Walker Clark
Worldview Archives
The Antidote to Fear
In recent confidential discussions with law firm leaders around the world, the author has noticed a very interesting apprehension that seems to be emerging as they consider the business prospects for their firm in for the next two to five years.
How then, can a law firm navigate through the strategic fears about the rest of the decade -- even the rest of 2025 -- with a reasonable degree of confidence?
“But it’s not my job…”
...or is it?
The inability to answer this question can be costing your law firm significant losses in terms of efficiency, operating expenses, morale, and lost opportunities.
Three Advantages that Small Law Firms Have in the Competition to Recruit and Retain the Best Legal Talent
The post-pandemic era of the mid-2020s has emphasized three things that small law firms must -- and can -- do to to attract and retain top legal talent.
Eight Things for Indian Law Firms to Think About
As part of our ongoing experiment to test the potential value of artificial planning in law firm management, we asked the newest version of our chatbot, openai GPT-4, what Indian law firms should be considering in their planning for the incursion of foreign law firms into the Indian legal market.
The response outlined eight good starting points.
Will the '“law firm of the future” need fewer lawyers?
A report from the American Bar Association suggests that the demand for lawyers, at least in the United States, might have begun to subside. 38,020 students started their first year of law school during the autumn 2022 term, compared to 42,718 in 2021, according to the report. Meanwhile, there has been a significant increase in enrollments in non-J.D. programs.
Although this data is limited to the U.S., Walker Clark LLC has begun to notice what might be the start of a similar trend in some other jurisdictions as well. What could this mean for your law firm?
“Imaginary Time Travel” — An Overlooked Strategic Problem-Solving Tool
A highly effective way to find breakthrough solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems today is to "travel" into the future and look back at them.
This is not "wave the magic wand” or other wishful-thinking parlor games that business consultants sometimes promote. Instead, it has a solid basis in research
Law Firms Without Borders: Challenging Trends in Cross-Border Legal Services
Although law firms today face a seemingly vast array of strategic, operational, and management challenges arising from the globalization of the legal services industry, there are at least five emerging trends that characterize law firms that are successfully building profitable cross-border and multinational practices, even when based in only one office or country.
This paper, presented at the 2022 Annual Conference of the American Bar Association International Law Section, on 29 April 2022, describes these five trends, based on observations and research by the author and other Walker Clark consultants in law firms over the past twenty years.
The Law Firm of the Future: A Culture of Resilience
This is the final installment of a series of posts that have described and explored characteristics that will determine which law firms remain successful in the legal services industry of the future, and what law firms can do now to build them into their operations and professional cultures.
The bottom line for all of this can be described in a single word: resilience.
The Law Firm of the Future: A Predisposition for Innovation
Successful law firms in the future will not only keep up with trends and developments; they will lead them.
Innovation is more than just doing things better. Rather, it is a fundamental change. It shifts the paradigms that control how we think and act today.
The Law Firm of the Future: An Intense Focus on Quality
Quality must be more than a slogan on a law firm's website.
Quality management is perhaps the last great frontier for leaders and managers in traditional law firms.
The Law Firm of the Future: “Anytime, Anywhere” Service
One defining characteristic of the successful law firm of the future is already visible in many of the most successful law firms today.
The successful law firm of the future will be able to deliver a high degree of responsiveness and service quality anytime and anywhere the client needs legal services.
The Law Firm of the Future: 40-to-1 Leverage? 400-to-1?
The successful law firm of the future will be almost unrecognizable to most law firm members today.
Unprecedented workflow leverage will create opportunities for exponential increases in productivity and unprecedented challenges to manage it.
The Law Firm of the Future: Sustainable Profitability
Your law firm is making money today.
But what about next year?
What about ten years from now?
Do you even know how you are profitable today?
The Law Firm of the Future: Intimate Client Relationships
"My lawyer is my best friend."
How often has a client said that about you?
"Client intimacy," not just good client service, will be an important feature of the successful law firm of the future.
The Law Firm of the Future: From “Factory” to “Shipyard”
The law firm of the future will probably be more like a shipyard than a factory.
The conversion is already underway in many law firms.
The Law Firm of the Future: Seven Critical Forces That Will Determine Success
One of the most frequent questions that I am asked these days is What will law firms look like ten years from now? Twenty years?
Contrary to popular belief, we really can foretell the future, especially of the legal services industry.
And a very clear picture is emerging.
This is the first of a series of posts that will describe and explore seven characteristics that will determine which law firms remain successful in the legal services industry of the future, and what law firms can do now to build them into their operations and professional cultures.
Four Guiding Principles for Uncertain Times
Ever since we formed Walker Clark LLC back in 2002, our firm has observed four core values that have guided our advice to our clients, many of whom have implicitly incorporated these principles into their professional cultures and day-to-day workplace environments.
As we look ahead into a new decade, we remind ourselves of them, remember how they have been reliable guidelines in rapidly changing legal markets and business environments over the past 18 years, and offer them for whatever inspiration and benefit they might provide in the future.
What will law firms look like in 2049?
Herbert Smith Freehills CEO Mark Rigotti has published a thought-provoking article in today's on-line edition of LegalWeek.
As we start 2019, his comments should be "required thinking” for lawyers everywhere.
Three Things to Think About Now as You Think About the Future
Law firm leaders and planners — indeed, all lawyers — are right to be concerned about the future of the legal profession. We can expect significant changes, powered by increasingly sophisticated client expectations and the more powerful service delivery capabilities of advanced technology, to redefine what a "law firm" will look like and how it will operate in the 2020s...
...which are only a few months away.
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.
