Walker Clark
Worldview Archives
Cease dependence on inspection.
"Cease dependence on inspection," W. Edwards Deming's third point for effective management, is perhaps one of the least understood principles in the context of service industries like law firms.
Conventionally, it translates into the notion that quality should not be an afterthought checked through after-the-fact inspections but ingrained in every step of the production process.
For law firms, this means shifting the focus from reactive measures to proactive strategies that enhance the quality of legal services by reducing or eliminating altogether the causes of mistakes and rework.
Quality management could be your law firm’s best investment.
In an increasingly competitive legal market, law firms must constantly adapt and evolve to stay ahead.
While many firms focus on expanding their client base, increasing billable hours, or adopting the latest technology, a crucial factor in determining long-term success lies in the effective quality management of internal work processes.
Why am I doing this?
A lawyer's time is the most valuable asset in any law practice of any size anywhere in the world. Yet, lawyers report an almost continuous sense of frustration that they are not as productive or efficient as they believe that they could be.
Here is a time-tested diagnostic way to look at your work and to find ways to leverage your time to be as productive and profitable as possible. It costs nothing but a little bit of your time and can produce dramatic improvements in your everyday work.
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: 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.
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.
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.
What is your business plan for 2020?
Yes, not next year but two years from now.
But even if your law firm is not prepared to move to two-year business planning, the suggestions in this article will help you to improve successful results next year.
Partner Compensation and Individual Partner Profitability
Even the most effective partner compensation systems sometimes have difficulty basing a partner's remuneration on the profitability of each partner’s practice.
This is because they try to take too simplistic an approach to a complex and highly individual concept.
“We have to get our house in order...”
Although rapidly-changing, intensely-competitive market dynamics will continue to shape the strategic context in which most law firms will operate in 2018, the new year is also proving to be internally challenging, especially for small and midsize firms.
We have noticed, beginning in the third quarter of 2017, a sharp increase in requests for advice and service with respect to three issues: partner compensation, governance, and succession planning.
Are you ready for 1-to-400 leverage?
For most firms, a 1-to-4 leverage ratio has long been considered to indicate a desirable level of profitability, while also being manageable.
What will happen when artificial intelligence systems give law firms the potential to generate leverage of 1-to-400?
Watching How the Numbers Move
Most law firm leaders and managers watch their numbers very closely, but they often fail to notice how those numbers move.
Understanding variation in performance — how the numbers move — can provide profound insights into improving profitability.
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.
Artificial Intelligence: The Legal Mind at its Best?
Law firm partners should invest a few minutes in their own future, by watching a recent series of TED Talks about artificial intelligence.
None of these talks deal directly with the practice of law, but all of them are highly relevant to the Scylla and Charybdis of profitability and competition that threaten small and midsize law firms throughout the world.
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.
Quality Assurance: Where to Start?
All law firms talk about "quality," but few can actually demonstrate it consistently. To ensure a significant return on investment, quality assurance must be planned and managed using supervision and documentation methods specific to each practice area. It must also incorporate the special needs and characteristics of risk management in legal practice.
With all the possible areas for improvement, even in well-managed firms, where should a law firm start to build a systematic, sustainable quality assurance system?
We recommend that you begin with a quality assurance demonstration project.
The “Freshfields Checklist”
Freshfields has announced a significant decline in profits, even as fee revenues increased slightly. Moreover, members of the firm's management team are taking an increase in their compensation.
Is it time to panic? Has the firm management gone mad?
We don't think so.
What is the one thing that your firm must get right next year?
As Walker Clark clients approach the end of 2016, which for most of them also is the end of their fiscal year, we have noticed a wide range of questions and discussions about the issues that they will face in 2017. Most of their concerns -—and most of the requests for our services — at this time of the year cluster around seven common themes.
In many cases, our clients express these issues in terms such as "We have to decide what to do about this before we move into 2017." This is especially important for small and midsize firms, which typically have less tolerance for management and business development vulnerabilities than do larger firms.
