When Ogilvy Renault announced last fall that it was joining the Norton Rose Group, I went on record as saying I thought this was a watershed moment for the legal profession in Canada — that the world had finally arrived on our doorstep, more global firms were surely coming, and the law firm marketplace would… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Big Firms
Are you selling the lawyer or the firm?
From England and Wales, the newest hotbed of innovation in the current legal marketplace, comes word that the first nationwide solicitor franchise is on its way. Legal Futures reports that Face2Face Solicitors “is initially aimed at small private client law firms and will provide franchisee solicitors with centralized back-office systems – including accounts, IT and… Read more »
Canada’s Big Bang
Earlier this fall, I gave a presentation to a Canadian law society that described the key trends in the current legal marketplace and forecast where they’re likely to lead in future. As part of the presentation, we discussed a series of hypothetical future developments that would require the profession’s regulators to respond. One of them… Read more »
Destroying your own business
Well before Blockbuster Video actually filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this fall, The Onion produced a prescient video about a museum tour based on the movie rental chain: Historic ‘Blockbuster’ Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past. One dazzled visitor remarks: “It’s like stepping into a time machine … it’s hard… Read more »
The blind side
My newest column has been posted at Canada’s best legal website, which regular readers will know is Slaw.ca. Even though the article is also posted here for posterity, take the opportunity to absorb all of Slaw’s great information by going to read it there.
The platform is changing
Seth Godin calls it the WordPerfect Axiom, and he’s exactly right: When the platform changes, the leaders change. WordPerfect had a virtual monopoly on word processing in big firms that used DOS. Then Windows arrived and the folks at WordPerfect didn’t feel the need to hurry in porting themselves to the new platform. They had… Read more »
The boutique exodus
I was talking the other day with a partner in a large national firm. For a variety of reasons, including the nature of his practice area, his annual billings have been declining for a couple of years now, and he’s been contacted about it by some of the senior people in the firm. He’s been… Read more »
The lamp and the laser
When you set up a home office, as I’ve recently been doing, you begin to notice lighting in a way you hadn’t before. It quickly becomes apparent that fixed overhead lights and large floor lamps, no matter how bright they might be, don’t illuminate desks and laptops very well. For close-range work, helping you navigate… Read more »
Law firms on demand
What if you could take a law firm, carve away all the parts of it you don’t like, and keep all the parts you did? What if, from the client perspective, you could get rid of high and rising prices, time-based bills, gratuitous overhead costs and unfamiliarity with your business? What if, from the lawyer… Read more »
Hands across the water
I don’t normally focus on very large law firms and mergers thereof, but I’ll make an exception for this one. As you might have heard, US-based Hogan & Hartson and UK-based Lovells have apparently reached an agreement to merge their respective firms by May 2010. The combined entity (Hogan Lovells, provisionally) would crack the top… Read more »