Chasing scale for its own sake is not a strategy

Published in Managing Partner magazine   If much of what has been written is to be believed, it could easily be assumed that strategic success simply hinges on the achievement of scale. Simply by being bigger, planting more flags in the map, increasing purchasing power over suppliers and improving the gearing ratio, all will be […]
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Hardwiring Values

Published in Managing Partner magazine   In law firms of all sizes, managing partners are keen to position their firms as having a clear set of guiding principles by which they conduct business, engage with teams and serve clients. However, there is often an underlying misconception that a values-led approach is altruistic or, worse still, […]
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A New Approach for a New World

Change Management for Law Firms   LAW FIRMS continue to grapple with a number of shifts in their competitive environment as difficult market conditions show little sign of abatement. These issues create a maelstrom that will tax the skills of any leadership team to the limit. Here we consider some of the core drivers in […]
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Global Firms Should Worry More About Brand Experience Than Single Profit Pools

Published in Managing Partner magazine   The rise in international mergers over the past two years has raised a number of interesting issues about the way in which law firms can best service clients on a global basis. One of the more introspective questions asked by some in the profession is whether these unions are […]
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Client Strategy in a Changing Legal Market – Executive Summary

Report published by ARK Group   Client strategy sits at the heart of all strategy. Without the ability to attract and retain clients, at a price which delivers an acceptable level of profitability, no business can be viable in the longer term. A firm’s client strategy should be under constant review in order to ensure […]
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Game Plan

Published in Managing Partner magazine   Alternative fee arrangements are here to stay. A combination of increased competitive sophistication and recession economics mean that clients of all hues are increasingly unwilling to pay their lawyers on the basis of hourly charges. Client demand means that legal services must be delivered better, faster and cheaper. Firms […]
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Competitive Force

Published in Managing Partner magazine   The book Blue Ocean Strategy challenges the primacy of competitive strategy theories. While originally developed to support longer-term corporate strategy, the principles of a Blue Ocean approach can be adapted to create new value propositions and strongly differentiate a law firm. Rather than simply dominating existing markets, it argues […]
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Land of Promise

Published in KM Legal magazine   The enduring market for legal services, with supply significantly exceeding demand, means that law firms are being challenged by their clients to deliver their services better, faster and cheaper than ever before. Impending deregulation seems set to be a further catalyst for this now established trend. A wide range […]
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The Role of Competitive Intelligence in Shaping Strategy

Competitive Intelligence: Improving Law Firm Strategy and Decision Making   “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 […]
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Merging Cultures

Managing Partner Magazine   The principle drivers behind law firm mergers are fundamentally economics and sustainable competitive position, but at the core of their long-term success is the ability to create a unified culture and shared sense of purpose. Even in the most unbalanced of law firm marriages, it is a foolhardy managing partner that […]
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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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“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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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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