The start of 2021 hasn’t been the miraculous return to normal or dramatic improvement we’d all hoped for, but I’m still grateful for many things—including my oldest godchild delivering a healthy baby boy on January 1 and my team, the Crimson Tide, defeating Ohio State and setting a record for the most college football national […]
For our final blog post of 2020, I thought I would share what we have observed and learned in this year filled with unexpected challenges. While we face a cloudy future for at least the beginning of 2021 and we anticipate continued challenges for many in the industry, we are hopeful about the creativity, passion […]
As the U.S. begins to cautiously reopen, we are hearing from many of our law firm clients about how they are approaching the return to offices. Some have already started to bring in a limited number of lawyers and staff to offices, while others don’t foresee any return in the coming months. The circumstances of […]
Wicker Park Group periodically revisits some of our more popular blog posts. This one, from January 2019, was one of the most-read posts last year. This is not intended to be a post about traditional New Year’s resolutions but is a post on some things every lawyer interested in client service should think about and […]
This week I am being featured on a podcast called The Thought Leadership Project, hosted by Jay Harrington and Tom Nixon. As a point of reference, Harrington shared some interesting findings from a recent LinkedIn/Edelman study on thought leadership. The questions centered around what law firms must do to be thought leaders and how the […]
In last week’s blog post, Tara wrote about the outcomes of client feedback interviews and even shared recent recommendations we have made to our law firm clients after talking to their clients. We make those recommendations based on our experiences interviewing thousands of clients on behalf of firms. The themes in those actions map directly […]
This is the third post in our 2019 Summer Reading Series. The first post, about driving client loyalty, can be found here. The second post, about improving meetings, can be found here. We’ve been talking a lot about the seven secrets to success and how to cultivate these skills in ourselves and in law firms. […]
This is the second post in our 2019 Summer Reading Series. The first post, about driving client loyalty, can be found here. Gatherings. It’s what we do. In the past three weeks, I have hosted seven sets of houseguests in our home. Most are friends and their families arriving in the mountains of Western North […]
After 40+ years working with college students, accountants and lawyers. After a career collaborating with hundreds of clients, colleagues, co-workers and friends. After countless meetings and calls and committees and programs, I am retiring—mostly. Thank you. To my friends, mentors and colleagues for your encouragement and guidance, particularly at those times when I needed it […]
This is my last year as a law firm consultant. I’ve enjoyed the work (or at least most of it), but I’m ready to transition to a new set of goals and aspirations. Facing this life change has left me reflecting on the leaders who encouraged and shaped my success over the years. As leaders […]
In recent conversations with newly minted law firm partners, I’ve noticed a sense of obligation to go forth, find a worthy organization and secure a “board” position. Many see their mentors and other senior lawyers in the firm serving on boards and view it as another box to check on the partnership career trajectory. Most […]
For most of my 30 years in professional services marketing and business development, I worked in house. It took many years for the profession to remove the stigma of marketing and business development support as unprofessional and unnecessary. I understood early on that in order to be successful (and remain sane), my team and I […]
After graduate school and prior to attending law school, I taught college-level communications and theater arts for four years. What I enjoyed and remember most during those early years in my career was witnessing firsthand when a student would have an “aha” moment—understanding a concept or delivering a speech to an appreciative audience or nailing […]
Last week, I had the pleasure of conducting a workshop at a law firm on how to moderate a panel. It’s an unusual topic but one that comes up over and over again at firms. Too often, partners and associates are tasked with speaking at industry conferences—as stand-alone presenters, on panels and leading panels. In […]
While preparing for the recent three-part blog posts on retirement and client succession planning, I reached out to the Wicker Park Partners for their advice on the best ways for a senior partner to transfer client responsibility to a junior or mid-level partner. Not surprisingly, they emphasized the critical importance of client participation in the process. […]
This is the third post in a three-part series on succession planning. You can find the first post here and the second post here. Many senior lawyers are not receptive to the notion of retirement, which makes the succession/transfer of clients to younger partners difficult to say the least. As I noted in a previous […]
At WPG, we read (and listen) a lot. We read online resources like business and legal publications and listen to podcasts and audiobooks. I personally like good old-fashioned books and just finished The Culture Code. In it, Daniel Coyle unravels the secrets of highly successful and high-performing groups and offers some great tips and tools […]
This is the second post in a three-part series on succession planning. The first post was published in May. When is the best time to retire? It’s a complicated question with no cookie-cutter answers. Timing may be the most important ingredient in a successful retirement—and client transfer—recipe. This is particularly true for law firms. Many […]
