Fit for the Future

Legal Week Student   What sort of world will the law firms of tomorrow inhabit? How will firms respond to changing client demands? What will the fundamental economics of a legal services business look like in ten years? What skills will be needed to succeed and where will they be acquired? These are some of […]
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A New Model of Partnership

Managing Partner magazine   Being a partner isn’t what it used to be! The economic climate, impending deregulation, ever rising client demands, attitudinal changes (both in society and among young professionals), the apparent obsolescence of the historic charging model and the impact of IT on process efficiency are all catalysts forcing change in many firms. […]
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Walking the talk

Legal Marketing Magazine   Perusing law firms’ corporate communication materials and browsing their websites is a pretty mundane pastime. In truth there are only so many ways in which even the most eloquent of wordsmiths can say the same thing over and over and over again. Taken at face value we live in a world […]
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Virtually reality

Managing Partner Magazine   Virtual Law Partners (VLP/www.virtuallawpartners.com) was established in May 2008 with eight attorneys and now has around 50. It describes itself as a “virtually connected and geographically distributed firm that provides excellent legal service at very competitive rates”. When it was established it made the news in the US legal press for […]
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Out of this World

Managing Partner Magazine   The past year has seen unprecedented turbulence for the legal profession, but is perhaps simply a portent of what is to come. Longstanding rules of competition and client relationship management have been cast to one side. A new, resolutely commercial, approach is to the fore, which is an anathema to those […]
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Pitch Perfect…

Published in PSMG Magazine   When business is tight, maximising the opportunity afforded by pitches, presentations and proposals is quite rightly an area of intense focus for firms. But what are the simple guidelines which, if followed, can help to improve win rates? Success in winning business is, first and foremost, about selecting the right […]
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“The Road is Long” Merger Masterclass

Published in Managing Partner Magazine   Many managing partners regard the delivery of a successful merger as their gold-standard achievement. In one act they see themselves able to demonstrate, for the entire world to see, that their firm is going places, has ambition, and is prepared to move decisively and determinedly to achieve its goals. […]
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“Hitting the Ground Running” Business Development Masterclass

Published in Managing Partner Magazine   Many firms are coming to terms with a very uncomfortable truth: that growth is the only way out of the perilous position in which they find themselves. In many cases, costs have been pared to a point at which any further marginal reductions will have limited impact. Furthermore, the […]
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Changing the Game Plan

Published in Legal Marketing Magazine   In these challenging times, the need to be more effective at managing strategic client relationships is ever more important. Those clients that continue to deliver revenue (albeit perhaps at significantly reduced levels) need determined focus, care and attention. Competitors are more desperate than ever to capture a share of […]
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Developing Business on a Shoestring

Published in PSMG Magazine   Forget the logic about counter-cyclical investment, when cash is in short supply discretionary budgets feel the pain. This is even more the case in businesses with high fixed and semi-fixed cost bases like professional service firms. It can therefore be no surprise that business development and marketing budgets across the […]
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Outsourcing the Core

Published in Managing Partner Magazine   On 15 June 2009, The Times predicted that the next two years will see a reduction in the number of lawyers employed in private practice in the UK by 10,000 (or over ten per cent). On 13 July 2009, the London Evening Standard carried a feature ‘Mumbai Law: 1000 […]
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Primus Inter Pares

Published in Managing Partner Magazine   Observation and experience over the past 20-plus years have led me to formulate the ‘First Law of Professional Firm Management’. It can be simply stated and I have found it to be true in firms of all sizes, shapes, hues and colours. It is most strikingly accurate among partners […]
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Profiting from Key Clients

Published in Managing Partner Magazine   It is widely accepted that the ‘Pareto effect’ applies to most businesses, with 80 per cent of turnover coming from 20 per cent of the client base. Indeed, my experience of many professional-service firms operating in the commercial sphere is that the numbers are even more compelling. It is […]
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Getting over the gain line!

“Other things being equal, the higher your speed the better.” Jim Greenwood, ‘Think Rugby’ The British & Irish Lions’ tour of South Africa brings home the importance of ‘getting over the gain line’ – that imaginary line on the field which marks the point at which the ball is closer to the opposition try line […]
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Brave in the new world

Published in ‘Legal information in a recession: A restructuring opportunity’   In the current recession, managing partners have a great opportunity to overhaul their information and knowledge-management functions for long-term growth and profitability. To succeed will require addressing critical information and knowledge-management issues, but the results will fundamentally re-shape legal business creating the profitable next-generation law […]
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Risky Scenarios

Published in Managing Partner magazine   An acid test of the efficacy of any strategy is the way in which it is able to accommodate and respond to uncertainty and unforeseen risks as they emerge over time. While we live in an increasingly non-linear world, many strategies are still constructed using a surprisingly onedimensional model. […]
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Crystal Ball Gazing

Published in Managing Partner Magazine   When marketing guru Ted Levitt said: “The future belongs to people who see possibilities before they become obvious”, he captured the essence of the challenge faced by those in fast-changing environments. How do firms cope with a world in which the pace of change has never been greater and […]
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Opening up

Published in Managing Partner magazine   Every firm has huge untapped potential in the form of hidden knowledge about clients, relationships, experience and technical issues. If unearthed and shared, this could create a step-change improvement in business performance. Generally it is not a paucity of systems that prevent firms from capitalising on knowledge. This is […]
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Learning to Succeed

Published in PSMG Magazine   When the PSMG collaborated with Cambridge Marketing College to create the world’s only CIM endorsed Professional Diploma for Professional Services Marketing it had two clear aims – to create a bespoke programme that addressed the particular needs and issues faced by marketers in our sector and to put in place […]
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Thought Leader: Competitive Strategy

Published in Managing Partner magazine   “If you are ignorant of both your enemy and yourself, then you are a fool and certain to be defeated in every battle. If you know yourself, but not your enemy, for every battle won, you will suffer a loss. If you know your enemy and yourself, you will […]
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The Devil in the Detail

Published in Legal Marketing magazine   When asked by managing partners to stress-test the revenue growth projections in the business plans of practice groups my approach is straightforward. I ask group heads to explain, in detail, where their revenue will come from based on four segmentations – by geography, by sector, by service line and […]
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“What Gets Measured Gets Done”

Published in Managing Partner Magazine   ‘What gets measured gets done’ is an old adage of management. It is also a universal truism that many firms ignore when designing and implementing performance management and reward systems. It is crucial that these are aligned with the organisation’s strategic objectives. Many firms are now moving towards a […]
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Some Observations on Law Firm Leaders

Published in Leadership Development in the Legal Profession   Over the past 20 years, I have observed a range of leaders and leadership styles in professional service firms. Over this same period, there has been an exponential increase of interest in the subject of leadership, and the crucial role that it plays in the success […]
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Mind Over Matter

Published in Managing Partner magazine   Ignore the importance of cultural fit at your peril when merging firms. Culture clash is one of the most common reasons mergers fail. Within professional services, where the importance of common values and behaviours in creating cohesive firms is indisputable, getting the cultural aspects of a merger wrong can […]
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Talking with one voice

Published in Managing Partner magazine   Integrated marketing communications is the name; clarity and consistency is the game. Students of marketing communications are inculcated with the need to create compelling, consistent and clear messages that can be directed at an array of targeted delivery channels. In considering communications (whether internal or external) it is crucial […]
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