Walker Clark
Worldview Archives
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.
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.
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?
Why don’t they want to become partners?
This is not just something that we can blame on "the Millennials."
For the past 20 years, partners from law firms of all sizes, in almost every part of the world, frequently have told me that they can't understand why so many of their best associates and non-equity partners decline the offer of equity partnership.
Partner Compensation: a Small Law Firm’s Biggest Risk?
Smaller law firms have much less tolerance for poor management. The loss of just a few clients or even one partner can have a disproportionately larger impact than in a larger firm.
One of the biggest risks to a small law firm — and one that is frequently overlooked or, in some partnerships, deliberately ignored — is its partner compensation system.
Is it laziness or fear...
An article in today's on-line edition of Australasian Lawyer, reports a shocking statistic for an industry sector that claims that its highest value is service to the client.
A study to be released next week report that 60% of law firms do not ask for client feedback regularly. No wonder that the legal profession has a customer satisfaction score that is lower than other major professional and business services sectors.
Is your partner compensation system a strategic liability?
The legal press this week gave us two interesting examples of how partner compensation systems, and the cultural assumptions and values that they represent, can thwart the efforts of excellent law firms to achieve their strategic objectives.
Is your law firm's partner compensation an asset in your efforts to achieve sustainable business success, or is it an obstacle?
When is enough, enough?
Making a decision to leave your law firm partnership is likely to be the hardest career decision you will ever make.
How do you know when the timing is right, for you and for the firm?
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?
Does your law firm have an associate retention plan?
Recruiting good associates into a law firm is difficult enough. Keeping the good ones is even harder.
In almost almost every legal market in the world, the toughest competition is not for clients but for legal talent.
The Art of Lawyer Recruiting
One of the biggest investments — and sometimes the biggest mistake — that a law firm makes is when it hires a lawyer.
This post links to two practical guides to make the hiring decision more reliable.