This is the first post in a three-part series on succession planning. I’m currently working with a young partner at a Midwest firm of 300+ attorneys. Her business development plans include what she calls her “inheritance strategy.” As the name implies, she is working with a senior partner to acquire his clients when he retires. Yet, […]
At a recent leadership roundtable event, WPG facilitated a discussion among managing partners and firm leaders on what they most need from CMOs and marketing teams. The ideas that came out of the discussion aren’t earth shattering—but they are the most essential (and often unsaid) ways in which marketing teams propel their firms forward. The […]
Firms today are missing out on work because they’re failing to invest in a hugely important client contact: the in-house legal operations professional. Building relationships with GCs and in-house counsel is very valuable, but it often fails to translate into more work if you’re not also communicating regularly with the director of legal operations team. […]
The following article, written by Susan Kostal, was posted June 1 as part of JD Supra’s Perspectives series. I’ve attended many panels where in-house counsel share their likes and dislikes, but in the last year the tone has changed. In-house attorneys are increasingly dissatisfied, they tell us, because they can’t have the kind of conversations they […]
Wicker Park Group is revisiting some of the processes around Client Feedback Interviews in a new series of blog posts called “Back to Basics.” This is the fifth article in the series. You can find the first article about how to choose clients for feedback here, the second article about the importance of preparation here, the third article about who […]
For the last decade, we have worked with firms to launch, lead, develop and support client feedback interviews. And in almost every firm, the managing partner or chair is either already conducting relationship visits or planning to do them as soon as possible. They often come to us to discuss how to both train the […]
I recently attended a Birmingham LMA panel discussion moderated by Wicker Park Group partner Laura Meherg entitled “Lateral Integration & How to Avoid a Six-Figure Mistake.” Lateral hiring is often viewed as the number-one growth strategy for law firms. Because most law firms plan to hire laterals, I felt it important to share some of […]
As an alum of Chico State in California, I get the college’s newsletter a few times each year. I recently received one that caught my eye and reminded me of my current work training lawyers on business development. The business school staged a “Sweet Sixteen” competition that tested students’ strategic selling skills. The students, all […]
As is customary, the New Year brings with it a variety of resolutions, plans and promises. As such, this is a great time to outline and schedule business development training for the year. Along with the traditional marketing and communication responsibilities, today’s CMOs are expected to oversee new and evolving business development and sales initiatives, […]
We will periodically revisit some of Wicker Park Group’s most popular blog posts. This one, from November 2015, was one of last year’s most read posts. There seems to be a theme with our clients these past few months: change. We have three different clients who recently hired new CMOs, and there are significant changes […]
Wicker Park Group recently had the opportunity to speak with Doug Luftman, the Chief Innovation Officer and General Counsel at Lecorpio. He shared insights on what GCs are looking for from outside counsel and how to develop and strengthen those relationships. Luftman said, “The most valuable thing is outside counsel being savvy about my business and having true […]
I recently had the opportunity to perform my civic duty as a juror. While the timing was inconvenient and the case not all that interesting, the experience provided a great perspective on the dramatic impact of strong communication and meeting facilitation skills. The case was relatively short, and there were only three witnesses called. The […]
We will periodically revisit some of Wicker Park Group’s most popular blog posts. This one, from November 2015, was one of last year’s most read posts. “While our attorney conveys knowledge and supervises other attorneys, we don’t see a successor. But we don’t see one in any law firm. There is no incentive to do […]
The massive uptick in how corporate legal departments and law firms are collecting data to make smarter decisions in any number of areas may very well disrupt the legal industry. But Big Data is not a replacement for Little Data: the voice of the individual client. From IBM’s ROSS and Watson to Mitratech’s March acquisition […]
Law firms love meetings. And in most law firms, meetings are ineffective because of broken structures, focus and outcomes. Let’s point out of the obvious: Firms ask individuals who are the busiest, the most critical to the firm’s success and often the most productive to attend too many meetings. Firms conduct a significant number of […]
“When I select attorneys to handle a matter, I really look for a team. I want the leader to be familiar with the case and giving people direction. I don’t expect him to get in the nitty-gritty from day one, but you do really need a very smart guy to be in the details and […]
Many of you are aware that I was in the CMO role for over a decade. It was not without its challenges, and there were moments when it felt like pushing a boulder up a hill, but I really loved the position. I loved being in the hot seat to drive innovation and growth, seeing […]
