Walker Clark
Worldview Archives
Great Power Competition and How to Manage it in the 21st Century
What are the implications that international geopolitical events have for law firms in the mid-2020s?
Guest contributor Gerald J. Kirkpatrick examines post-World-War-II diplomacy by the great powers and what its disruption or continuity might mean for the world in 2025 and beyond.
This is part of an ongoing series of informed commentaries on world events and the risks and opportunities they might present to law firms everywhere and their clients.
Making Sense of the Chaos
The erratic attempts at policy coming from the Trump government in the United States have made commercial and financial prospects more unpredictable than perhaps in any period since the 1930s. Many investors and business people, as well as traditionally friendly governments, now wonder, often with good reason, whether the United States can be trusted to honor its international commitments at any level of enterprise or international engagement.
These forces and risks ultimately affect almost every law firm with any significant international or regional practice. This is a real challenge for the legal profession, because clients traditionally have looked to lawyers and law firms for analysis and problem solving in uncertain times. Yet the business futures of many of those firms are perhaps even less certain than those of their clients.
Are American lawyers getting “poorer?”
The ABA Journal reports that lawyer salaries in the United States have fallen behind those of other professions.
It does not have to be that way.
Does your law firm have a war plan?
At no time since the 1960s have the signs been more ominous.
One increasingly has the sense that the increasing tensions between the United States and North Korea will not end well.
If your practice involves Asian clients, cases, or transactions, especially in northeastern Asia, you should develop a "war plan" now.
Diversity: An Overlooked Asset in Law Firms
An article in the on-line edition of The Lawyer on 1 April 2014 paints a disappointing picture of the extent to which women have been able to move up into the senior ranks of partners at leading U.S. law firms in London.
Although the reasons for this poor showing vary from firm to firm, the bottom line is that these firms — like so many others in the United States and elsewhere — continue to ignore the importance of diversity to the business success of their organizations, and a few apparent antediluvians in the legal profession continue to dismiss diversity as irrelevant.
New Blood for Zombie Law Firms
There is an old saying among law firm managers: "Even the best-managed law firm is only 90 days from bankruptcy."
This is because most law firms traditionally have been woefully under-capitalized. To some extent, some of these firms are already financial zombies. They survive due to good luck, deft financial management, and the persistence of partners — none of which can sustain them indefinitely.
