Partners: Escape Velocity Begins Now!
Well thankfully, it’s a new year! As you do all that you can to reach “escape velocity” and set the table for great things in Q3 and Q4, I caution my clients to make a psychological commitment to put things in motion now to create a rich set of opportunities later in the year.
Integrating Merged Law Firms: How to Create Truly Disruptive Value
The legal industry enjoys a long history of bolting together two newly combined law firms, or practice groups from two newly merged firms; best practices here are well established at least as it relates to the basics….
Reducing Law Firm Real Estate Spend While Retaining Culture
Reducing your firm’s commitment to expensive shared office space is a generational opportunity to increase dramatically the pool of firm distributable profits.
Get Retained Before You Get Retained
Engaging in preliminary discussions with many prospective clients is the key to building a strong client base.
Differentiation: The Whole Product
Either in the course of my “client experience innovation” work, or in helping groups of partners do a better job finding new clients, I hear the following frustration, “We’re a great law firm! However, as great as we are, we’re no different from other great lawyers at other great law firms who do what we […]
Building a Unitary Merged Firm: Dynamic Teaming & Abe Maslow!
What does it take to make an integration process of two law firms really “sing”? Why are many mergers so challenged at realizing synergies, building a unitary operating model and culture, and acting upon a single set of external priorities? In fairness, all firms have problems with these issues: fulfilling their commitment to autonomy tends […]
Cultivating Connectors from a “Standing Start”
Force multipliers or “connectors” are often easier to cultivate than are prospects. It can be easier to build a history and therefore trust because the relationship is not weighed down by the “heaviness” of a retention goal. At the same time, it can be hard to build trust if you are viewed to be merely […]
Sell the “Whole” Legal Product
“We partner with our clients.” “We build relationships with our clients.” “We understand our clients’ businesses.” Blah, blah, blah. . . . What does all this really mean? Generally speaking, not very much! Clients don’t have time to tell you how to add value, but they are very open to working even more closely with […]
Playbooks Aren’t Just for Coaches!
For those of you who have had the patience (of Job!) to read my previous articles on law-firm differentiation and client-experience innovation, you have heard me extol the virtues of a “law-firm playbook.” Team sports coaches create playbooks to write down on paper the tools, strategies, and methods their players will use to defeat their […]
Individual Lawyers Attract New Clients, But So Can Law Firms
My client shared with me recently the “insight” that “clients hire lawyers, not law firms . . . ” If I had a bitcoin for the number of times I’ve been on the receiving end of that comment . . . well, let’s just say I wouldn’t be writing these articles. I don’t mean to […]