Mergers between law firms garner headlines. Just last week, Kansas City’s Husch Blackwell was in the news when it announced that it was merging with Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek S.C., a Wisconsin based business and litigation firm. The merger comes less than year after Husch Blackwell’s Chairman Maurice Watson described the firm’s newly adopted strategy
Boomer Law Firms: Some Demographic Challenges
Ward Bower’s Existential Threats to Law Firms provides an excellent review about a few of the economic and demographic issues that threaten today’s law firms. As Mr. Bower notes, some of the law firms previously fixtures in league tables and in the AmLaw 200 have either failed, been acquired or otherwise have disappeared from
Is Your Law Firm in Transition
With the on-going market challenges associated with the legal profession, firm leadership is smart to periodically stop and evaluate the state of the firm. Is it in a transitional state?
Here are four questions that can help serve as a baseline diagnostic. Is your firm:
- Facing a decision that addresses the fundamental way the
Law Firm Capital Contributions-How Healthy an Investment?
Recent commentary on trends among law firms has highlighted the increasing popularity of requiring greater capital contributions from owners. As Law.com‘s Nell Gluckman notes, instead of capital requirements in the 20-25% range as was common for years, law firms more frequently are jacking up the owner capital requirements into the 30-35% level. In some
5 Easy Steps to Destroying a Perfectly Good Law Firm
It has become an all too frequent occurrence — the story of yet another law firm closing its doors. The headlines rarely convey everything — displaced personnel, inconvenienced clients, and the pain and disruption for the firm’s owners.
What drives this result? How has this become almost commonplace?
I believe any one of five things
Leadership and the Small to Medium Sized Law Firm
Leaders aren’t born – they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal. —Vince Lombardi
There has been plenty written about the difficulties associated with leading law firms. Much of the commentary relates
A Five Step Process For Turning Around the Small to Medium Sized Law Firm
Bold headlines tend to focus on the spectacular failures. But consequential transition — even crisis — are equally traumatic for the small to medium sized law firm. Given the fact that fewer partners must carry the load, the impact across the smaller firm may be even more intensely felt.
If you are part of the
Merger and the Small to Medium Sized Law Firm: A Recipe For Success
Law firm news continues to include reports of record profits for some — small and large alike. But the news is far from all good. The reports of desperate struggles for survival are regular; and far too frequently, the headlines include news of the latest law firm closure.
In the midst of it all, law
Market Entry the Orrick Way: Pros and Cons
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP made its entry into the Houston legal market last week. It announced that it had attracted 15 Houston based attorneys from 6 firms to plant the Orrick flag in the Bayou City. Pulled from Andrews Kurth, DLA Piper, Haynes and Boone, McDermott Will & Emery, McGuire
Seeing Softness in Demand? Steps for Law Firm Stability
One current report signals that the legal services market is suffering from a decline in demand. Reed Smith’s inabilities to keep its full complement of lawyers busy lead it to layoff 45 lawyers recently. According to Peter Zeughauser of the Zeughauser Group, other firms have been stealthily bleeding layoffs here and there for