Law Firm Succession

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For law firm leaders, continuing a firm’s success is about constant monitoring, clear vision, perspective, and the willingness to act.

Well-run businesses, including law firms, stay abreast of changes in the marketplace by monitoring shifting client needs. Successful businesses track the initiatives of competitors and seek to secure the premium assets needed to compete. For law firms, that means keeping clients, getting new ones, and preserving the talent in the workforce.

There are many ways to achieve this, but for nearly all law firms it includes staying focused on the bottom line. If a law firm operates profitably, it can be more responsive to its client’s needs, it can respond to its competition, it can innovate where appropriate and necessary, and it can retain its most valuable attorneys. Call it “staying focused,” “being on top of things,” or “keeping your eye on the ball”—each speaks to operating as if nothing is assured. Yesterday’s success is no guarantee of tomorrow’s survival.

A successful law firm is a busy one. New clients are landed, matters are opened, and legal advice gets delivered. The success enjoyed may be traced to the principles that drove the firm’s formation, the drive of the lawyers that came together as a firm, or a little of both. A brisk practice might also be due to increasing client demand. Whatever the impetus for the good fortune, few law firm leaders are naïve enough to assume that present success is a guarantee of future prosperity.

But if the fleeting nature of success is recognized, why do some firms fail to sustain the momentum they worked so hard to build?

Sustaining a law firm’s success, or even just ensuring that a firm survives, is a challenge faced by every law firm—every day of every year. And wherever the significance of the task is understood, focused and dedicated leadership can act and plan in firm-sustaining ways. For some firms, however, finding a way to continue the good times escapes leadership’s attention. And a struggling firm is an unstable one, less and less able to sustain its reputation and market position and increasingly putting itself at great risk.

Four fundamental lessons, if followed, can reduce risk and improve a law firm’s chances of surviving.…
Continue Reading Thoughts on Building Long-Term Law Firm Health

Law firm succession can be easy, and it can be hard. It tends to be easy for the law firms blessed with talented people, a deep and repeatable client base, and a stellar reputation. Transition from one generation to the next can be natural and seamless. Unfortunately, not all law firms enjoy such a profile.…

One of the most underappreciated factors associated with law firm success or failure is the effectiveness of leadership.

The fact is, no single factor has a greater impact on the success or failure of a business than the quality of its leadership. During a period of increasing change in the legal services industry a well-defined…

For the last decade plus, merger has been a strategic choice for many law firms. The 2020 pandemic had a negative impact on the quantity of mergers but, many including our firm expect there to be a major uptick in 2021.

Given the probability that firms will at least be considering merger as part of…

In last week’s post, we explored the surprise loss of a law firm leader. Today I want to suggest an orderly approach to this inevitable event.

The Zeughauser Group conducted a survey that included several interesting issues. Three observations related to planning for the long-term health of the firm struck me.

· When describing …

According to many law firm leaders, having a good law firm culture is a key to sustainability.  Not infrequently leaders attribute their firm’s culture for the success enjoyed.  When new mergers are announced or reviewed, the importance of compatible cultures gets top recognition.  And when law firms fail, the impact of a dysfunctional culture reaps…

In an earlier blog, Law Partner Retirement in Place—Solving Won’t Work/Won’t Leave (Part One), we presented the vexing problem of having a partner that slows down workwise but still draws a full partnership share.  Unfortunately, this upsetting situation exists at more firms than are willing to admit. While eliminating the awkwardness the abuse represents…

Let’s face it, the hugely important issue of law firm succession has a lot to do with senior attorney retirement.  Recognizing that, more law firms have prepared for coming retirements by infusing new leadership, transferring existing client relationship responsibility, and coaching the next generations to be business developers. When succession is done right, a firm…

Law firm succession is a huge issue for many of today’s law firms.  Not surprisingly, more firms than ever before are focusing on succession by adopting written succession plans that address leadership succession and client relationship transfer.  Despite the importance of succession, many firms have no written plan and remain unprepared for transitioning leadership or…