Sustaining a Client Service Initiative
February 27, 2007
Most client service improvement initiatives fail to produce sustained results. While such a statement may seem harsh, I think that most would agree with it, based on their own experiences. After investing significant amounts of time, effort, and money in service improvement initiatives, most organizations do not attain the sustained results they were hoping for. Failure is usually not due to a lack of creativity or resources, but most often the result of a lack of long-term commitment to the hard work that sustainability requires.
e-Commerce Holds Strong in Fourth Quarter
February 27, 2007
The federal government last month put its estimate of e-commerce sales for the fourth quarter of 2006 at $29.3 billion, up 6.3% from the third quarter, and up 24.6% from the fourth quarter of 2005, with the increase in total retail sales from late 2005 to late 2006 estimated at 4.6%.
Your Law Firm Web Site
February 27, 2007
A law firm Web site is an interactive experience ' one that takes place between someone in need of information and someone in the position to provide that information.The total experience a client or prospective client has while visiting a Web site reflects on your firm. A bad experience forms a bad association. A good experience creates a good one.
Getting Published: The Foundation for Business Development
February 27, 2007
Business development in the legal community is a science, but it requires the creativity of an artist. That artistry can be demonstrated most powerfully through the written word, a tool of great lawyers for centuries. Encapsulating an interesting case or complex transaction into 500 or 1000 words for the benefit of colleagues and the business community at large is the single best way to demonstrate expertise on a macro scale. It is at the very core of client generation.
<b>Corner Office</b>: Are Gray-Haired Partners Expendable?
February 27, 2007
Gray-haired, older, or as I shall refer to them, senior partners, as a class, represent a challenge that most managing partners find vexing. Many firms have avoided addressing this very complex issue either because of the emotional reaction it invokes, or because they just don't see it as a real problem yet. Others have adopted the apparently simple solution of setting a mandatory retirement age at which the partner is expected to stop practicing and head for a retirement community.
Advising e-Commerce Business Startups: A Crib Sheet
February 27, 2007
In the first of a two-part article, our expert author examines some issues that e-commerce counsel should pay particular attention to when advising e-commerce startups, particularly small, single-entrepreneur or small-group driven Internet-based storefronts.
Do You Know What Companies Really Want?
February 27, 2007
In the 20 years I have worked with and for in-house counsel and CEOs, this recent statement to me by a Fortune 100 senior in-house counsel is the strongest yet. Over the years I've compiled a number of such statements, which, if more moderate in tone, are equally serious in intent. Many of them zero in with a great deal of specificity on buyers' discontent and, as such, are particularly helpful, if disconcerting.
In the Spotlight: Planning for Redevelopment
February 27, 2007
For years, the commercial real estate market has been sizzling.Cap rates are down. Prices are up.Nevertheless, you managed to beat out the competition and buy a few shopping centers. To justify the price you paid, however, you need to increase the net operating income ('NOI') from your property. Now, however, the economy may be facing the headwind of a slowdown, if not an outright recession, which creates resistance to rent increases; so you may not be able to rely on ordinary rent increases to bolster your NOI.
