Our joint research project with the Managing Partners Forum continues and our topic in February 2014 was practice group management. Specifically, are there particular responsibilities practice group leaders should be taking on in order to drive effective practice management? In…
As noted at the outset of this year, Sterling Strategies has partnered with the Managing Partner Forum and TheRemsenGroup for a series of monthly mini-surveys of managing partners on topics of strategic importance to law firms and their leaders. It…
Having great attorneys – well-trained, highly capable, hard-working and client focused – has long been a critical success factor for law firms. Strategically, it has become basic table stakes for competing effectively in the legal industry, particularly among more sophisticated…
Over the past year we have noticed an important word showing up more often in the strategy deliberations of our law firm clients. That word is intentional, literally meaning “done in a way that is planned or intended; thoughtful; deliberate;…
Steven Harper wrote a terrific piece on law firm culture in response to the latest Citi Private Bank/Hildebrandt update on the legal market. Harper is incredulous of Citi/Hildebrandt’s warning that “Law firms discount or ignore firm culture at their peril.” …
Throughout the course of 2012, Sterling Strategies conducted monthly mini-surveys, each focused on a single strategy topic. The intent was to develop some empirical data on what works and what does not work relative to a variety of strategic management…
Our final strategy topic for 2012 focuses on what law firm management is doing relative to setting objective measures for their strategic plans. More specifically, what do law firms measure and are those measures in any meaningful way connected to…
Our strategy topic for the November 2012 focused on where the future leaders of law firms will be coming from. There is a simple industry wide issue relative to generational demographics. A very large cohort of baby boomer partners…
The demographics of the legal industry are clear – a very large cohort of baby boomer partners will be retiring over the next 20 years. In fact, by 2020 (eight years from now) half of the boomer cohort will be…
The August 2012 law firm strategy question of the month focused on managing under productive partners – what approaches firms take to the issue; what works and what does not; and how the process plays out over time. In a…
Last month’s law firm strategy question of the month asked law firm leaders to create a ‘model partner’ (i.e., a partner with the optimal balance of positive characteristics). The ‘model partner’ results can be found in the July 2012 archives…
Our July law firm strategy question of the month focused on the characteristics that comprise a “model partner.” While crafting the balance of behaviors and traits of an ideal partner is a bit more fun (and bit less strategic) than…