Walker Clark
Worldview Archives
Building a Culture of Quality in Your Organization
Introducing a successful quality assurance system usually requires profound changes in how people think about their work, how they interact with each other and clients, and how they prioritize and deliver legal services.
A culture of quality challenges traditional assumptions about how lawyers and staff contribute to the profitability of the firm and how they add value in their respective roles.
It can be challenging, but it is absolutely necessary for sustainable success in a competitive environment that has very little tolerance for poor service quality.
Is your compensation system being stress-tested in 2023?
As the legal services world has emerged from the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to observe an unusually high degree of "churn" in associate and partner movements in legal markets worldwide.
In most instances, compensation has been a significant factor in these departures, although not the only one. Remote working during the pandemic opened new opportunities for discrete lateral recruiting, with the "losing" law firm not finding out about someone's decision to leave until it is too late.
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?
Thinking Small
The phrase "big picture" usually comes to mind when one thinks about strategic issues.
This might actually be preventing us from solving some of our most important problems.
Priorities, Low-Hanging Fruit, and Risks
One of the most intriguing and sometimes most frustrating issues in strategic planning often arises when a law firm's leaders consider the question "What should we work on first?"
Among all of the attractive strategic goals that we have set for ourselves, which ones should receive the most immediate priority in terms of our management attention, resources, and action?
Bad times? Good opportunities!
Law firms in some regions of the world are going though uncertain times.
At Walker Clark we believe that uncertain times can be the best times in which to invest some time, intellectual effort, and — yes! — even some consulting fees in getting a crystal clear understanding of two issues.
