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Law Firm 3.0: Compensation, Billable Hour Limiting Firms' Success

BY Hank Grezlak
August 02, 2015

Editor's note: This is the second installment of a series examining the shift in law firm business models and the issues law firms must address to remain competitive in a new age of providing legal services. A wealth of information, little market growth, and increased competition have created an environment where many firms need to consider changing, but significant obstacles, particularly compensation structures and reliance on the billable hour, remain in the way.

In order to make the necessary changes to stay competitive, consultants say, law firms need a clear strategy, strong leadership, buy-in from the partners and strategic discipline in order to succeed. Strategic discipline in a partnership, however, where culture and partnership equality have historic roots, can often be difficult to maintain. But in some cases, it has separated the winners from the losers.

“The highest performing firms have a very low tolerance for chronically underperforming people, practices and offices. They shed them,” says Kent Zimmermann of the Zeughauser Group. “Many law firms that are not high performing don't have the stomach to make those decisions.”

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