Ron Friedmann’s highlights from the Altman Weil CLO 2018 survey

This post covers regular contributor Ron Friedmann’s highlights of the annual Altman Weil CLO Survey.

Client-informed research on innovation in legal services

‘Client-informed research on innovation in legal services’ by Shanan Kan and George Beaton was published in the June issue of the Association of Corporate Counsel (Australia) Journal. 

The article is based on a world-first 62-page report that probes Client-led Innovation in Legal Services and delivers penetrating and actionable insights in this critical area.

What’s on clients’ minds

After a break, Aric Press is back in Dialogue with What’s on clients’ minds. My partners and I have spent the last three years talking to hundreds of law firm clients. And we have good news and bad news to report.

Most clients like and appreciate the work they get from their outside firms, but only a minority told us that they were “very satisfied” by their outside lawyers. We heard heartwarming praise—“They were in the foxhole with me”—and the familiar “too” complaints: too expensive, too inefficient, too slow to change.

Economic status of the BigLaw business model

Just released, Citibank’s findings on the economic status of the BigLaw business model make insightful – and to futurists like me, pleasingly confirmatory – reading. Gretta Rusanow of the Law Firm Group in Citi Private Bank and her team have produced an outstanding analysis of the economic facts of BigLaw life and the probable future. 

The management science behind the professional partnership

The management science behind the professional partnership was celebrated in a special issue of the Journal of Professions and Organization, July 2017. (1)

Few professional services firm leaders and practitioners, consultants, and commentators are aware of the substantial body of knowledge that underpins the dynamics of partnership in the professions.  So, in this brief post, I reproduce the Abstract of one of the articles to give readers a taste – and hopefully encourage many to delve into this fascinating literature.

Signs of the times: The rise of managed legal services

This month I am delighted to welcome Catherine J. (CJ) Moynihan as a contributor to Dialogue. As a senior director of legal management services at the Association of Corporate Counsel,  she is the subject matter expert on managing the legal function, legal spending, and the ACC Value Challenge. Catherine has many and special perspectives on changes in the legal services supply chain, especially those being driven by clients.