LJN Newsletters

Attorneys rarely think about billings and collections in the summer. Instead, those are topics often left to the year-end collections push. By waiting, however, attorneys lose money, assume risks and otherwise miss important red flags for potential problems that can be avoided or resolved.

Corporate legal departments are all about cost control and efficient processes, yet when hit with a new investigation or lawsuit, legal teams often reflexively fall back on the "collect everything" mentality. The emergence of targeted and remote collection technologies now makes it possible for corporations to collect in a legally defensible way that reduces cost and minimizes business disruption.

This is the second installment of a series examining the shift in law firm business models and the issues law firms must address to remain competitive in a new age of providing legal services. The third installment will appear later this year.

For the past several years, I have been tasked with providing an update on proxy advisory firms, most notably ISS and Glass Lewis, and the evolving policy updates they issue on an annual basis.

In-house counsel are facing a dramatic increase in discovery costs, the associated expenses related to compliance and a growing emphasis on initiatives such as diversity programs within an increasingly challenging economic landscape.

The SEC has pursued FCPA enforcement actions against companies that make contributions to charities to curry favor with foreign officials, who oversee awards of government contracts and "hint" that a contribution to such a worthy organization would be welcome.

With competition growing, clients terminating long-term relationships and the inability of firms to keep up with technology and marketplace changes, business development training and coaching have become mainly a palliative measure, ignoring the primary problem.

The author presents 15 ways to help you maximize the business development opportunities created by speaking or presenting a seminar. Most are simply common sense ' but not common practice.