‘Taking advantage’ is a phrase I hear a lot when lawyers discuss their work. I think it is linked to the idea of lawyers as business people concerned with competitiveness and commerciality, but in any event it manifests itself in the restless and energetic pursuit of getting the best possible deal/outcome for each client on each occasion.
Guest post: Pricing Power… and how to convert it into profit
The growth of professionals in Law Land with the word ‘pricing’ in their title has been explosive over the past couple of years. It’s a trend we applaud loudly and fervently, so perhaps it’s worth a primer on how it’s done in the major leagues: When B2B companies with thousands of SKU’s (Stock Keeping Unit) and tens or even hundreds of thousands of individual prices engage in ‘pricing-excellence’ programs.
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Comment: Life after Sir Nigel – They built it, now what?
DLA Piper’s new head Simon Levine jokes about avoiding becoming the David Moyes to his high-profile predecessor’s Alex Ferguson, but you could make a stronger case that Sir Nigel Knowles’ (pictured) transformative track record at DLA Piper is closer to making him the firm’s Tony Blair.
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Comment: The case against value – the virtue that can become vice
It’s the spirit of the age that law firms feel the need to not only deliver better value and efficiency but to be seen to do so by clients.
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Quality, outside scrutiny and Paxman – the LB Awards loom
Fantastic as I look in a DJ, I wouldn’t say by character I’m a natural awards-type person but I have always said that if you are going to do an awards ceremony, there’s no point unless you do it really well. And doing it well means putting your shoulder to the wheel in the research and judging. Which brings me to the 18th Legal Business Awards, which we will be holding later this month.
While we have traditionally judged the awards internally, it had long been my intention to set up an external judging panel to bring in outside scrutiny and increase the rigour of the process. Though we have always put a lot of effort into drawing up the shortlists and selecting the winners, inevitably having knowledgeable outsiders keeps you on your toes, increases the focus on the process and makes it harder to be swayed by personal bias.
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Life after Sir Nigel – They built it, now what?
DLA Piper’s new head Simon Levine jokes about avoiding becoming the David Moyes to his high-profile predecessor’s Alex Ferguson, but you could make a stronger case that Sir Nigel Knowles’ transformative track record at DLA Piper is closer to making him the firm’s Tony Blair.
Knowles took over an institution amid a period of upheaval and had to fight to establish his authority, which he duly did with a mix of flair, charisma and vision. Because those qualities – not in abundance in the legal profession at executive level during the 1990s – were supported by astute operational point-men like Andrew Darwin, it proved an incredibly potent formula.
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The case against value – the virtue that can become vice
It’s the spirit of the age that law firms feel the need to not only deliver better value and efficiency but to be seen to do so by clients.
And what could be wrong with that? The northshoring trend has been increasingly apparent in recent years, with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer – the closest to a traditional partnership in the big four – now gearing up for a huge move to Manchester. Clifford Chance, meanwhile, has made much of its efficiency and push to align itself to clients, a stance clear under the leadership of David Childs and even more front-and-centre under Matthew Layton.
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Winston & Strawn’s Tirado: ‘Dissent, it turns out, comes at a price even in disputes’
There are many so-called ‘hot’ topics in international arbitration that could have been the subject of this article, but ultimately the topic chose itself.
The £30bn question: Report underlines UK’s status as legal superpower
Modesty should probably preclude Legal Business covering the annual report from TheCityUK on the UK legal services market since it makes heavy use of our statistics but as it takes the time to detail the unsung business success story that is law we’ll take a look.
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Guest post: Meaning in your career – or how to keep lawyers satisfied
Here at Adam Smith, Esq, we cover the array of law firm management issues from strategy and finance to compensation and cultural issues – ‘an inquiry into the economics of law firms,’ to coin a phrase. But there’s much more to life.
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