Strategies to Enhance Cash Flow
Managing partners, financial partners, members of executive committees and administrators must devote more of their time today than in the past, to planning and managing their firms' finances and those functions that improve the cash flow. This article describes six aspects of law firm management and economics that the author has recommended to managing partners, financial partners, members of management committees and law firm administrators to assist them improve their firm's cash flow. These factors include: 1) cash flow; 2) a business plan; 3) budgets for revenues, expenses and client advances; 4) partner compensation; 5) a recommended new business and billing committee; and 6) partners' capital and borrowing.
Partnering: The Future of Legal Services Has Arrived
Over 10 years ago, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company adopted a model for the procurement of legal services that is based on strict legal spending rules, including early case assessment measures, consolidation of law firms and service providers handling DuPont work, and implementation of numerous other cost-saving measures. The DuPont model, which is commonly referred to as "partnering," has become a platform for the efforts of an increasing number of companies to revamp their legal service expectations and implement changes that embrace partnering between in-house and outside attorneys. Despite the amount of time that partnering has survived and the increasing number of companies adopting a partnering model, most outside counsel still meet the concept of partnering with great skepticism. This skepticism is bred from both an inability to envision the future of the legal services market and the misconception that the sole goal of partnering is to reduce legal bills for corporations at the expense of law firm revenues.
The Legal Marketplace Branding Roundtable
Branding: Is it the legal marketplace buzzword for the twenty-first century or is there really something to all of this? On October 19th Law Journal Newsletters Marketing The Law Firm hosted a Roundtable in its offices in Philadelphia. We decided to give branding its due by bringing together a panel of experts: Burkey Belser is President and Creative Director of Greenfield Belser Ltd. with offices in Washington, D.C. and Boston; Dr. Mark Greene is the Managing Director of The Brand Research Company with offices in Washington, D.C. and Boston; Douglas C. Kramer is the Chief Marketing Officer of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, Philadelphia; and Edward M. Schechter is the Chief Marketing Officer of Duane Morris LLP, Philadelphia.
Marketing During Wartime
Periods of crisis tend to bring out the best and worst in people. From an institutional standpoint, this is one time when cooler heads need to prevail and stricter attention needs to be paid to the image your firm conveys to the outside world.On the other hand, some law firm marketers also view this period as a time of opportunity for reinforcing client relationships and building business in specialty areas.Gauge The Effect On Long-Term Strategic Plans And Implementation'I'm not familiar with any near-term impact of this war on any law firm's marketing programs,' Norm Rubenstein, partner of DC-based Zeughauser Group, says. 'Nothing has been canceled.'
Ask the coach
Q: Our internal newsletter is not well received or widely read. It contains recent wins and case developments, lawyer speaking engagements and articles, and other recent events of note. How can I make it more popular?A: There are only four reasons that people don't read your newsletter: 1) they don't know about it; 2) they don't receive it; 3) the content doesn't interest them or is poorly written; 4) they don't care about the firm at all; they're just collecting a paycheck. You should be able to take care of the first two without too much difficulty; No. 4 can only be fixed by a good recruiter.