Not long after I made the move from law firm practice to general counsel at a Texas financial institution, I observed that the senior executives at our holding company (the key decisionmakers) all had internal people within the bank who served as “coaches.” These coaches were not the ultimate decisionmakers within the bank regarding projects […]
As you kick off 2016, consider a few fresh training exercises for use at firm retreats or other gatherings. Experiential, active training has become a top priority for law schools and is also highly valuable in the development of a lawyer’s skills regardless of age or experience level. For law firms, interactive application exercises can […]
Towards the end of the year, our interview schedules slow down and we spend our days developing new content, cleaning up files and planning for the New Year. It is a great time to reflect and focus. A recent week of events made me realize the value of something we often take for granted: The […]
There seems to be a theme with our clients these past few months: change. We have three different clients who recently hired new CMOs, and there are significant changes in the managing partner and chairman roles of law firms. Furthermore, we have conducted quite a few interviews with individuals who are new to their company […]
“While our attorney conveys knowledge and supervises other attorneys, we don’t see a successor. But we don’t see one in any law firm. There is no incentive to do it.” Succession planning is one of those recurring issues that Wicker Park Group hears about regularly while conducting client feedback interviews. Whether due to a […]
It is a rare gift for a lawyer who has spent an entire career solving clients’ problems to be able to sit down with a client, truly listen to the client’s assessment of the relationship, get feedback and—most importantly—act on the feedback. As a consequence, law firms often confuse client feedback interviews with “thank you” […]
In a recent post, we discussed the value of using stories in pitching you, your firm and what sets you apart. The value of telling your story was also mentioned in an insightful series of tweets posted by Google Ventures partner Rick Klau a few months ago. Klau, an entrepreneur familiar with the legal marketspace, […]
When lawyers are unhappy at their firm, they have a nasty habit of telling their clients. And the clients take notice. In a recent column for The American Lawyer, The Careerist columnist Vivia Chen cites a Harvard Business Review article as context and support for her position that the benefit of the quest for workplace happiness is overstated. The […]
Last month, I spent two days with my dear friend Sanju Kripalani at Wicker Park Group’s annual client event. Sanju has one of those careers that very well may be unique to him: pedigreed education, New York law firm, Portland partner, DJ, marketing partner, patron of the arts, club owner, general counsel, yachtsman and now, […]
Telling a great story is often the difference between being listened to and being heard. In law firms, you are potentially telling a great story whether you are pitching to a client, negotiating compensation or winning over leadership in the quest for resources and support. Outside of law firms we tell stories for many reasons, including […]
“You are not talking to my client.” “My clients will tell me if they have a concern or problem.” “Clients are too busy.” “We don’t know how to respond to negative news.” “I have already talked to them about how we can grow the relationship.” “Where do we start?” The list of reasons to […]
At the LMA Southeastern Chapter conference in Nashville, Tennessee panelists shared best practices for strategic planning in law firms. While everyone agrees it’s critical for law firms to have a strategic plan, one panelist—the managing partner of a mid-size law firm—advises not to bother “creating one more nice notebook to put on the shelf” unless […]
We always appreciate a good book, especially when it is teaching us something valuable about how we live and work. Some of these books have challenged the way we view leadership and some have provided insights into teamwork and character, but all of them have left us wiser about how to foster strong work environments […]
It’s no surprise to anyone that the legal community is not typically classified as innovative. But as law firms and legal service providers adjust to the changing economic landscape, many of the more successful ones are adopting innovative practices to stand out and provide a higher caliber service or product. Innovation in the legal industry […]
This new video from RethinkLaw perfectly captures the state of the Legal industry and the ongoing and evolving shift in the client/law firm relationship.
In today’s Wall Street Journal in an article titled Top Lawyers Push Rates Above $1,000 an Hour(subscription required) the author leads the article by noting a “significant increase” in rates from previous years and that the lawyers are “taking advantage of big clients’ willingness to pay top dollar for certain types of services.” What? Taking advantage […]
Reed Smith will undoubtedly hit $1 billion in revenue in 2011, according totoday’s Am Law Daily. The legal publication has been reporting big numbers all week, but why isn’t there an uproar over this news, like we have seen as a result of the big banks and CEO bonuses? Big league New York firms are reporting record profits, with […]
In the November 2010 issue of the American Lawyer new AmLaw editor-in-chief Robin Sparkman (former editor of sibling publication Corporate Counsel) opens the issue with an editorial that tackles head-on the resistance firm leadership has to engaging in client feedback. Select quotes include: “Many partners simply don’t want their MP or chairman to meet with their biggest clients—even if […]