Compensation & Benefits for Law Offices
Compensation & Benefits for Law Offices is an indispensable reference for law firm recruitment, training, compensation, benefits, and HR managers who want and need to keep pace with what it takes to successfully recruit, retain, train, reward, recognize, and compensate top legal talent. Each issue provides you with a sneak peek at law firm best practices; critical news; important new trends, tactics, resources, new products; and more. It’s a virtual blueprint for success in today’s highly competitive market for legal talent and a resource containing information that law firm professionals can and will use daily.
AUGUST 2010 - Table of Contents
Law firms want to improve their bottom line and new investments in technology are a likely strategy. Firms are considering managed IT services, cloud computing, and mobile technologies according to a new study from CompTIA, the nonprofit trade association for the IT industry.
HEALTH CARE LAW DEADLINES DEAD AHEAD
And confusion aplenty abounds. Signed into law in March, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is about to impact law firms and other professional service business in a big way. Employers will have to hustle to meet the compliance deadlines established by the new law, says Steve Raetzman, a senior consultant with Towers Watson in Arlington, Va.
An unprecedented series of law firm layoffs has thousands of lawyers looking for work. Many are hanging out their own shingle for the first time either as solo practitioners or as part of two- to five-partner “micro” firms. To turn the pink-slip trend into a profitable new business quickly in this tough economy, every nonbillable hour needs to generate leads and build business. Debra Regan, vice president of the Internet marketing agency at LexisNexis offers these suggestions for budding solo practitioners and micro practices:
The recently released Altman Weil Flash Survey, Law Firms in Transition 2010, found a clear consensus emerging among U.S. law firms on changes affecting law firm finances, profits, and compensation. Over 75 percent of firms surveyed indicate that they believe that more price competition, more nonhourly billing and the use of project management to improve efficiency of service delivery will be permanent changes in the legal landscape.
Recently I was asked what is considered earned income. The lawyer posing the question stated that when a client places x amount of dollars in the trust fund, her firm bills against the full amount that is given. After she applies payment to the invoice, her concern was whether she should transfer to general funds the full amount that was originally put in trust.
Editor’s Note: Want to get focused on where the money is to be made during the second half of 2010? Robert Denney offers his midyear observations on where the legal profession will find the greenest pastures in the rest of 2010.
Lawyers and law firms have been talking about work-life balance for years. Some shun the concept entirely. But others, in response to the competition for top associates who make plain their insistence on “having a life” outside the law firm or to the growing ranks of female professionals who make plain that having a family is just as important as having a career, have taken pains to be responsive to such concerns.
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 percent reported having initiatives in their workplace to improve gender parity; but less than 25 percent felt those initiatives were effective.
When Do You Earn Your Fee?
It’s About the Money. New Survey Finds Consensus
How to Hang Out Your Shingle on the Internet
CBLO Calendar
News Briefs
Health Care Plan Deadlines Dead Ahead
Social Media, Wrongful Termination Linked
Succession Planning Still a Flop
Bonuses Expected to Remain Stable in 2010
401(k) Investment Providers Dumped
Law Firms Poised to Hike IT Spending
IN PERSPECTIVE
Alternative Billing Arrangements in Decline
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