NEXT
Sign in to follow

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

International Edition

Professional Development: The training game

With recruitment and retention now a key issue for both law firms and in-house legal departments, the ability to offer high quality professional development is a key tool in developing and retaining talent.
12 minute read

International Edition

No spam here

Joyce Legal is a niche law firm specialising in litigation and construction law. To tie in with a new guide it had written on construction design regulations, the firm wanted to put on a series of seminars for the construction industry. With a two-week lead time to produce a printed flier and a three-week lead time to arrange for inserts in a leading industry publication, the quickest and most cost-effective way of promoting the events was by email. Target companies received a downloadable copy of the booking form and were returning bookings before a postal invitation would have hit their desks.
6 minute read

International Edition

Management: Pregnant and redundant

There is a perception among senior management in some City law firms that female lawyers who take time off work to have a family are no longer ambitious or committed to their careers. Some female lawyers in their thirties hold off starting a family, in the hope that they will be promoted to a partnership position first.
7 minute read

International Edition

Tech tonic

It is a sign of the times that many of the issues legal IT professionals are grappling with are the same issues that are affecting lawyers. Whereas IT may have previously been viewed by fee earners as a back-office function, the strategic goals of IT and legal professionals have since become rather more entwined; both sides have a greater awareness of each other's role within the firm. In the words of Allen & Overy (A&O) managing partner David Morley: "pretty much everything we are doing now has a technology angle, but it is not always obvious."
11 minute read

More from ALM

More from ALM

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

Resources

  • Why Embracing Change Is Essential for Your Legal Department

    Brought to you by DiliTrust

    Download Now

  • International Export and Trade Assistance State Law Survey

    Brought to you by LexisNexis®

    Download Now

  • How This Personal Injury Firm Reduced Client Intake Time by 80%

    Brought to you by PracticePanther

    Download Now

  • The Hidden Cost of Bad Reviews: Why Law Firms & Attorneys Can't Afford a Damaged Online Reputation

    Brought to you by Erase.com

    Download Now