Measuring Firm Quality with Client Value Initiatives
November 02, 2014
When it comes to competitive pricing, both clients and law firms are more and more focused on quality. That sounds good, but how can quality best be represented in actual metrics? While quality is a degree of excellence, what makes that degree marketable enough so that customers can swiftly leverage metric "facts" as a guide in the counsel selection process? Furthermore, how can these quality metrics be leveraged to delineate themselves from one another? The goal should be to highlight experience as an actual quality success metric rather than just attractive pricing.
Practice Management Takes Hold in Smaller and Mid-Size Firms
November 02, 2014
Even though lawyer management in most mid-size firms recognize the importance of developing and implementing principles of practice management as a means to insure the high quality service to clients and to improve profitability, the extent to which practice management may be implemented varies greatly from firm to firm.
Case Notes
November 02, 2014
A look at a case in which an ex-employee failed in his bid for Sills Cummins' financials.
Changing the Law Firm Business Model
November 02, 2014
If a law firm wants to conform to a client's need for responsiveness in the new competitive environment, big changes are required in its business model and, culturally, lawyers need to recognize that other professionals are better at certain tasks than lawyers.
Transfer Taxes
November 02, 2014
Last month, we wanted to know the tax consequences to a hypothetical couple of their proposed agreement that husband transfer his interest in a townhouse to wife prior to their execution of a separation agreement, and that wife transfer her membership interest in the company to husbandprior to execution of such agreement. The discussion concludes herein.
Law Firm Security Pressures Alleviated With Financial Strategies
November 02, 2014
We know the consumer-industry stories of hackers infiltrating Target and, more recently, Home Depot. Law firms are now at the center of the storm because they store some of their clients' most sensitive business information and are viewed by criminal elements as a less-defended path to that data. Firms must take care to understand and respond to evolving security trends with response strategies.
Law Firm CMOs
November 02, 2014
Much of the staff alignment in an organizational chart is predicated on the particular styles, strengths, and weaknesses of its leadership, not on some universally accepted top-down box managerial arrangement. Despite this, the author feels increasingly compelled to endorse alignment of the CMO/CBDO with the COO, not the Managing Partner.
At the Intersection: Cutting Corners
November 02, 2014
In this second of three related posts, we consider whether clients' increasing efforts to control outside legal spend forces their outside counsel to "cut corners."
What Happens to Your Digital Estate After You Die?
November 02, 2014
Ever wonder what happens to your social media accounts, e-mail, online texts and other digital content when you die? Do they simply expire, leaving nothing behind but digital dust? Or can you authorize someone to take them over after you pass on? And if so, what powers would such a person possess?
