The recent death of Peter Drucker, one of America's greatest business philosophers ' a man who substantially changed the practice of American management ' brought forth an abundant burst of adoration and glorification from all corners of the business and journalistic world. Articles and memorials quoted extensively from his works.
The Baby-Boomer generation entered the practice of law in unprecedented numbers, carrying lofty expectations and the collective willpower to engender unprecedented billable hours. Now this tsunami of active lawyers is moving toward senior status, phase-down and retirement. Despite the complex emotions engendered by retirement, the Baby-Boomer generation of lawyers ' and the law firms in which they have participated or help build ' must plan their future.
Among professional service firms, there is a definite increase in competition for talent. But competition for talent could indicate a commensurate increase in salaries and billing rates that will probably put tremendous pressure on law firms to be more efficient and effective in the delivery of legal services. This pressure will change a law firm's business model and culture. How will the staffing and business models change, and how will law firms use these trends to improve their competitive position? These issues are the focus of this article.
These days, a good measure of cynicism seems to be de rigueur for any intelligent citizen.
According to a German proverb: 'A man has two ears and one mouth so that he hears much and speaks little.' Mark Twain followed up the thought by saying: 'If we were meant to talk more than listen, we would have two mouths and one ear.' And I'll add: We were given two ears and one mouth, and they should be used in that proportion in a sales call.
With more than 30 years in PR, Hank Shafran has experience in all aspects of agency, governmental and corporate communications. But he has seen law firm PR, in particular, from a unique perspective with more than 10 years at Bingham McCutchen LLP, where he has worked on the PR end of six different mergers and seen the firm grow from a 175-lawyer Boston firm to a 950-attorney global firm.
Today's law firms, like many other businesses, are struggling to stand out in an increasingly crowd-ed and competitive marketplace. When it comes down to brand differentiation — or creating a brand image in the first place — most law firms struggle with how to creatively market what boils down to mostly an intellectual property service business.
A few months ago, I was having dinner with an acquaintance, a world-famous professor at one of the most eminent business schools, who asked me: 'What's a blog?'
Use the once-chilling phrase 'vendor consolidation' around anyone who has been watching the enterprise software market for the past few years, and chances are you'll barely elicit a goose bump. Headline-grabbing deals such as Oracle Corporation's 2005 takeover of PeopleSoft, Hewlett-Packard's recently unveiled plan to acquire Mercury Interactive, and a host of less splashy mergers and acquisitions have gotten us used to the idea that the marketplace may well coalesce around a handful of large vendors. But in the legal-tech sector, this already long-in-the-tooth IT trend has just started teething.
The wisdom of Confucius enlightens. although it usually takes a very long time to figure out the meaning of a select Confucianism, you know the wisdom is there somewhere. But it takes a lot of thinking to figure out the benefits of his wisdom. The same has been said about client-relationship management technology (CRM).
