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International Edition

Information overload

Information overload is a problem for all of us: too many emails, too much data, too many magazine articles to read. Sorting the wheat from the chaff is a major challenge. And if lawyers are to focus on the right information, a lot of the sorting has to be done for them. How can firms approach this challenge?
8 minute read

International Edition

Creative coaching

There are good clients and better clients. This is a situation most law firms will recognise - the better ones are profitable. Yet how do you work out which clients are valuable to the firm? And how true is the accepted premise that you should nurture small clients because they grow into substantial fee generators and pay back the initial investment you make in them?
7 minute read

International Edition

Merger mechanics

Over the past five years there have been significant developments within the legal services sector in the major global offshore jurisdictions, in particular the creation of multi-jurisdictional offshore law firms representing a dramatic change from the traditional offshore law firm model.
7 minute read

International Edition

Professional Development: The learning zone

A recent Legal Week roundtable, in association with LexisNexis, addressed the crucial issue of professional development and how law firms with modern, effective training structures can steal a march on their rivals in the war for talent. Scott Appleton reports
9 minute read

International Edition

Financial Management: Building the future

In helping many law firms win and retain business during the past 10 years, practice areas such as litigation have told us they are finding it increasingly difficult to predict where their next instructions are coming from. Changes such as the Woolf reforms are affecting the size of their market and the potential it offers. Some lawyers even contend that the nature of their work means they can only react to their market. We disagree.
7 minute read

International Edition

Financial Management: The right measure

The recent debate among managing partners about whether law firms should be focusing on wider issues than profits per equity partner (PEP) has highlighted the question of what really drives firms forward and whether robust financials are, in isolation, a good indicator of a firm's long-term health.
7 minute read

International Edition

Staying power

A recent report by the Law Society, The Great 'Quality of Life' Debate: Best Practice in Staff Retention and Job Satisfaction revealed several worrying trends with two in particular highlighted. Of the firms surveyed, 73% said there were problems with employee retention and 58% identified problems with employee engagement. These are significant and concerning findings.
7 minute read

International Edition

The backup plan

Family law specialists 29 Bedford Row recently took the unusual step (for a barristers' chambers) of outsourcing its whole IT support and disaster recovery solution. Will more chambers follow suit in the attempt to ditch the 'quill and ink' image that so many outside the profession believe still persists?
7 minute read

International Edition

Plan of action

A law firm with offices in London and the West Country recently experienced a power blackout at 4pm as a result of a failure at an electrical sub-station. At that very time, the firm was on the brink of closing a film business deal worth close to £20m. Fortunately, the firm was able to implement its contingency plans, work around the blackout and close the deal, even though it was nearly two days before power was restored.
7 minute read

International Edition

Lateral thinking

A recruiting law firm can face more than it bargained for when making a lateral hire. A recent House of Lords decision clarifies how economic torts can be used to hold a recruiting firm liable in damages to the lateral hire's original firm. The recruiting firm has deeper pockets than the lateral so is often included in any claim.
7 minute read

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Legal Speak is a weekly podcast that makes sense of what’s happening in the legal industry.

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