Walker Clark Worldview
commentary and insights for law firm leaders
Signs and Portents
We’re just lawyers, not fortune tellers.
Actually, there is a lot that even the smallest law firm can do to anticipate future trends and developments that will affect them and their clients.
Here are five simple but reliable macroeconomic indicators that any law firm an use to anticipate future trends more accurately and be better prepared for both the expected and the unexpected in 2026 and beyond.
What will be most important to your business in 2026?
What should drive your law firm’s business plan for 2026?
Too many firms try to do too many things at once—and accomplish far less than they could if they focused on just two or three high‑impact strategic priorities.
As 2026 approaches, small and midsize law firms face an environment that demands a sharper sense of direction than ever before. Markets are shifting. Client expectations are evolving. Technology, regulation, and competition have blurred traditional boundaries of size and geography. Amid all this, clarity of purpose—expressed through a few well‑chosen strategic priorities—is not simply good management practice; it is an essential survival strategy.
The Partner in Crisis: The Role of Counseling Psychology
Although law firms often create conditions that lead to severe stress in their people, traditional responses, such as “It’s a personal problem, not the firm’s” or do-it-yourself “interventions,” can make things worse.
In this article, Lisa M. Walker Johnson, a counseling psychologist with more than 30 years experience working with lawyers and their law firms, outlines the strategies and basic rules for success in helping a partner in crisis.
At the Crossroads
Around the world, many first-generation law firms have reached a pivotal juncture. Their founders—now in their fifties or early sixties—are beginning to contemplate retirement and the future of the practices they built.
Without a well-informed and realistic plan, a successful legacy can quickly dissolve once the founder steps away.
Guides and Shadows
Traditional cross-training is time-consuming and costly.
It requires an investment of time and attention, on the part of trainer and trainee alike, to acquire specialized knowledge that may be used only infrequently during the lawyer's career with the firm. In some law firms it involves spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to send young lawyers to external continuing legal education programs and conferences that add little, if any, relevant practical knowledge. The firm also often loses current revenue, because it cannot always charge the cross-trainee's full hourly rate for work performed outside their specialty.
There is a better way.
Avoiding Buyer’s Remorse: Ask the right questions.
As we approach the end of another calendar year, there is an upsurge almost everywhere in the world among small law firms looking for possible merger or acquisition opportunities.
The short-term motivations and long-term objectives of these explorations vary, but there are several questions that any law firm receiving an overture from another firm or prospective lateral partner should ask first, before entering into serious negotiations.
Having solid, fact-based answers to these questions will help you to avoid wasting time and management attention, as well as possible disappointment, on overtures that look promising on the surface but lack the underlying foundations needed for success.
Are you ready for unexpected opportunities?
Sometimes the greatest risk is the risk of unexpected success.
According to recent coverage, some of the largest U.S. law firms have become less likely to contest Trump administration actions in his second term, reportedly due to new executive pressures and retributive policies targeting law firms perceived as adversaries. As a result, cases that would traditionally be absorbed by these firms are cascading down to smaller practices—many of which face limits in staff, technology, and financial resources to handle this new caseload.
Taking on a sudden, unpredictable surge in caseload can jeopardize a small firm’s service quality, staffing capacity, and client relationships.
Is one year enough?
Should your law firm move to a “rolling” two-year business plan?
Engagement Letters and First Impressions
By reframing engagement letters as a strategic communication tool, law firms can strengthen relationships from day one.
Here are three often-overlooked opportunities that can transform engagement letters into instruments of lasting client engagement and satisfaction.
Integrating Business Planning, Compensation, and Career Advancement
The competition for legal talent has never been fiercer.
One strategy stands out for its clarity, simplicity, and effectiveness, especially for small and midsize law firms: integrating business planning, performance-based compensation, and career advancement into a unified career management path for senior associates and partners.
This post explores the structure and benefits of such an integrated system, how each component can be tailored to your firm’s unique needs, and why it is a transformative force for law firm performance and long-term lawyer retention.
Five Ideas for Better Partners Meetings
Better partners meetings build better partnerships.
Law firms make a big mistake when they avoid partners meetings or minimize their importance to being little more than an occasionally required ceremony.
Such an approach, although perhaps understandable in some law firms, is a short-sighted mistake, because it denies the firm access to one of its most important assets: the collective experience, insights, and wisdom of the partnership.
Here are five suggestions that Walker Clark clients have used to make their partners meetings more productive.
