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Growth

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IS BIGGER REALLY BETTER?

In an increasingly competitive and rapidly evolving legal landscape, sustained growth and adaptability are paramount for law firm success. To achieve these objectives, firms must strategically navigate a complex array of market forces, including mergers, acquisitions, and consolidation. These strategic maneuvers demand meticulous planning and execution to ensure seamless integration and maximize long-term value.

This section offers a comprehensive suite of resources on key growth strategies, designed to equip firm leaders with the knowledge and tools necessary to thrive. We delve into the intricacies of lateral hiring, exploring best practices for attracting and integrating top talent. Furthermore, we address the critical aspects of associate recruitment and retention, focusing on strategies to cultivate a high-performing and engaged workforce.

Alongside these essential topics, we provide in-depth discussions on diversity and generational challenges, recognizing the importance of fostering an inclusive and adaptable firm culture.

  • Articles
  • White Papers
  • Books
  • Other Resources

13 Things Your Firm Must Do Today to Attract and Retain Tomorrow’s Lawyers 

This short article (about 1,200 words) sets out what I’ve learned over the years about what law firms must do to attract and retain younger lawyers. Like it or not, today’s younger lawyers tend to...
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Diversity – The Two-Edged Sword

Diversity is on the minds of most managing partners and it’s definitely important to your clients and prospective recruits. This article touches on the economics associated with creating a "family-friendly" workplace.
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Facilitating Cross-Generational Dialogues within Work Teams

How do you communicate with the younger professionals in your firm without sounding like an adult in a PEANUTS cartoon? “Wa-wah, wa-wah.” Haserot specializes in helping firms get things done by understanding the different communications...
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Generational Perspective of Online Networking

This is a quick read. Peruse these perspectives on social networking from the different generations in the workplace.
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Guidelines for Equity Partners 

In far too many law firms, the path to partnership is unclear and unspoken. For many, it’s a matter of time served, coupled with the fact that the would-be partner has done a reasonably good...
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Homework on Hires 

We’ve all read about the disappointing results many firms have had with lateral hiring, with failure rates as high as 60-70% according to some reports. The cost and distraction associated with a bad deal can...
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How to Engage Your Millennials

Attracting and retaining young lawyers is a vexing issue for leaders of smaller and mid-size law firms. Let’s face it. Today’s young lawyers are quite different than their counterparts from 30 and 40 years ago....
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Lateral Partner Integration: Getting One Plus One to Equal Three 

Be very strategic and deliberate if your firm plans to grow through lateral hiring at the partner level, because you can’t afford to make mistakes! Consider these findings: 75% of managing partners expect lateral hiring...
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Law Firms Consolidating at Record Setting Pace

While the vast majority of managing partners of smaller and mid-size firms say their firms want to maintain independent, it’s interesting to note that merger activity among US law firms is at all-time high according...
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Mergers Have Increased Substantially This Year,  But Pay Attention to the Red Flags

We met Bob Denney almost 30 years ago at a conference in Minneapolis, and we've been good friends ever since. He is a pioneer in law firm management and marketing. In his July 2015 Legal...
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New Report Shows Signs of Life in Law Firm Merger Market

The law firm merger market is starting to reawaken according to separate reports published by Hildebrandt International and Altman Weil. Although both reports show that firms aren’t ready to resume the highly aggressive growth strategies contemplated...
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Onboarding 10 Tips for Successfully Integrating Laterals into Your Law Firm

After months of meetings and due diligence, your firm has just landed a five-star recruit – a young hot-shot lateral hire with an oh-so-attracive book of business. Now what? Too often, we find that firms...
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Success Stories: Eight Ways to Help Your Firm Survive – and Thrive 

This article from ALA’s Legal Management magazine provides numerous practical, common-sense ways a law firm can improve its profitability. Among its suggestions: Stay current on collections and invest in technology to improve efficiency.
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Sustainability: How Values-driven Law Firms Are Surviving Tough Times and Prospering Over the Long Term 

This thought-provoking article was featured in Law Practice Today, the ABA’s monthly online magazine. In it, William Blackburn reports on a growing number of law firms that have adopted new models of governance to help them survive, even thrive, in both...
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Take Responsibility for Rising Stars 

This article contends that companies that are good at growing leaders do so in the trenches at the “line manager” level, not through their HR departments. That would equate to a department head and practice...
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The Disappearing Act: Why Millennials Leave Companies – and How L&D Can Entice Them to Stay  

Millennials have now surpassed GenXers as the largest generation in the US workforce and will soon constitute the highest percentage of lawyers in private practice. Yet, many law firm leaders and their firms remain vexed...
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The Future is Here: 10 Trends and What Your Firm Should be Asking Itself

No doubt, the legal profession has experienced tumultuous change over the past 20 years. Accelerated by the Great Recession, many of these developments are permanent and will forever change the business of law, the experts...
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The Millennials Are Here to Stay… But Will They Be Staying at Your Law Firm? 

