Walker Clark
Worldview Archives
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.
Should your law firm become a legal services “oasis?”
Instead of trying to expand your market presence in a major commercial center, which is already crowded with competitors, your firm's better opportunities might be found in a "legal desert."
Associate Career Management: a Critical Strategic Issue for Small and Midsize Law Firms
Does your law firm have a documented career management strategy for your associates? Is it more than "each year, we pay them a little more."
The truthful answer for the vast majority of small and midsize law firms, everywhere in the world, is "no."
There are few issues in law firm management that have greater strategic importance for law firms today.
What should we work on now to get ready for 2022?
Notwithstanding all the breathless headlines in the legal press about ever-higher first-year associate salaries in the so-called "BigLaw" firms, most lawyers work in small and midsize firms.
Research conducted by Walker Clark LLC over the years, as we work with law firms worldwide confirms that salary alone is a relatively unimportant -- yes, unimportant -- consideration in associate retention.
Newly admitted lawyers tend to prioritize opportunity over cash: the opportunity to develop expertise; the opportunity to do significant client work; the opportunity to advance in the legal profession, to name a few things that most associates tell us are more important than salary. Salary is important, to be sure, but it seldom is the decisive factor between remaining at one's law firm and moving to another one.
So, will your law firm’s compensation program for associates next year give them more than just more money?
It’s not too late to improve your bottom line in 2020.
Approximately 60% the world's law firms will begin a new fiscal year on 1 January 2021. Many others will enter the final quarter or trimester of their old fiscal year.
Even after your new fiscal year begins, and the ink is dry on your new business plan, there is a lot that you can do to get better business results this year, whenever it ends for your firm...
...and even while battling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“More Law” not “Big Law”
Service delivery capability, not size, is what will determine the profitability — and perhaps the survival — of most traditional law firms between now and 2030.
“Salary Plus” Compensation Structures to Promote Better Partner Performance in Law Firms
In a previous posting in this blog, we pointed out how an "eat what you kill" system of partner compensation can introduce toxic elements into a law firm, which frequently counteract any motivating effect on lawyer performance.
This short article outlines the features of an alternative to "eat what you kill" compensation in law firms. It can work well in any size law firm, but is especially suited to small and midsize firms.
Merger, Best Friends, or Something Else?
Many small and midsize law firms find themselves in some difficult — and for most of them, unprecedented — strategic predicaments.
They also are confronted with a wide range of possibilities such as, mergers, Vereins, general and specialized networks, and "best friends" relationships.
How can each firm make the decision that is best for them?
Don’t let the big guys scare you.
From all the attention that "Big Law" is getting in the legal press and at legal conferences, one might erroneously assume that a relatively small number of large firms are destined to rule the legal world, and that smaller firms are irrelevant to the future of the legal profession.
Don't believe it.
Survival Tools for Small and Midsize Law Firms
Law firms — indeed, most professional services firms — will be confronted by some formidable challenges between now and the year 2030. Consolidation of the legal market, the emerging dominance of large service providers with national and global capabilities, a continued profitability crunch, and increased competition for professional talent are probably the most obvious threats to continued success.
Independent small and midsize firms are the most vulnerable.
Innovation: The Small Firm’s Secret Weapon?
In an era when the legal profession is buzzing about what some claim to be the inevitable triumph of “Big Law,” small and midsize firms are defying these predictions of their doom.
One of the ways that they are doing this is by innovation in how they deal with clients and deliver legal services faster, less expensively, and with better results.
Coming Soon to a Law Firm Near You: Artificial Intelligence
As the next step in the evolution of knowledge management in law firms, AI promises to allow seismic shifts in practice management and profitability for law firms of all sizes, not only for large firms, but especially — repeat especially — for small and midsize firms that want to remain competitive while continuing to deliver the highest quality in legal services.
Why Small and Midsize Law Firms Can Have a Great Future
At Walker Clark, we remain amazed by how many law firm partners — and even some law firm management consultants — really believe that the legal profession will eventually be dominated by the global giants. Under this overblown scenario, all the other firms will simply have to be content with the scraps that fall from the big firms' dining tables.
Our firm's experience and observations advising small and midsize firms on business strategy, profitability, and internal operations, persuasively demonstrate that smaller firms can compete very effectively even against some of the best-known and most powerful law firms in the world.
