Walker Clark
Worldview Archives
CRM: No Longer a Luxury for Lawyers
One of the most important lessons of the pandemic has been the vital importance of maintaining frequent personal contact with clients.
Client Relations Management (CRM) systems need to move from the marketing department onto the desktop of every fee earner in a law firm. In the hands of a reasonably diligent lawyer — even a horribly busy one — a good desktop CRM system streamlines the flow of information between a central marketing and business development database and each lawyer.
Will 2022 be the year when everything changed?
For most law firms, internal operations and client service processes will not be the same in 2022 as before the COVID-19 pandemic. Many law firms have already announced how what began as temporary adjustments have already become, or soon will become, permanent components of their practice.
These changes will have substantial effects of law firm finances, lawyer performance, profitability, and in many cases, partner compensation structures and formulas.
There will be many responses by law firms around the world, but one response that will almost always be fatal eventually will be to throw up one's hands and say, "We'll figure it out as we go along — one problem at a time."
Building Teamwork by Actually Working as a Team
One of the great challenges to busy lawyers in law firms, corporate and government law departments, and other legal services organizations is to work better together as a team and to promote teamwork throughout the organization.
Unfortunately, many lawyers waste large amounts of money and fee earner time every year attending “teamwork” workshops and seminars.
We recommend a better way.
Have you tested your surge capacity recently?
Two reports this week suggest that a robust economic recovery could be as close as six months away.
Is your law firm ready?
How do you know for sure?
Four Guiding Principles for Uncertain Times
Ever since we formed Walker Clark LLC back in 2002, our firm has observed four core values that have guided our advice to our clients, many of whom have implicitly incorporated these principles into their professional cultures and day-to-day workplace environments.
As we look ahead into a new decade, we remind ourselves of them, remember how they have been reliable guidelines in rapidly changing legal markets and business environments over the past 18 years, and offer them for whatever inspiration and benefit they might provide in the future.
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.
Time to Get Really Serious About IT Security
The rapid development of the Dark Web and the adoption of new operational modes in the legal services industry, such as working at home, pose substantial new threats to many law firms that might have previously assumed, correctly or not, that they were "immune" from hacking and ransomware.
There are several basic steps that any law firm, of any size and anywhere, can take to reduce the risks.
The “new normal” will not be good enough.
Banish the phrase "new normal" from your thinking about the future.
As law firms begin to think about operations after the pandemic subsides, many of their partners have been using the phrase new normal. This mindset — that the future will be just a continuation of the past — is as risky to the future of your law firm as ingesting bleach or taking ineffective, dangerous drugs to fight a coronavirus.
When Cash Flow Dries Up
The Colorado River in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico no longer flows into the Sea of Cortez. Instead, due to diversion for irrigation upstream, it evaporates in the desert about nine kilometers away.
Many law firms are experiencing an analogous situation with cash flow during the COVID-19 crisis.
Here are three tips to keep at least some money in your firm's revenue pipeline during these difficult times.
Six Months from Failure?
An article posted today in the Law Society Gazette suggests that as many as 5,000 small English law firms and solo practices could be forced out of business within the next six months. Most of these firms are retail firms, or "high street" firms, that primarily serve individual clients and small businesses in relatively small matters, such as real estate conveyancing.
The problem is cash flow.
COVID-19 Update: Resilient Leadership in a Time of Crisis
Resilience has become a big buzz-word in the business world during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the legal services industry is not immune from it.
But what does resilient leadership look like in a law firm? How do the leaders of a law firm — both the titular ones and the de facto ones — successfully guide their organizations through bad times?
This article, first published in Walker Clark Worldview in 2015 and updated for the current crisis management context, offers six actions to build resilient leadership in a law firm. Remember, the goal is not just to get through the current storms, but to emerge from them stronger than before. To do this, everyone in a legal services organization — but especially in law firms — needs to deal with some very disquieting questions.
Business Intimacy in an Age of Social Distancing
The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has introduced social distancing as a basic business practice.
We also need to master the skills of business intimacy.
Even If You Don't Have a COVID-19 Plan
Effective crisis management involves more than just good planning. It also is a valuable learning experience.
Most law firms have been caught unprepared for the short-term and potential long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether you have a well-developed tested plan, no plan at all, or something in-between, one of the most important things that you can do is to document all the practical problems that you have encountered in responding to the pandemic.
A Quick — But Not Easy — COVID-19 Strategic Checklist for Law Firms
The March 9, 2020, issue of Bloomberg Businessweek contains a practical strategic checklist to "make your company disaster-proof-ish."
The nine steps listed in the article apply with full force to law firms, especially small and midsize ones. It should be required reading for every law firm managing partner.
Considering a new practice area? Consider outsourcing.
Your firm has decided that you should open a new practice area or expand an existing one.
You have the lawyers that you need to deliver a credible service to an increasingly demanding legal market.
What else do you need?
A Four-Day Work Week for Law Firms?
There has been considerable discussion recently about whether a four-day work week promotes greater individual and group productivity.
Some of this appears to be relevant to law firms.
What would your law firm have to do to move to a four-day work week?
“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.
Women as Emerging Leaders of the Global Legal Profession
Women lawyers have substantially increased their presence and prominence in law firms worldwide, especially in the common-law jurisdictions of the Caribbean region.
This process is not finished.
What will law firms look like in 2049?
Herbert Smith Freehills CEO Mark Rigotti has published a thought-provoking article in today's on-line edition of LegalWeek.
As we start 2019, his comments should be "required thinking” for lawyers everywhere.
Metrisiphobia
Why are some lawyers afraid of performance measurements?
In many cases, it is because the management of the firm doesn't understand, and therefore fail to communicate, the benefits and advantages of better performance measurement for each lawyer.
