Walker Clark
Worldview Archives
Is Central America the next target for the global law firms?
For at least the last two decades, conventional wisdom has held that Central America is not an attractive market for setting up local operations of global firms, because of three key factors.
While all three factors remain present to date, other market factors have altered the picture somewhat.
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.
Evaluating Associate Evaluations: Three Questions that Partners Must Ask
As the new year begins, many law firms are looking at their performance evaluation standards and procedures for associates. This is more than just another "HR exercise."
Our firm has identified a clear, direct, and positive correlation between the quality of performance standards for associates and the overall financial performance of a law firm. As profitability and competition become more challenging for most law firms, many are concluding that it is time to get serious about associate performance.
Five Asian Legal Markets to Watch: Vietnam
Vietnam will experience substantial growth in its economy and legal market in the next five years. In our view, it already is a "must be there" location for any international firm that is seriously interested in developing a Southeast Asian practice, especially law firms based in other parts of the Asia-Pacific region.
We also expect that a group of well-regarded independent Vietnamese law firms can continue to compete effectively against the local offices of foreign law firms.
This is the second of our series of briefings on high-potential legal markets in Asia for the next five years.
Confronting Cultural Realities
"Why don't we get the results we expect?"
This is a common frustration of many law firm partners and managers. One way partners can dramatically increase the likelihood of achieving satisfactory results is to incorporate cultural due diligence into their decisions and the execution of their strategic priorities and goals.
Should your law firm be thinking about alternative business structures?
The renewed interest in "alternative business structures" (ABS) is not something that applies only to the largest law firms. Given the right regulatory environment, client base, and practice areas, even small firms can realize substantial improvements in profitability and client satisfaction.
However, an ABS might not be right for every firm.
On Being Passionately Involved
As lawyers, we work hard at the office. At the end of the day, some of us go home to our personal lives, with little or no further involvement in the communities around us. Others, however, remain passionately involved in community and professional organizations and events.
Those of us in the first group are missing a great opportunity to market ourselves and our firm, but also even better opportunities for life-long professional and personal fulfillment.
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.
Five Asian Markets to Watch: Philippines
Our recent evaluation of the growth prospects of Asian legal markets between now and 2020 persuade us that the Philippines will present great opportunities for local and foreign law firms. We expect more foreign law firms to increase their activities and, for some, their presence in the Philippines.
We also expect that increased competition will challenge the strategic thinking and management acumen of Philippine law firms, including well-established market leaders, as perhaps never before.
After We Hit the Iceberg
The massive systems failure at Delta Airlines on 8 August 2016 disrupted operations for more than 48 hours and left tens of thousands of Delta passengers stranded.
Delta Airlines is one of the largest airline companies in the world, with perhaps the world's largest and most sophisticated operations systems, but Delta's experiences over the past several days provide sobering warnings to even the smallest law firms that take don't take disaster planning and client relations recovery seriously.
So, before we all get into too much of a high dudgeon about Delta Airlines and other air carriers that have experienced similar systems problems, let's look at your law firm. There are some good lessons to be learned from Delta's misfortunes this week.
Preparing for the Trojan Horse
As reported recently in this blog, Indian lawyers anticipate a liberalization of restrictions on foreign lawyers and law firms in the near future; although the concept is not without opposition from some members of the profession. Walker Clark clients elsewhere also have had to respond to the effects that the entry of foreign lawyers and law firms have in markets that previously were largely insulated, either by local market conditions or by regulatory design, from foreign competition.
Our experiences advising national and local firms in these markets suggest five basic questions that lawyer and law firms should ask as they start planning to meet these new competitive challenges.
Five Obstacles to Effective Communications with Clients
"The most effective way to communicate with a client, is to communicate with the client."
Vlad Zabrodin's insightful observation at this year's Balkan Legal Forum points out a persistent challenge in the communications practices of many lawyers and in the culture of many otherwise well-managed law firms. We talk at clients, but often fail to listen to them.
Five Asia-Pacific Legal Markets to Watch in the Next Five Years
This is the first of a series of six posts that will be published over the next three months and that will report our firm's analysis and forecasts for five Asia-Pacific legal markets that we believe will offer the greatest growth in the demand for legal services from international law firms and well-established national and local firms.
An Open Indian Legal Market: Opportunity or Threat to Indian Law Firms?
The Bar Council of India is about to approve rules to permit foreign lawyers to practice in India. National and local law firms in India are already concerned about how the entry of foreign lawyers and law firms could change the competitive dynamics of the Indian legal market.
Document! Document! Document!
Getting things done requires that we confront reality at its most basic levels in the firm. Documenting internal strategic priorities, business plans, and commitment to and expectations of our people is a fundamental step for getting things done.
One of the most common characteristics of firms that fail to implement decisions well is that they try to short-cut documentation, or omit it completely.
Practicing Law in the Dark
Do you really know how profitable your practice is?
Do you know which factors are most important to your profitability?
For a surprising percentage of lawyers and law firms, the honest answer to each of these questions is "not really." They are practicing law in the dark.
It is not surprising that they frequently stumble over obstacles and fall into holes that other law firms easily avoid.
Balancing Optimism and Pessimism
In 2009, President Barack Obama faced the difficult decision about whether to proceed with his agenda for health care reform in the United States, on the heels of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
His advisors asked him somewhat facetiously, "Do you feel lucky? Because that is what it's going to take to pull this off."
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.
Learning from the Dragon: The Magic Circle Law Firms in China
Some foreign law firms are learning some hard lessons from the Chinese legal market.
The Lawyer has published a very interesting "long read" article on the disappointments that some prominent foreign firms, especially Magic Circle firms like Linklaters and Allen & Overy, are experiencing in their China practices. In "Why the Magic Circle is Struggling in China,” Yun Kriegler has summarized recent problems that some foreign firms are experiencing as the Chinese legal market matures.
Some of the observations and comments might describe some aspects of your firm, as well.
Silence is not always golden.
Law firms with poor internal communications skills and practices face great obstacles when they try to implement any decision, even minor ones.
One of the most important tools in a firm's internal "communications tool kit" is to schedule time for talking.
This is the first in a series of short posts about questions that I frequently receive about the importance of internal communications to "getting things done" in law firms.