According to research by Cushman & Wakefield and published in its annual report called Bright Insight, these are the top six factors today’s young lawyers look for in a law firm: Work/Life Balance Collegial Workplace...
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The Model Partner:Balancing a Mix of Positive Contributions 

In July 2012, Sterling Strategies conducted some interesting research attempting to identify the characteristics of the “model partner” in a law firm. According to John’s research, the characteristics, in order of importance, are: Book of Business, Working...
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The Path to Partnership in Small to Mid-Sized Firms  

BigLaw, with their highly paid recruiting and professional development staffs, is doing a pretty fair job articulating and enforcing the criteria to become an equity partner. Unfortunately, this is not the case for many smaller...
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To Merge or Not to Merge? That is the Question!

We've worked with numerous firms over the past several years on this question, and our advice is often the same: Bigger is not always better. The combination should be thoughtful and strategic. The sum of...
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Trends in Partner Compensation

Compensation is a hot-button topic for almost every managing partner. It is also a critical driver behind the lateral movement of equity partners. This article by placement specialist Jane Sender provides an overview of recent trends in law...
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Two-Tiered Partnership Structures 

We like two-tiered partnership structures and, for most law firms, they make a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. Simply stated, owners of law firms should act and contribute like owners, not employees....
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Volatility Abounds in Large Law Firm Growth

Despite BigLaw’s obsession with growth and firm size over the past ten years, many of the largest US firms are taking more measured and strategic approaches to growth, according to the 2016 NLJ 500 Survey...
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What You Need to Know about Mentoring the New Generations

At no other time in our nation’s history have we had this many different generations – Baby Boomers, Gen Xers and Millenials – working side-by-side. See if you can identify with any of the characteristics...
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What’s Really Going On In Today’s Legal Departments 

Good news for smaller and mid-sized firms, according to this article which appears in the current issue of Inside Counsel magazine. According to a recent survey of over 550 in-house counsel, 65% say they have...
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Why More than 75% of Minority Female Lawyers Leave Law Firms Within 5 Years

Research firm Catalyst conducted a survey of minority female lawyers and offers these insights into why most of these women are leaving law firms within the first five years.
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Young Professionals: Cultivate the Habits of Friendship

Law firms often struggle with how to get associates and younger professionals involved in business development early in their careers. In this article, Maister offers the best piece of advice – they should start by...
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Your Future: Is There a Merger There?

This article starts off by asking "Are you going to follow the lemmings or set your own course?" The lemmings that Cobb refers to are firms that make merger and acquisition decisions based on practice...
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Altman Weil’s MergerLine 2017

For many years, our colleagues at Altman Weil have been tracking merger and acquisition activity among US law firms. In 2017, they track 102 such combinations. The average size of the acquired firm is 27...
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Ten Years of Law Firm Mergers and Acquisitions – 2006-2017

Consolation is a clear and ongoing trend in the US legal market, and Altman Weil has been tracking law firm merger activity since 2006. After a post-recession dip in the number of law firm combinations,...
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The Current Economic Environment – What Firm Leaders Are Saying

Forum Faculty member John Smock and his partners recently wrote this assessment of how law firms are performing in the midst of the current economic downturn. And it’s not as bad as you might think for the...
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Generations at Work: Managing the Clash of Veterans, Boomers, Xers, and Nexters in Your Workplace

Generations at Work ($27, AMACOM) is an invaluable resource to help firm leaders understand and appreciate the differences of these four generations within the firm, and provides workable solutions to bridge the gaps among them. It comes highly recommended by our friends at the Association of...
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The Complete Guide to Understanding, Controlling and Stopping Bullies and Bullying at Work

The Complete Guide to Understanding, Controlling and Stopping Bullies and Bullying at Work ($21.95, Atlantic Publishing) offers guidance in identifying and defining workplace bullying, including how to identify characteristics of a bullied employee, pathological characteristics of workplace...
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True Professionalism: The Courage to Care about Your People, Your Clients and Your Career

If we could only recommend one book to a lawyer in private practice, it would be True Professionalism ($26, Simon & Schuster)! Maister's lesson is clear: believe passionately in what you do and never compromise your standards and values....
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ABA Web Seminar: Strategic Planning for Law Firms: 10 Critical Steps to Success

Even today, 60% of mid-size commercial law firms do not have a written strategic plan. Among those that do, 90% report that it has led to improved firm profitability and performance. Why, then, do most...
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ALA’s Career Center 

Founded in 1971, the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA) has grown to more than 10,000 members in 30 countries. If your firm is looking for a new administrator, its Career Center has a number of...
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The MPF 2018 Leadership Conference Keynote Presentation – “The State of the Industry”

On occasion, we kick off the MPF Leadership Conference with a keynote presentation to set the stage for the Conference. In 2018, we invited Patrick Fuller to present an overview of the legal industry based...
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