General Legal Employer Resource Center

When considering and, specifically, the nature of marketing legal services in the future, the best guide is empirical data of two kinds: (1) law-specific data combined with (2) information from the mature unregulated service professions. READ MORE >

The stakes—time, money, or firm-wide resources—are always high when you embark on a search for a lateral hire. And these costs often have nothing to do with due diligence or questions of fit and synergy. Instead, it's a matter of sheer economics. Because some headhunters' fees now run in the six-figure range, managing such relationships on the front-end can be crucial. READ MORE >

Going in for a lateral partner recruitment involves looking into a lot of details and making sure that all the mundane but necessary details are taken care of. Here is a short checklist and a questionnaire put together by BCG Attorney Search that you can use to help you in this process. READ MORE >

Many of the practices that lead to successful lateral hiring are basic common sense. In many instances, however, BCG Attorney Search has found firms mistakenly adhering to a number of practices that seriously undermine the success of their lateral hires. These include: READ MORE >

Today, most lateral associates enter their new firms with the understanding that the position is actually an opportunity to audition for the role of partner. In the best-case scenario, at the end of the experience, firms are able to identify those with the skills needed to enhance firm profits and advance in a reasonable amount of time. In BCG Attorney Search's estimation, it's always prudent for law firm leaders re-evaluate the traits their individual organizations find desirable—particularly since such characteristics are apt to change along with the firm's needs. Developing an informal list and then checking potential lateral hires against it can help firms avoid serious financial implications caused when a once-promising prospect later turns out to be a ''bad fit.'' READ MORE >

Firms must be creative to find and capture elusive information.

FORMAL knowledge management programs are built on the process of finding, and capturing, knowledge—in a form that allows it to be shared and re-used by others, to create new work. READ MORE >

Some firms are still trying to figure out what knowledge management (KM) means and how it relates to their business. Leading firms have long recognised it as the key to their future success and have been working at it for years. READ MORE >

Practice Groups are increasingly becoming the way law firms manage their businesses, including a significant component of the marketing agenda. The following ten ideas will help practice groups - and especially their leaders - decide the best ways to manage and focus their marketing activities. READ MORE >

The Dumbest Things Law Firms Do READ MORE >

There are many reasons why law firms are choosing to engage in the development of ancillary businesses, and many law firms have gone down this path. These reasons include the following: READ MORE >

The activities that comprise a law firm’s marketing mix–business development, promotion, and client care almost always have a major impact on a firm’s IT planning. READ MORE >

When law firms first began to develop marketing programs the focus was largely on communications and promotion, and their efforts focused on such activities as seminars, media relations and newsletters. They bore little resemblance to the corporate marketing model, with its heavy emphasis on research and product or service development and delivery. The law firm marketing focus was on visibility and had little influence on firm management decision-making. READ MORE >

Cash flow is the most important financial variable of businesses of all types and sizes, including law firms. Delinquent accounts can take a large bite from your working capital and impede your ability to pay your own expenses on a timely basis. Law firms, therefore, must ensure that they are paid on a timely basis, or they will face financial problems. READ MORE >

Would anyone advise a commercial entity with multiple business lines to operate in an environment in which management does not know the relative profitability of the company`s business lines, product lines, and/or geographic regions? Given the competitiveness in today`s legal profession, managing partners and management committees should consider that same question as it applies to the management of their firms. READ MORE >

Seeking to differentiate their firms in a competitive legal marketplace by providing a broader range of services, an increasing number of law firm planners find themselves performing a cost-benefit analysis of proposed ancillary businesses -- non-legal ventures that offer services complementary to those provided by the law firm. Services provided by ancillary businesses include, among others: advertising, consulting, claims administration, document management, government relations, human resources, real estate appraisals, real estate development, title insurance services and tax counseling. READ MORE >

Day One
It’s Friday afternoon, and you are the new Managing Partner of an old-line law firm in a significant legal market. Your firm has suffered three years of stagnating revenues and partner incomes, and has shrunk modestly in size, despite what has been for most firms a very profitable few years. You look around, and you realize that at 5:00, there are a number of dark offices—far more than can be accounted for by the shrinkage you’ve experienced. Your gut tells you the firm has lost its direction, and you are concerned about bringing the revenues back up to historical levels. For some reason, you’ve had a series of strikeouts with the various lateral candidates you’ve pursued. Cash flow has not been good, and you just heard from the controller that it is clear the firm will be off budget this year . . . READ MORE >

One of the stark new realities facing law firm leaders and managers across the country is a dramatic increase in the risk of significant liabilities that can affect their firms. READ MORE >

Few would question the value of external financial auditing, even in legal partnerships where it is not a statutory requirement. It provides a valuable independent verification of the financial results achieved and of the accounting procedures used to calculate them. READ MORE >

The dissonance between what lawyers think they’re selling and what clients want to buy is often stunning. Nor is the problem limited to law firms dealing with relatively new clients. It’s the most highly institutionalized relationships between law firms and very large business companies that are often best characterized as ships passing in the night. READ MORE >

Now, more than ever. If your firm has ever considered conducting formal client feedback interviews, but has been unable to overcome the obstacles to implementing them, now is the most critical time in recent history to reconsider—there`s no time to waste. The effect of a unique confluence of events makes this process imperative to ensuring that the firm makes informed business decisions about its future. READ MORE >

Way back when, lawyers served as holistic counselors to their clients, offering sage advice in a host of areas, including those considered outside of the purview of "legal advice." Today, the picture is a bit different. Many lawyers are specialists in a particular practice area and advise their clients in a narrow and specific manner. However, in interviews with hundreds of law firm clients, it is apparent that clients are seeking an entirely different type of advice. One of the most frequently cited characteristics that clients desire in their lawyer is pragmatic, practical business advice—advice that keeps them on the straight and narrow path legally, but also takes into account the realities of their particular business, culture, situation, and/or industry. Lawyers who can reclaim the role of "business counselor" will have a distinct competitive advantage. READ MORE >

The issues surrounding retiring partners and compensation have created problems for many law firms. While not universally true, unfunded retirement plans, whether tied to some average of historical income or to receipts associated with continuing client fees from the partner’s responsible clients, are generally without economic justification and usually a serious economic problem. READ MORE >

Eliminate Lock-Step Model and Reward Performance, Not Time Served

Beginning at the end of 1999, law firms began accelerating the rate at which they increased associate compensation. This trend literally moved at “Internet speed:” within three months, associates nationwide were deemed to be worth substantially more than they had been when hired, sometimes only a few months earlier.
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This is an exciting time to be a new partner in a law firm. The legal market has experienced several years of record profits and growth while the global market as a whole continues to become smaller. The profession will undoubtedly continue with its metamorphosis as Generation X infiltrates the law firm partnership ranks. READ MORE >