Law Firm Management

Firms Are Applying Communications Lessons from the Great Recession As They Deliver Bad News During the Coronavirus Pandemic. Many firms have appeared in recent weeks to be signaling compassion, embracing (relative) transparency and sharing sacrifices across lawyers and staff. That can help make even painful cuts less harmful for a firm's internal morale and outside reputation.

For some firms in the Great Recession, reduced revenues combined with the overwhelming pressure from multimillion-dollar pension liabilities — a holdover from the days when pensions were simply a promise firms made to retiring partners — were too much to bear. But with the Great Recession now a decade in the past and another recession brewing, has the industry learned from its mistakes?

Compensation systems are typically a strategic afterthought, seen as the means by which to allocate the spoils of a successful strategy. They're viewed as affecting the level of grousing among partners, but not a firm's performance. The data, however, indicates the reverse is true.

Law firms have always counted on bankruptcy as a countercyclical practice in hard times. Now, those that prepared when the economy was booming may be about to get their reward.

The ability to adapt, be nimble and pivot as necessary is crucial to surviving and thriving in ever-changing economic climates. Communicating in the age of social distancing requires a new way of thinking and being — not just in the virtual workplace with our peers but also how we communicate and partner with our clients.

Firms Are Applying Communications Lessons from the Great Recession As They Deliver Bad News During the Coronavirus Pandemic. As firms echo their response to the COVID-19 crisis, they are also showing they learned from the experiences of a decade ago, including the negative effects of delivering cuts unevenly, clumsily or with unnecessary secrecy.

In the legal industry it is time for a paradigm shift. Many firms have struggled with allowing people to work from home for a myriad of reasons. At this point, we have no choice. To help you get off on the right foot, the following are some best practices as we move forward into this new working environment.

Legal industry analyst Ari Kaplan interviewed 32 lawyers from Finland, France, Hong Kong, Norway, Singapore, the UK and the U.S. about the evolution of legal finance. He also surveyed 20 in-house lawyers at Fortune 500 companies and 18 law firm lawyers from Australia, the Cayman Islands, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Singapore, Sweden, the UK, and the U.S. about emerging trends in legal finance. Below are some of his findings and what they indicate about the current state of the sector.