Developing Law-Firm Strategy in a Buyer’s Market
Right now, law firms of all sizes in a majority of jurisdictions are facing several serious challenges, including the following: Firm revenue and partner profitability in some of the larger jurisdictions have flattened or are steadily declining; Clients are pressing firms for lower fees and are insourcing growing numbers of tasks; Lower-cost alternative-service providers are […]
The Swiss Verein – Time for a Closer Look
The Swiss Verein structure, so commonly used between firms that align within countries, or between countries, has recently received some searching analysis. This arose through the problems experienced by King & Wood Mallesons (KWM), a Swiss Verein (SV), and its relatively young European operation, also a SV, which resulted in KWM EUME being dissolved and […]
Lawyer-to-Partner Gearing or Leverage. Yes or No?
The concept of lawyer-to-partner gearing or leverage – the number of lawyers a firm employs for every partner – continues to go through changes. It is not uncommon to hear partners say things like “My clients want partners on their jobs“, “My type of work is too complex for non-partners“, “I simply don’t have the […]
Forget Systems and Structures – “Getting the Job Done” Is the Key
Successful businesses and law firms succeed because they get the right things done. They determine a vision, identify strategic key objectives, strategies to achieve those, make decisions around these and then make sure they are implemented. This gets results – the real test of everything. Too often I think firms and even my consulting colleagues around […]
The More Things Change…
Observations on 30 years in the legal profession As I enjoyed a break in the New England mountains of Australia last week, kayaking and fishing for the magnificent native Murray cod, I realised I had been closely associated with leadership and management of law firms for close on thirty years – about twenty in managing partner […]
Ed Wesemann on Leadership
In a recent Edge International Communiqué we paid tribute to and farewelled our fondly remembered late colleague, Ed Wesemann, a pillar of the law firm consulting world for the past 30 years. In support of a conference program on leadership I was running in New Zealand in 2015, Ed kindly prepared a short video on […]
Building Trust: The Inviolable Rule
With all the attention given to the external forces bringing about change and impacting the legal profession, we sometimes forget how much of successful legal services business is still about human relationships and building trust. Trust is the key building block for so many different areas and interactions in law firms: one that impacts just […]
Three things about special law firm leaders
With two upcoming talks on leadership development to deliver over the next few months to groups of lawyers, I thought it would be interesting to get some fresh ideas from one or two of my colleagues; Nick Jarrett-Kerr was kind enough to share his thoughts. While Nick was quick to emphasise the mountain of books […]
Successful Strategy: The Essential Supporting Acts (Part Two)
In Part One of this article, I focused on some important pre-strategy initiatives which should be tackled to lay a sound foundation for successful strategy implementation. Here are some others: Key governance structures Fundamental to strategy success is a cohesive partner effort and involvement. It is not something that can simply be done and driven […]
Successful Strategy: The Essential Supporting Acts (Part One)
Behind successful firms is some form of successfully executed strategy. It can be short, punchy, even informal and, at a push, in someone’s head! The test is implementation and results, which always separates success from failure. Strategy is not simply about ‘doing things better’; it is about achieving serious competitive advantage. It is high level, […]