Better Law Practice Through Better People Management
The following is a second installment about some of the highlights from this year’s Futures Conference of the College of Law Practice Management held at Georgetown Law School the end of October:
Hiring and Training Successful Lawyers
Georgetown Law School reported on two research projects they are undertaking–“Integration and
Fragmentation in the Modern Law Firm” and “Developing …
The following are some of the highlights from this year’s Futures Conference of the College of Law Practice Management held at Georgetown Law School last week:
New Model Law Firms
New entrants into law firm alternative business models are Clearspire, which consists of 2 joined companies –one providing legal services to clients and the other providing…
We’ve been quoting Clayton Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School, for many years. Christensen once called large American law firms "the most profitable businesses in the world," while at the same time indicting them: "Speedier information-gathering capabilities allow large law firms to increase utilization of less experienced lawyers without passing cost savings on to their…
In honor of the endings and beginnings at this time of the year and the personal and professional resolutions that each of us aspire to for the future, it is fascinating to look to the life of the founder of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud. A recent entry in "The People’s Therapist," a blog by a…
A new book out this year entitled Beyond Right and Wrong: The Power of Effective Decision Making for Attorneys and Clients by Randall Kiser analyzes 11,306 attorney-client decisions in actual litigation matters and summarizes over 40 years of research regarding judge, jury, litigant and attorney decision making.
Settling Better than Going to Trial?
One of
…
In a recent interview about her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Dr. Carol Dweck, the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, explained how a person’s mindset can account for success.
She identifies two major mindsets–fixed and growth. In a fixed mindset, we think we know our strengths and weaknesses, believe that…
Monday, March 8, is International Women’s Day. So how are we doing?
Bain and Company recently released results of a survey, reported in the Harvard Business Review, of 1,800 business people worldwide. Eighty percent believed that companies benefit from a gender diverse workforce; 75% reported having initiatives in their workplace to improve gender parity; but less…
Back in 1998 management guru Peter Drucker suggested that the capability to operate productively when change is the norm would be critical in the 21st century. Much has been said of late on this issue of managing change when change is the norm, including articles in the Harvard Business Review and from McKinsey.
There are…
Firms are placing their futures at risk if they cannot identify, develop and empower the next generation of leaders. So it is no surprise that more law firms are investing in leadership development. For example, according to PaLAW 2009’s 14th annual Managing Partners Survey, cited in the November 23, 2009 issue of The Legal Intelligencer, the number…
Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book Outliers, the Story of Success argues that what accounts for success is often not what we expect. High IQs or a prodigious ability in computers or exceptional musical talent is not sufficient to explain Nobel Prize winners and Bill Gates and the Beatles. While a certain level of intelligence, skill or talent may be a necessary ingredient for success, it…