Walker Clark
Worldview Archives
Can't innovate? Ask a client for help.
To paraphrase Marcel Proust, the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes.
A focus group of your best clients could be your best guide to seeing, understanding, and becoming a "law firm of the future."
You have decided to change your partner compensation system. What’s the next step?
It sometimes seems as if there is an almost infinite range of structures and options for partner compensation systems in law firms. Choosing among them can be a challenge for anyone.
The biggest challenge for most law firms, however, is actually making the change, once they have decided what it will be.
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.
When a Lateral Partner Candidate is at Your Door
The melodramatic title and image for this posting might overstate the point, but it is one that small and midsize law firms frequently overlook when recruiting a partner from another law firm.
Don't make decisions about how to navigate through this very important decision based only on what you believe that you see.
Will the “lawyer of the future” be a computer?
Artificial intelligence will be as much a part of the "law firm of the future" as desks and paper have been for the past 200 years.
It also can be part of the "law firm of today."
This is one of ten most frequently read posts in the Worldview Archives, with more than 11,000 views since it was first published in 2017
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.
The “Law Firm of the Future” or the Future of the Law Firm?
The International Bar Association has announced a conference on "Building the Law Firm of the Future," to be held in November 2017 in London.
It sounds interesting.
But I wonder if they have the topic backwards.
Are law firm “partners” obsolete?
In the past few weeks, I have enjoyed stimulating discussions with several Walker Clark clients about whether their law firms should have non-equity partners.
This subject leads to one basic question that has profound implications for many law firms today:
Should we have partners at all?
From Strategic Planning to Strategic Success: the “3x3” Model
The implementation of a law firm's most important decisions can be as simple as: Ready-Aim-Fire.
So why, in so many law firms, is it: Ready-Fire-Aim?
Does your law firm have a war plan?
At no time since the 1960s have the signs been more ominous.
One increasingly has the sense that the increasing tensions between the United States and North Korea will not end well.
If your practice involves Asian clients, cases, or transactions, especially in northeastern Asia, you should develop a "war plan" now.
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 International Challenge to Asian Law Firms
As international law firms from outside the region become more deeply embedded in the legal markets of Asia, the leading local and national law firms, which previously may have held relatively secure market positions, must respond quickly and accurately to these new competitors, or face relegation to the lower, less-profitable levels of the market.
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.
