A dynamic law firm growth tactic involves opening an office in a new geographic market. To move a firm into virgin territory requires careful thought about issues that go beyond simply hiring new lawyers. Indeed, expanding a firm’s footprint requires many considerations, including good intelligence about the new market’s practice characteristics, bar personality and mores,
Five Signs Your Law Firm Needs New Energy
Law firms that lack energy dim their prospects for the future. Too often law firms pass over the issue of their own vibrancy (whether by a failure of recognition or simple indifference) and plod along without taking corrective action. A becalmed law firm, especially in these times of legal industry disruption, is flirting with danger.
Scoping Out Future Law Firm Upheaval-Four Places to Look
Law firms perpetually are in transition. In our changing legal environment, transition can arise when business strategy requires adjustment, merger is considered, layoffs are implemented, lateral hiring is pursued, leadership succession is at hand (see Cultivating the Next Generation), crisis arises or firm wind-up is decided and implemented.
In addressing any transitional event
Four Signs Your Law Firm is Not Ready for Leadership Succession
At many law firms that recognize the need for succession planning, preparation for leadership succession receives too little attention. Succession planning can languish for various reasons. In some instances, the press of regular law firm business distracts existing leadership from the issue. In other cases, the topic is an uncomfortable one so discussions are avoided.
Small Law Firms and Rough Seas-Navigating the Years Ahead
As December ends and January dawns, report cards on the legal profession are issued and crystal balls are studied. This year is no different with many articles offering assessments of the industry’s current state and its prospects.
Two pieces recently written about the industry’s present and the future are worth review. Mark A. Cohen’s Something’s
Avoiding the Unplanned Law Firm Closure-Five Steps Every Law Firm Should Take
As the calendar year comes to a close, there is a lot to do at most law firms. Activities like collecting bills, distributing profits and casting next year’s budget can occupy many a leadership team. The tasks at hand can be time consuming and all engrossing. Given the importance of these short-term issues, thinking about
Denial and Turning Around The Troubled Law Firm
Hope is the denial of reality – Margaret Weis
As a law firm in decline continues to struggle, there are two primary scenarios in which denial furthers the rate, or degree, of decline:
- undervaluing the risk associated with a significant undertaking; or
- disregarding mounting evidence of decline.
Denying the Risk Associated With
Is Your Law Firm Slipping Into Trouble
One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!
The first key
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
Kirkland’s Attrition is a Case Study for All Law Firms, Big and Small
The American Lawyer article about recent attrition at Kirkland & Ellis gained attention in no small part because Kirkland’s reputation for success runs counter to the idea that people want to leave. While 
departures from even the most successful firms is inevitable, the depth of attrition at Kirkland reported by The American Lawyer was surprising.