Walker Clark
Worldview Archives
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.
“Black Box” or “Black Hole”
Some law firms use "black box" systems for partner compensation because they want to avoid internal disputes among partners.
A former partner’s case against a major U.S. law firm points out how these systems often can make things worse.
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.
Listening to Learn
What is the most important thing that a law firm or group of lawyers can do to respond better to fast change in their market?
Making Sense of the Chaos
The erratic attempts at policy coming from the Trump government in the United States have made commercial and financial prospects more unpredictable than perhaps in any period since the 1930s. Many investors and business people, as well as traditionally friendly governments, now wonder, often with good reason, whether the United States can be trusted to honor its international commitments at any level of enterprise or international engagement.
These forces and risks ultimately affect almost every law firm with any significant international or regional practice. This is a real challenge for the legal profession, because clients traditionally have looked to lawyers and law firms for analysis and problem solving in uncertain times. Yet the business futures of many of those firms are perhaps even less certain than those of their clients.
“New Law”: When Being an Excellent Lawyer is not Good Enough
As one managing partner of a U.S. law firm recently commented, "Today we have to be experts in subjects that they never taught in law school, not even five years ago. Being an excellent lawyer is no longer good enough."
Advising clients about compliance with international economic sanctions is one such challenging "new law" area.
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 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.
“Eating” Without “Killing” Each Other: A Performance-Driven Lockstep Model for Lawyer Compensation in Law Firms
In a previous posting in this blog, we pointed out how an “eat what you kill” system of partner compensation can introduce toxic elements into a law firm, which frequently counteract any motivating effect on lawyer performance.
This short article outlines the features of an alternative to "eat what you kill" compensation in law firms. It works well in any size law firm, but is especially suited to small and midsize firms.
“Salary Plus” Compensation Structures to Promote Better Partner Performance in Law Firms
In a previous posting in this blog, we pointed out how an "eat what you kill" system of partner compensation can introduce toxic elements into a law firm, which frequently counteract any motivating effect on lawyer performance.
This short article outlines the features of an alternative to "eat what you kill" compensation in law firms. It can work well in any size law firm, but is especially suited to small and midsize firms.
Is “eat what you kill” killing your law firm?
An "eat what you kill" system of partner compensation does have some good points for some law firms.
For most law firms, however, "eat what you kill" can kill the partnership.
This is the second most frequently read post in the Worldview Archives, with more than 22,000 views since it was first published in 2018.
Are you thinking about starting your own law firm?
In the past two years, we have observed a new trend in some legal markets. For a variety of reasons, senior associates and non-equity partners are leaving their law firms to start their own.
A common factor in these departures, however, is a conclusion that there no longer is a persuasive business case to remain in the firm, and that, notwithstanding the risks, the opportunities are better in one's own firm.
Here are some things to think about.
Every law firm — without exception — needs a Chief Innovation Officer.
No matter how large, how famous, or how successful your law firm has been in the past...
...if you want to increase the chances of your law firm still being in business ten years from now, you must have a Chief Innovation Officer.
Sorry, there are no exceptions.
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.
“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?
Understanding Paradigms
Two of the biggest challenges for the Walker Clark "futures practice" are to break down the paradigms that prevent our clients from seeing the future — and sometimes even today — clearly, and to stimulate genuinely innovative responses.
Why Small and Midsize Law Firms are Especially Vulnerable to Mental Health Issues
What would you do if you suspected that one of your colleagues was chronically depressed or was abusing alcohol or drugs?
Unfortunately, most small and midsize law firms can't answer this question.
Some don't even want to think about it.
Merger, Best Friends, or Something Else?
Many small and midsize law firms find themselves in some difficult — and for most of them, unprecedented — strategic predicaments.
They also are confronted with a wide range of possibilities such as, mergers, Vereins, general and specialized networks, and "best friends" relationships.
How can each firm make the decision that is best for them?
Setting Goals That Are Worth the Effort
Success starts when you have a goal?
Not necessarily.
Success is likely only when firms make the choices that are right for them.
