Prioritising Initiatives – Avoiding the Seven Deadly Sins
I have often noticed that firms do not always seem to prioritise initiatives sufficiently carefully. My experience is that one or more of the following seven things get in the way of proper planning and implementation: He (or she) who shouts loudest for resources will often get them; Prioritisation is decided on positions of power […]
Business Development: Strategic Client Relationship Management
Remember the old adage “The Client is King”? Put more baldly, the reason your business remains in existence is because you have clients. To lose sight of this carries the risk of losing clients. You know that the world you operate in is highly competitive and aggressive. You also know clients are (mostly) sophisticated buyers […]
Bigger vs Better: Should your firm merge?
First, see if it can answer “yes” to one essential question. So law firm mergers are back in the news again, to the continued fascination of the legal press. For every combination that’s completed and announced, you can count on several others bubbling under in conversations within executive committees and at luncheon gatherings of senior […]
In Successful Law Firms, Actions Speak Louder than Plans
“Doing” wins out over “Strategizing” Studies predictably show that firms with a plan do better than firms without a plan. As a managing partner, you need to determine whether your firm actually has a plan or not. Here is a test that will tell you if you do – Choose a member of your firm […]
Preparing for an Unpredictable Future: Scenario Planning Tips
It hardly needs saying that the future is difficult or impossible to predict. Law firm pessimists often indulge in catastrophizing many situations that they think will be threatening or disastrous to the firm. Optimists, on the other hand, may become even narcissistic in exaggerating the firm’s special market position and often over-emphasize the chances of […]
Successful Strategy: The Essential Supporting Acts (Part Two)
In Part One of this article, I focused on some important pre-strategy initiatives which should be tackled to lay a sound foundation for successful strategy implementation. Here are some others: Key governance structures Fundamental to strategy success is a cohesive partner effort and involvement. It is not something that can simply be done and driven […]
Successful Strategy: The Essential Supporting Acts (Part One)
Behind successful firms is some form of successfully executed strategy. It can be short, punchy, even informal and, at a push, in someone’s head! The test is implementation and results, which always separates success from failure. Strategy is not simply about ‘doing things better’; it is about achieving serious competitive advantage. It is high level, […]
5 Pressing Priorities for Professional Providers (This is more than just another PR exercise)
If you like lists and you love alliteration, then you’re probably a legal management consultant. It seems that practically every article these days by people in my line of work features a numbered list of entries that all begin with the same letter. I admit that I often do the same thing in my presentations. […]
Foreign Law Firms and the Indian Legal Market
The topic of liberalization of the Indian legal profession has once again gained steam to become a hot point of conversation, both in India and globally. The new Indian government has pro-liberalization lawyers at the helm of the ministries of Law and Finance. India has the third largest GDP as per the Purchasing Power Parity Index, […]
Embracing the Product Imperative
Why and how law firms can and should consider the “product” approach.