Walker Clark Worldview
commentary and insights for law firm leaders
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.
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.
