The Value Able Law Firm

Law has become a buyer's market, and it's never going back. Re-envisioning the purpose of law firms and the role of lawyers, Jordan Furlong has designed a transformative client-first law firm that rethinks the business model, culture, service, competitiveness, growth strategies, diversity, and leadership of modern legal enterprises.

A comprehensive strategy & reference guide that will detail the techniques lawyers and law firms need to think like a business. It will help firms analyze and improve their business processes, dramatically increasing their profitability and productivity. This book benefits every member of the firm, from partners and the accounting staff to paralegals and other personnel. Contains examples of budgets, financial reports and management reports. Receive powerful management tips and daily cost cutting shortcuts. Get bills out that are more accurate. Process your entire billing cycle in half the time. Provide comprehensive Associate reviews. Create financials and management reports that are easy to understand. Better utilize your staff without adding expense. Improve organization and management skills. This guide will be used daily by all members of the law firm for years to come.

Due to digitalization, the pandemic and several economic crises, as well as the new demands on the world of work and the responsibility for sustainable business, the legal market and the ways lawyers work are changing. Law firms are facing entirely new and more complex challenges than before. This book provides answers to all questions related to law firm formation, law firm management, employee leadership, and law firm marketing. It highlights all aspects of modern strategic law firm development, including related business models such as legal tech. The clear and didactically prepared structure with chapter breakdowns, working examples, expert statements and summaries also facilitates selective reference to specific topics.

The Great Recession intensified large law firms’ emphasis on financial performance, leading to claims that lawyers in these firms were now guided by business rather than professional values. Based on interviews with more than 250 partners in large firms, Mitt Regan and Lisa H. Rohrer suggest that the reality is much more complex. It is true that large firm hiring, promotion, compensation, and termination policies are more influenced by business considerations than ever before and that firms actively recruit profitable partners from other firms to replace those they regard as unproductive. At the same time, law firm partners continue to seek the non-financial rewards of being members of a distinct profession and are sensitive to whether their firms are committed to providing them. Regan and Rohrer argue that modern firms responding effectively to business demands while credibly affirming the importance of non-financial professional values can create strong cultures that enhance their ability to weather the storms of the modern legal market.

For minority law students or attorneys, no factor is more important in deciding where to work than the quality of a firm's diversity program is central to their decision.

Despite clear evidence of a serious decline in morale, the major competitors in the law firm management marketplace have virtually ignored the motivational facet of current managerial theory and practice. As evidenced by a review of the literature dealing with law firm management, including major books, handbooks, and professional seminar outlines, there has existed until now no treatment of current management theory and practice as it pertains to law firms. In addressing human resources topics as they apply to the modern law firm, this book fills a genuine void in an area which is of major importance to law firms challenged to remain profitable in an increasingly hostile environment. Managing People in Today's Law Firm: The Human Resources Approach to Surviving Change provides a comprehensive treatment of critical aspects of modern management: motivation, communication, organizational culture, structure and strategy, power and politics, recruitment and training, the reward-performance-retention dynamic, performance appraisal, and planned change. Grounded in managerial theory and research, based on extensive practice, and exemplified by anecdotal war stories, this book makes valuable reading for partners, associates, managers, and future members of law firms—and offers important ideas for motivating members of all professional service firms. Intended for law firms and lawyers within them, solo practitioners who contemplate joining with others in a firm partnership, law school libraries, and general and professional association libraries including bar associations on the state and local levels.

During the “golden age of law firm growth” from the late 1960s until 2007, most large law firms adopted a default growth strategy, increasing practice areas and offices, aided by the momentum of the tail winds of law firm growth. Since the recession of 2008-2009, however, the legal marketplace has drastically changed. In this timely book, Jay Westcott suggests strategic building blocks that firms can adopt in order to adapt themselves to this radical change and prosper as lasting institutions.