New York, London and Hong Kong may vie for the title of world’s financial capital. But the debate isn’t so straightforward in the law, with centers like Gurgaon, Belfast, and Dayton, Ohio competing for a growing share of legal work that needn’t be performed in law firms’ urban headquarters. Here’s a preview of what might yet turn out to be tomorrow’s “capitals of law.”

A truly worrisome trend is spreading from American law firms throughout the world: institutionalized low leverage. Many partners welcome the higher profits and managerial relief this trend produces. But in the longer term, this short-sighted policy threatens serious damage to firms, clients, and partners themselves.

Lawyers in other countries carefully monitor the U.S. legal market, sometimes regarding it as a trendsetter and even a model. In recent years, however, a U.S.-led trend to-wards lower average levels of leverage could have serious-long term consequences for that market and any others that follow it. This has implications for the legal profession, for firms, for partners, and importantly, for clients.

Legal project management has been an unqualified success for many major law firms that have adopted it — but only because they have supported it from the top, built programs from the ground up, and stayed relentlessly focused on practical, real-world, lawyer-first training. Here are LPM success stories from across the United States.

Yes, but will it last? Yes, but will it work in the long run? These are the questions swirling over the head of the Legal Project Management (LPM) revolution.

LPM has emerged from its infancy and begun to both mature and move in new directions. Originally driven by the efforts of large law firms to satisfy major clients’ demands for greater predictability, efficiency, and budgetary control, LPM now is evolving into new forms appropriate for smaller firms and a broader variety of clients, while continuing as a powerful tool in high-ticket U.S. and E.U. legal arenas.

The apprenticeship model for training new lawyers simply isn’t adequate for legal project management skills, with potential competitive losses for law firms that retain the old model. Here’s a better blueprint for LPM training within your firm.

Law firms are waking up to client demands for more efficiency and value for money in managing matters. True, some of those demands are clumsy and blunt: “No first-year associates on our matters,” or “We cap each deposition on this case at XX hours.”

Nevertheless, firms can now respond in a constructive manner with a counter-proposal that demonstrates strong capacities in legal project management (LPM) and fee management. Instead of “ticking boxes” and offering itemized responses to itemized cost controls, firms could show clients they’re “on their side” by pro- viding more management efficiency to achieve the overall client goal of value.

Communication lapses are far more than simple misunderstandings or irritations: in the highly complex world of the modern legal transaction, they can derail a major project and fatally damage the lawyer-client relationship. Legal project management practices and principles can revolutionize the way lawyers and clients talk to each other and among themselves.

As communicators, most lawyers — especially those in law firms — tend to think they stand at the apex of the human communication food chain and that they are far superior to non-lawyers in their communications skills. If you’re not sure, just ask them.

Law firms rise and fall on their reputation, both among clients and competitors. But what do we really mean by “reputation,” and how is it measured? Edge International’s exclusive Reputational Index points the way towards the answers, and warns that the world’s leading law firms are raising the reputational stakes for everyone.

It seems that increasingly large portions of law firm marketing resources are devoted toward branding. In fact, it often appears that the first priority for every newly appointed Chief Marketing Officer is a “rebranding” project. When pressed, the reason given invariably is that a firm’s brand reflects the way the firm is seen by the marketplace.

Law firms struggling with partner compensation — which is to say, almost all firms — often blame the compensation system. But more often than not, the problem lies with the ways in which the compensation process plays out, including expectations of partner behavior and the communication of the process by which a figure is reached.

Law firms frequently call me to say they need help with their compensation system. Sometimes, they’ll indicate that it’s simply part of the strategic review. After peeling back the layers and determining what they really want, however, it is often apparent that the compensation system is just fine “as is.” It is the deployment of the compensation process that can create unnecessary challenges.

In this article, I will explore why so many partners may be griping about a compensation system that, in fact, is just fine.

The global economy is in rough shape and will get worse before it gets better. That means law firms must sharpen their business development efforts if they hope to improve profitability over the next 12 to 24 months. Here are seven ways in which your firm can increase its chances for major business victories.

At the time of writing, the American economy was lurching towards what looked increasingly like a double-dip recession. GDP growth estimates for the balance of 2011 and into 2012 have been downgraded to between 1% and 2%,well below the pace required to power a recovery. Unemployment remained stubbornly north of 9%, with gusts expected into the double digits. Staggering Europe was eyeing the previously unthinkable prospect of a fiscal union to staunch the bleeding from its weaker members’ economies, and even powerhouse China was showing signs of cooling off and perhaps suffering a bursting of its own housing bubble.

Perfectionist lawyers who crave unblemished success and endless positive reinforcement are likely never to reach their full potential and are at serious risk of burnout and loss. Law firm and law department leaders owe these lawyers and their organizations solutions to their self-limiting behavior.

Productivity is on the minds of legal leaders and managers these days, whether they reside in-house, are law firm captains, or serve as practice group leaders charged with getting optimal output from the troops. Firms and legal departments are going to extraordinary lengths to maximize lawyer efficiency, including implementing Legal Project Management, shelling out for the latest software tools, or retooling leverage ratios and client service teams.