Many law firms may be considering merger as an option in response to increased competition in the marketplace, but the process is never simple. Nick explains how to assuage partners’ fears and make a merger work for you.

Partner performance management systems attain their sharpest focus in how they cope with the issues of non-performance and under-performance. Nick suggests three essential infrastructure elements which will help firms address this difficult problem area.

The issues of partner performance and rewards are rising on law firm agendas, especially with the impact of new age discrimination legislation. Law firm leaders talk a good game about how the firm ‘rewards what it values, and values what it rewards’ but in reality many firms give scant regard to anything except seniority and billing. Nick suggests ways in which law firms can get the best out of partners across all areas of the firm by setting the right targets and sharing profits based on the achievement of those targets.

For many firms, partner compensation has long been managed in isolation from the firm’s overall business strategy, which is primarily focused on external factors, such as markets and clients. But, by aligning compensation models with strategic objectives, firms will be far better equipped to achieve their goals. Nick suggests four main ways in which a Compensation and Rewards System can support the firm’s strategic direction and goals.

This White Paper suggests some essential steps which law firms should take to establish promotion criteria to equity partnership/membership and suggests a framework for promotions.

Law firm partners and leaders ought to have some plans to cope with some of the obstacles to their projects and the implementation of them which could occur along the way. Anticipating such barriers can often lead to them being headed off. Nick considers some of the main obstacles to change in law firms and sets out six communication and implementation steps which should be applied in any change programme.

The ‘First 100 Days’ for any managing partner may be challenging but life tends to get even harder during ensuing periods in office. Managing partners often find that they have been selected or elected with a mandate to deal with short term problems which need no more than competent administrative skills to solve. After their initial honeymoon period, they then need to develop leadership skills to succeed in taking the firm further forward and to deal with resurfacing longer term issues. This article helps leaders to focus on leadership skills for the long haul and to convert from well-paid administrators into true leaders.

There is an old saying which goes “If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you always got”. Until the recession, this worked for most firms who managed to grow and remain profitable on the back of well tried and tested business recipes and relying on a loyal client base. Now client loyalties are strained and competition is growing. This article makes the case for doing something different, something deliberate and planned in the firm’s strategy and business recipe.

An important feature of law firm leadership is to try to understand what it is that inspires and interests your people. This White Paper suggests that partners can be bracketed according to their orientation towards performance and their attitudes towards altruism.

As a law firm grows, many of the governance and management systems need to change as well. Firms can find that their management and decision-making can become stifled either by the need for consensus in a growing partnership or where the founder partners just get too busy to make decisions quickly. In this article, Nick examines the stifling points in law firm governance and decision-making.

Law firms sometimes tend to spend a huge amount of time in agreeing their strategies and then proceed to implement them in a haphazard and arbitrary manner, often biting off far more than they can immediately chew. The result can often be an increasing list of half-completed and abandoned initiatives, and a frustrated partnership. . In this article, Nick sets out ways in which a firm can juggle its priorities and resources to implement strategic projects in an ordered and methodological manner.

This article considers the steps needed for the successful implementation of new profit sharing systems. The issues touched on include partner accountability and performance, the wider role of a law firm owner, partner development and progression, and how firms reward, compensate and reward their partners – all of which go to the very heart of the partnership ethos. The brutal truth is that any radical changes to a firm’s partner remuneration systems require a great deal of time and planning and will involve the firm in considering a whole range of issues.

This article studies how law firms can link competitive strategy with effective implementation, and suggests how the Managing Partner and Top Management Team can perform their roles as promoters of strategy, sponsors of strategic initiatives, coordinators of process improvements and motivators of others.

The development of partners requires them to have an advanced set of life & business skills in order to be owners and managers of their law firms and at the same time to become trusted and valued legal advisers to their clients. This article (October 2010) first appeared in the New Law Journal and sets out how partners should develop additional skills.

Most law firms find that they are quite different now in the way they do things, from what they were five or ten years ago. In this article, Nick examines the impact of changing conditions on culture and considers whether leaders can control culture as the firm grows. Practical suggestions and steps are summarised to ensure that fine rhetoric is matched by partner behaviour.

Effective leadership can help a law firm to thrive, but it relies on not only suitable management structures, but also appropriate management styles, and aligning the two to achieve results.  In this article Nick shows you how to get the balance right in law firms.

In this article Nick suggests 20 objectives for Equity Structures in law firms.

Implementing strategic goals can sometimes be a painful process. In this article (Nick examines how a combination of effective leadership, structure, systems and discipline can help law firms to realise their development goals and avoid the obstacles preventing the proper execution of strategy.

Nick’s now famous Diamond Positioning Matrix sets out nine different generic types of market position, is also divided vertically into five segments of client demand. The description of each generic type and its unique features helps to understand where firms might stand and how firms can develop their strategic choices.