Law Firm Management

After Years of Complacency About Their Business Model and the Pipeline for Talent, There's a Reason Law Firms Are So Worried About Managing the Millennial Generation

For law firms wringing their hands about how to manage the millennial generation — or asking why they should adapt to this crop of young lawyers in the first place — here's the bad news: If you're still clinging to traditional models for training associates and running the partnership, you've already fallen behind. The millennials are here, they're climbing the ranks, and they've already begun to transform the industry.

It is widely recognized that Big Law has surplus partner capacity. What is less well recognized is just how massive this surplus has become, how unevenly it is spread across firms in different profitability cohorts, and what it portends for when the next downturn hits.

For the most part, law firms continue to structure themselves in a traditional operating and employment models with a dedicated workforce of talent arranged in an organizational hierarchy. In today's Gig Economy, this will unlikely hold.

Setting the next year's billing rates follows a simple formula at most firms: last year's rate plus a common percentage increase across all lawyer cohorts. A more disaggregated approach is needed -- firms should set higher percentage increases for senior lawyers and lower increases for junior lawyers.

At the ALA annual conference in Denver, I was speaking on how law firms could provide better administrative support for their attorneys and how alternative strategies were being deployed by some law firms to achieve those goals. After my session, the discussion continued with a group of participants and the hat trick metaphor was born.

Will big law firms and their partners benefit from the new Republican tax plan promoted by President Donald Trump? Not necessarily, according to tax experts who say some gains may be eroded by loss of crucial deductions.

Part Two of a Two-Part Article

Last month, the author discussed the fact that even though managing partners recognize the importance of developing and implementing sound principles of practice management, the extent to which the concept is successfully implemented varies greatly from firm to firm. He concludes his discussion herein.

In a market where clients are struggling to deliver more legal services for less cost (the challenge), RichardSusskind says a law firm may be tempted to undercut its competition on price in hopes of winning more work. But is it actually happening?