Category Archive for: Law Firm Management

Lawyers — Just Do Something

With full credit to the authors of the  Intelligent Change blog, I was inspired to provide my two cents on the topic of, “Lawyers — Just do something.” Having recently returned from ILTA, I was struck this year by the inertia I felt from many of the attendees. This is not a criticism of the…

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Evolving from “lawyer’s lawyer” to “client’s lawyer”

Reflections on the impact of the emerging Global 25: Part 3 The first time I heard the term, ‘lawyer’s lawyer’ was during an interview with a senior partner about what made his firm different. His response was that they were “lawyer’s lawyers.” He was referring to the reputation the firm’s lawyers held within the legal…

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Maybe lawyers should sell widgets

Reflections on the emerging Global 25: Part 2 Legal is a profession, not an industry. Law firms are different; They don’t sell widgets. These are the theorems I was first introduced to when I started covering law practice management for the ABA Journal after graduating from law school in 1998. I challenged the first when…

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Diving in

It was a good week at work. One of my clients launched a major business development initiative. Another finalized materials for a marketing campaign to promote a new service line. A third got through a tedious set of meetings in preparation for a CRM deployment. I even got my taxes done. All of these projects…

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Showing up is half of life…but only half

A great leader I know used to conclude his staff presentations by saying, “They say that showing up is half of life. I thank you for showing up today.” There is a lot to be said by that statement. Showing up is important. It means you care enough to take time out of your day…

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What Law Firms Can Learn From LegalZoom.com

TechnoLawyer’s BlawgWorld (free subscription required) had an interesting item a few weeks ago about how LegalZoom is beta testing a concept that would allow it to offer its legal services through small firms under the LegalZoom brand. It’s fraught with ethcial complications, which were outlined by the blog’s author Richard Granat on his eLawyering Blog. From my…

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Balancing the Practice of Law with Business Development

In the quest for the perfect law firm business model, I’m often asked about the best way to balance the practice of law with the time needed to develop new business. While there is no silver bullet, here are three first steps to consider when developing a plan to grow your practice. 1) Start with…

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From Relic to Relevant: Law Firms Should Take a Lesson from a Law Library

I am privileged to be working with the San Diego County Public Law Library as they plan a major renovation of their main library. They launched a campaign this week called Rebuilt. Reinvented. Reinvigorated. The campaign is to raise awareness about their plans to better serve the legal community and the general public. The changes include…

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Business processes don’t have to come at the expense of the practice of law, but they have to come

I found an old email this morning that references a 2009 McKinsey Executive Insight report about challenges facing corporations coming out of the economic crisis. I no longer have a link to the year-old report, but the excerpt from the email reads: “Companies need to integrate marketing and sales function into the day-to-day operations of…

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Drive Change Management with Decision-Making Clarity

I’m calling last week the week of pain – growing pains. On the same day, I had calls from colleagues at three different clients. All wanted to bend my ear about struggles they were having trying to implement new initiatives. Strategic direction wasn’t the challenge. All three clients have virtually universal support for their end…

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