of Operating a Firm
Mike Henderson, Whitney Jones and Bill Pitcairn
There’s a wide range of business benefits to leasing that help firms better manage current market challenges beyond cash management — so we asked our law firm clients what they saw as the most compelling business benefits of leasing in today’s challenging economy.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Should Law Firms Make Pass-Through Entity Tax Elections?
Jonathan Weinberg
As a result of the TCJA, the owners of pass-through entities are limited in the amount of state and local taxes they can deduct on their Federal income tax return. In response, over 25 states have enacted pass-through entity tax regimes, which allow the owners of law firms to preserve their state and local tax deduction on their income from the law firm.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Big Law Leaders Grappling With Attorney Disengagement
Andrew Maloney
Unlike burnout or “quiet quitting,” which arguably stemmed from mostly short-term dynamics, observers point to a collision of current and long-term trends, such as post-pandemic work and generational shifts, that have led lawyers today to be less committed to or fulfilled in the profession as they were a decade ago.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
4 Pitfalls To Avoid In Legal Operations (and How to Deal With Them)
Brian Corbin
For legal stakeholders seeking to take their existing legal operations programs to the next level or start new programs from scratch, there are a few all-too-easy traps that can stunt growth, cost political capital and cause headaches. Having a strategic plan, budget and critical executive buy-in is not enough to avoid these four common issues.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Four Legal Ops Traps That Can Stunt Growth
Brian Corbin
For legal stakeholders seeking to take their existing legal operations programs to the next level or start new programs from scratch, there are a few all-too-easy traps that can stunt growth, cost political capital and cause headaches. Having a strategic plan, budget and critical executive buy-in is not enough to avoid these four common issues.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Using the Generational Gap To Enhance Engagement
Marcie Borgal Shunk
In an era where the power dynamics in the legal industry are shifting decidedly to talent, a firm’s ability to tap into generational differences to invigorate, attract and retain talent is a competitive advantage.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Law Firms Saw Moderate Revenue Growth In Q1 Despite Challenging Demand Environment
Gloria Gomez-O’Rourke and Mike McKenney
Strong inventory levels at the end of 2022 helped the law firm industry post moderate average revenue growth during the first quarter of 2023, though the demand environment remains challenging for law firms.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Why Law Firms and 3Ls Alike Should Consider Deferring
Hugh A. Simons
We can expect that soon some enlightened Big Law firms will level with their incoming associates (or at least the corporate ones) and explain that market conditions are such that the firm cannot assure them of the volume of work necessary for their normal growth and development and, accordingly, the firm is offering a stipend (and health insurance) to those who choose to defer for a year.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
3 Common Pitfalls Lawyers Face Without Legal Analytics
Aria Nejad
Without the right tools, even the most skilled lawyers can fall victim to common pitfalls that can cripple their performance and success. This article discusses three of these pitfalls and how legal analytics can help lawyers stay ahead of the competition and provide the best counsel to their clients.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
AI Isn’t New to Law: How the Practice of Law Should Embrace AI
Melissa “Rogo” Rogozinski
Understanding what AI is — and what it is not — helps to identify where it can be of value and what limitations it currently has. Not only will AI certainly impact your practice in the future, it already has.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Won’t You Stay? Using Stay Interviews To Gain Employee Feedback
Scott Wooldridge
Stay interviews are designed to give employees a chance to give feedback and insight into their experience at work so that companies can better meet their needs and concerns.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Investing In Practice Management Can Pay Off for Partners, Talent and Clients
By Mark Masson, Ed Estrada and Jay Russell
While the practice leaders, partners and lawyers in a practice know their clients best, they focus most of their time and energy on being legal experts. This is where practice, operations, and firm-level leadership need to provide focus, process and resources to help their legal experts deliver their unique value to clients.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Legal Industry ‘Ripe for Disruption’
Cassandre Coyer and Justin Henry
While the law firm model has historically rewarded inefficiencies, recent trends show that model is reaching its expiration date.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Legal Operations Success In 2023
Ari Kaplan
Strategies for Navigating an Uncertain Economy, Leveraging CLM Technology to Streamline Processes, and Embracing Change
During a recent discussion with a select group of leaders in legal operations in highly-regulated organizations, several key themes emerged that are likely to drive new initiatives in 2023.
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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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Marketing The Law Firm
Shrinking Demand? Top 7 Reasons Firms Are Leveraging Experience Data
Jason Noble
While the competition for outside legal services has never been more intense, the strategic approach firms take — including a strategic approach to technology — will define whether the market pressures are a threat or opportunity.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Marketing Tech: Legal Ops Success In an Uncertain Economy
Ari Kaplan
Ari Kaplan speaks to leaders in legal ops on key themes emerged that are likely to drive new initiatives in 2023.
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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
Recessions Offer Opportunity To Improve Your Processes and Innovate
Ioana Good
Recessions are full of opportunity. No matter what industry you work in, a slowdown in the economy is an opportune time to invest in your brand, improve your processes, strengthen your business focus, and innovate to get a jump on competitors.
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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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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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Marketing The Law Firm
Meeting Client Expectations to Provide Good ‘Customer Service’
Alex Geisler
Buyers of legal services are now a highly sophisticated and connected community. What the clients now not only want but insist on, is operational efficiency, effectiveness and transparency.
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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
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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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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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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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
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
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
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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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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