Walker Clark
Worldview Archives
The Law Firm of the Future: A Predisposition for Innovation
Successful law firms in the future will not only keep up with trends and developments; they will lead them.
Innovation is more than just doing things better. Rather, it is a fundamental change. It shifts the paradigms that control how we think and act today.
The Law Firm of the Future: An Intense Focus on Quality
Quality must be more than a slogan on a law firm's website.
Quality management is perhaps the last great frontier for leaders and managers in traditional law firms.
The Law Firm of the Future: “Anytime, Anywhere” Service
One defining characteristic of the successful law firm of the future is already visible in many of the most successful law firms today.
The successful law firm of the future will be able to deliver a high degree of responsiveness and service quality anytime and anywhere the client needs legal services.
The Law Firm of the Future: 40-to-1 Leverage? 400-to-1?
The successful law firm of the future will be almost unrecognizable to most law firm members today.
Unprecedented workflow leverage will create opportunities for exponential increases in productivity and unprecedented challenges to manage it.
The Law Firm of the Future: Sustainable Profitability
Your law firm is making money today.
But what about next year?
What about ten years from now?
Do you even know how you are profitable today?
The Law Firm of the Future: Intimate Client Relationships
"My lawyer is my best friend."
How often has a client said that about you?
"Client intimacy," not just good client service, will be an important feature of the successful law firm of the future.
The Law Firm of the Future: From “Factory” to “Shipyard”
The law firm of the future will probably be more like a shipyard than a factory.
The conversion is already underway in many law firms.
The Law Firm of the Future: Seven Critical Forces That Will Determine Success
One of the most frequent questions that I am asked these days is What will law firms look like ten years from now? Twenty years?
Contrary to popular belief, we really can foretell the future, especially of the legal services industry.
And a very clear picture is emerging.
This is the first of a series of posts that will describe and explore seven characteristics that will determine which law firms remain successful in the legal services industry of the future, and what law firms can do now to build them into their operations and professional cultures.
Buried Treasure
Most lawyers have an untapped source of new fees...
...from old clients.
Research conducted by Walker Clark LLC with our clients over the past twenty years confirms that the return on investment in keeping in touch with inactive clients — even ones who haven't provided any work for years — can be significantly better than the time, effort, and expense of looking for new ones.
Should your law firm become a legal services “oasis?”
Instead of trying to expand your market presence in a major commercial center, which is already crowded with competitors, your firm's better opportunities might be found in a "legal desert."
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?
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.
