Staffing the Law Firm of the Future
Law firm staffing is more an artifact of history than design. Forward thinking law firms need to re-architect themselves. Most large law firms added staff over time without a master plan. Hiring lawyers meant employing more secretaries. Introducing PCs meant building an IT department. Doing...
Ron Friedmann,
16 years ago
2 min read
Overhead Cost at Large Law Firms Matters After All
Large law firms historically have not spent much energy managing overhead cost. To be sure, BigLaw lay-offs are rampant but these have been aimed mainly at lawyers; staff have been cut in rough proportion to typical support ratios. News last week, however, suggests that firms...
Ron Friedmann,
16 years ago
3 min read
Cost Control as Part of AmLaw 200 Turnaround Strategies
Many legal publications and consultants offer advice for large law firms on how to stabilize and recover. Their suggestions focus on lawyer compensation, practice group strategy, alternative billing, and business development. I remain surprised at how little they focus on reducing law firm overhead. Last...
Ron Friedmann,
17 years ago
3 min read
The Client View of Law Firm Staffing
Clients must pay attention to how their law firms work. More savings may flow from changing how lawyers work than from bargaining down rates. BigLaw firms are cutting staff. Are the changes good for general counsels? The demand for legal services has plummeted, so laying-off...
Ron Friedmann,
17 years ago
2 min read
Toward More Rational Law Firm Lay-offs
It’s hardly news that a US or UK law firm lays off lawyers and staff. Hogan & Hartson’s buyout of selected staff my eye. Hogan & Hartson offers buyouts to 240 staffers (National Law Journal, 10 Feb 2009) reports that the firm is offering buyouts...
Ron Friedmann,
17 years ago
1 min read
Law Firm Staffing Reference Model
How should law firms support lawyers? Sounds simple but is it really? Firms can compare their staff ratios or cost as a percent of revenue using survey data. The averages, however, conceal huge variations. For example, I know that three large NYC law firms have...
Ron Friedmann,
17 years ago
1 min read
An Interesting Take on the Future of Legal Secretaries
Fellow blogger Jordan Furlong has an excellent blog post about the potential role of legal secretaries. I’ve written about this topic as well and am glad to have another voice join in. In Legal secretaries 2.0 at law21.ca, Furlong picks up on one firm’s idea...
Ron Friedmann,
18 years ago
1 min read
Technology and Legal Secretaries
Starting in the early 1990s, I noticed that secretarial work was changing as a result of widespread lawyer use of PCs. Yet I have seen few articles about this much less smart management reaction. Already in 1991, I thought secretarial roles needed re-thinking. By 2003,...
Ron Friedmann,
19 years ago
1 min read
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