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Some years back, global management consultants at McKinsey & Co. proposed that the complexity and intricacy of managing a professional service firm deserved a multiplier of five, in terms of [...]

Last year witnessed the formation of the first international legal think tank: LIFT (Legal Institute for Forward Thinking), comprising thought leaders from three countries. At its inaugural December meeting in [...]

When a firm leader's departure is predictable, firms need to take appropriate steps to ensure a controlled and effective succession process that minimizes the inevitable disruption likely to occur. 1. [...]

World-class motivational expert and author of Natural Born Winners, Robin Sieger, once said, "planning is as natural to the process of success as its absence is to the process of [...]

There will undoubtedly be times during your tenure as an Office Managing Partner or a Practice or Industry Group Leader when you will want to set a direction for your [...]

The jobs of being a firm leader at a law firm should come labeled with a clear warning: This job could seriously change you and how you behave within your [...]

Cooperation in the workplace is a valuable commodity. While it can be challenging to achieve anywhere, your garden variety corporate enterprise is armed with a whole host of tools to [...]

The following are comments I made during a Webinar concerning the issue of Change. The presentation also featured David Morley, Senior Partner, Allen & Overy LLP; David J. Parnell, ABA [...]

It's hard to deny: clients today are particularly skeptical. So, one difficult challenge each of us as professionals face is coming up with a convincing response to the critical question [...]

We recently presented law firm leaders with a selection of over 50 particularly timely "burning issues" (i.e., those critical business issues concerning technology, market development, profitability, client demand, cultural shifts, [...]

Many new managing partners are not prepared for the realities of what it takes to be successful in the role. Indeed, the vast majority end up getting blindsided by all [...]

From Peter Williams at Deloitte I learned, "we have this target that 30 percent of revenue must come from stuff that we were NOT doing two years earlier." And from [...]

The following is drawn from comments I made during a recent Webinar concerning issues related to partner performance and featuring my fellow panelists: Vincent Sergi, Chairman Emeritus, Katten Muchin Rosenman [...]

Given the need in today's competitive environment to examine carefully our directions for the future, I submit that the state of most law firms' formal strategic planning tends to be [...]

The following is drawn from comments by Contributing Editor Patrick J. McKenna during a Webinar on the subject of change. QUESTION: Why do you think firms find change to be [...]

In discussions with new firm leaders before they formally take on the role, I ask them what it is they think they'll like doing the most; in other words, where [...]

Let's look at what is now happening in advanced education and specifically with the long-revered MBA degree and compare it to what is happening, and not happening, within our own [...]

The following is an excerpt from comments by Patrick J. McKenna during a Webinar entitled "Stimulating Innovation In Law Firms," hosted by the Ark Group and featuring Andrew Smulian, Chairman [...]

How many times have we read the commentaries of managing partners attempting to explain away stagnant revenue, declines in profit, the departure of rainmaking stars, or the sudden closure of [...]

Every firm eventually finds itself in need of a new leader. The Executive Committee or Board must seek to replace the current incumbent as that individual comes to the end [...]

The other day I received a note from the Director of Professional Development at a 600-attorney firm that I had worked with on a number of occasions over the years. [...]

The very concept of leadership is elusive and tricky. Every business book author coins a new "type," which is then sold as the latest elixir for whatever ails us. We [...]

As the story goes, it was a warm spring day in Princeton, New Jersey. Once Albert Einstein, who was then working at the Center for Advanced Studies, was found hands [...]

This article is based on excerpts from comments made during a Webcast on March 12, 2014, entitled "Successful Lateral Hiring," hosted by the LA Daily Journal and featuring Professor Bill [...]

In an article I wrote called "Malignant Leadership," I talked about the merits of psychological evaluations and about how "increasing stress, work overload, fatigue, high emotion, and lack of social [...]

If there is one single frustration that I hear from firm and practice leaders on a continual basis, it is trying to determine how to deal with "commitment drift." In [...]

Having spent a good number of years studying and working with leaders whom I have come to admire, I conclude that the greatest challenge, for any of us in leading [...]

In 2007, I initiated a survey in which I asked firm leaders to reflect on the various managing partners they had met, observed, and/or read about, from across the country, [...]

I spotted a great article authored by Marshall Goldsmith. Marshall and I both had contributions included in a book published a few years back entitled In the Company of Leaders. [...]

Imagine that a complex legal problem can be mapped into a decision tree with millions of "if this, then that" branches. Subject matter experts (lawyers) might be able to predict [...]

Recently I was confronted by a managing partner who held some strong views on who should be involved in interviewing his firm's clients. As he put it: My contention would [...]

For some time now, I have been personally appalled at the incredibly short time period that some firms (often those with millions in revenues) allow for incoming firm leaders to [...]

I don't know if you have consciously noticed, but we are all becoming far more reactive than at any other time in history. For example, it would seem that you [...]

If you are like many, for a number of years now you've been attempting to get your practice and industry groups to function effectively ... with only limited success. You [...]

Efficiency at any firm, in and of itself, is not what gives the firm a real competitive advantage. There is a big difference between being efficient and being effective. It's [...]

Given the need in today's economic environment to examine our directions for the future carefully, I submit that the state of most law firms' strategic planning tends to be: * [...]

In November and December 2012, I distributed a survey containing more than 30 questions to a group of some 300 law firm leaders. I received detailed written responses from the [...]

Key Question: Do you offer any particular expertise or service to your clients that is truly distinctive, valuable, and not readily available from most other competitive firms? These ten words [...]

[Editor's Note: This analysis of law firm differentiation is the first of a two-part discussion. The second part will appear in the May Of Counsel.] At a time when the [...]

At a recent legal profession gathering, a particularly thought-provoking discussion of metrics--financial and performance-oriented measures--stood out amid the predictable chorus of commentators bemoaning low demand for legal services, the pathetic [...]

If we think about it, managing partners preside over businesses that enjoy revenues in the tens and, in many cases, hundreds of millions of dollars and are accountable to the [...]

In early October 2010, I initiated a survey to prepare for a presentation on legal profession leadership that I was scheduled to deliver at the American University Washington College of [...]

In early January, I posed a couple of questions to a group of managing partners representing firms from every corner of the country. The questions: "As you think back over [...]

As the economy slows, it becomes obvious that attending to your best clients is only more critical. As one General Counsel said to us, "Firms need to go beyond simply [...]

For any managing partner, there can be no more difficult duty than to confront and possibly remove someone--often a long-time colleague and friend--from the position of department chair, office managing [...]

Last fall, I surveyed managing partners on the burning issues that they were facing at their firms--those critical business issues involving strategy, growth, management, and so forth that now drive [...]

It's hard to deny that clients today are more skeptical than ever. One of the most difficult challenges that each of us faces as professionals is to come up with [...]

Reading about the carnage that occurred recently (see "This Might Hurt a Bit," Corporate Counsel, Dec. 2005) as Pfizer Inc. reduced its list of 103 outside product liability counsel to [...]

In July of this year, I posed a single question to about 100 managing partners. The question: "As someone responsible for helping chart your firm's future, what are your 'Burning [...]

Over the past few years, consulting firms like our own have often had the opportunity to counsel law firms in the selection of new managing partners, as well as to [...]