Law Office Management & Administration Report

For many law firm administrators, securing partner buy-in can be a challenge. In most instances, it’s not a matter of moxie, but one of leadership.

Law firm leaders who allocate precious resources to marketing activities in the form of revenue and attorneys’ billable time don’t want to hear that their investment isn’t paying off.

If you think back to partner compensation two years ago, odds are it is a relatively pleasant memory. When asked to offer information on partner pay in 2006, 43 percent of the leaders who responded to our new Law Firm Practice Management Performance Benchmarks Survey, 2008 Edition told us that partners’ total compensation (including salaries/draws and distributions) increased from 1 percent to 10 percent.

Years of working with law firms have revealed a long list of things that leaders do (and don’t do) to ensure their practice groups fail. The following are some of the most common "worst practices" you should embrace if you want your practice groups to have little or no chance of succeeding:

Legal administrators and managing partners intent upon creating a plan to combat the rapidly deteriorating economy must rally.

What Law Firm Leaders Must Do When Distributions Are in Peril

Best Practices in Succession Management, Chicago, June 12-13. Contact: Linkage Inc., 781-402-5555; www.linkageinc.com

The NALP FoundationNames New CEO/President Have you heard? Paula Patton, long an industry fixture with NALP and with the NALP Foundation, has retired. Patton’s successor, Tammy Patterson—a former director of recruiting and professional development at Gardere Wynne Sewell in Dallas—assumed the position of president/CEO of the NALP Foundation, as of the first of May.

Each month LOMAR updates its Law Office Cost Index for major cities nationwide. This exclusive LOMAR monthly feature is aimed at helping law firm managing partners and administrators monitor relevant office cost changes within their area and compare them with other regions.