Sharing Your Profitability Numbers: All for One?
Because of client pressure on fees, law firms are scrutinizing their profitability numbers more than ever. If the clients are right, firms are looking for new efficiencies, better project management and innovative staffing. But we see that law firm leaders are looking at profitability as “business lines” as well. Is this area of practice a […]
Getting Partner Performance on Track
At a recent summit meeting of U.S. practice group leaders in a global firm, I had the opportunity to run a leadership self-assessment (The Leadership Practices Inventory) and then ask the leaders to apply their insights to partner under-performance. The “takeaways” from this session may help any practice group leader who is charged with turning […]
2015 Global Partner Compensation System Survey
In 2006, 2009, 2012 and again this year, we surveyed a significant sample of law firms throughout the world on the subject of partner compensation.
Partner Compensation Systems in Professional Service Firms Part I
Before you overhaul your firm’s compensation system, consider this analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the most common systems used in professional service firms. And keep in mind the basic truths about compensation… Scroll down to the link at the end of this article to download a printable pdf copy. In our work, we […]
New Competition Requires Fundamental Readjustments
Compensating Practice Team Leaders.
Appraisals Revisited
Published in: Professional HR, September/October 2006. This article is reprinted with kind permission from the original publishers. © 2006, Nick Jarrett-Kerr Most professional-services firms claim to have appraisal systems, but the trouble is that very few of them are effective, particularly at partner level. Implementation is the main headache; “It’s a nightmare getting the partners […]
Compensation and Remuneration Revisited
Clarifying and Defining What the Firm Expects of its Partners Before deciding the best method of compensation and profit sharing in law firms, it is important to be clear about what the firm expects of its partners and what roles and responsibilities it needs them to perform. Partners equally need to be clear how they […]
Creating and Rewarding Profitable Performance
The Links Between the Success of the Firm and Individual Partner Contribution and Reward Published in: Kerma Partners Quarterly 2007, Issue 3. This article is reprinted with kind permission from the original publishers. © 2007, Nick Jarrett-Kerr The issues of partner performance and rewards are rising on law firm agendas. Law firm leaders talk a […]
How Partner Compensation Can Support Strategic Goals and Economic Objectives
For many firms, partner compensation has long been managed in isolation from their overall business strategy, which is primarily focused on external factors, such as markets and clients. But, by aligning compensation models with strategic objectives, firms will be far better equipped to achieve their goals. The Kerma Partners’ ‘Global Survey of Large Law Firm […]
Valuing and Judging Partners – Beyond the Elephant Test!
We tend to make informal value judgements all the time about our partners and potential partners. Questions like “Do I like him?”, “Do I respect her?”, “What is she good at?” all require emotional or, at least, unstructured responses. In recent times, these somewhat informal judgements have become more formalised as they often establish the […]