FEATURES: EFFECTIVE DIVERSITY STRATEGIES IN LAW PRACTICE MANAGEMENT

Are Today's Law Firms Committed to Diversity?

By Allison C. Shields

The numbers may indicate that firms are failing to provide opportunities for diverse lawyers to flourish at the same time that more diversity is being demanded by clients.

The "Diversity Scorecard": What's the Real Story?

By Bruce MacEwen

Analyzing clues into what's behind a dip in the percentage of minority lawyers.

Inclusion Strategies to Eliminate Bias in the Legal Profession

By Susan Letterman White

An examination of the causes of bias, the reality of inclusion in the profession today, and motivating factors and strategies to advance inclusion efforts.

What Do Women Want? Challenging the Diversity Myth

By Ronda Muir

With women leaving the practice of law much faster than men, firms must think harder about delivering the initiatives that women lawyers seek.

How Law Schools Could Improve Law Firm Diversity

By Natalie Holder-Winfield

Law firm culture training might be the missing link to retaining more attorneys of color.

Negotiating Gender: Why So Few Women Neutrals?

By Victoria Pynchon

Is it possible to neutralize implicit gender bias in populating ADR panels? Here's a detailed discussion of key issues involved.

Law Firm Diversity and Inclusion Programs: Lessons Learned Beyond the Executive Committee

By Debra McCulloch and Erinn DePorre

It's critical that executive committees and management teams take a fresh look at diversity and inclusion, lest they practice the axiom "do as I say, not as I do."

Firms Open to Sexual Orientation Diversity Reap Benefits

This special reprint from the YourABA e-newsletter relates what witnesses at the 2009 Annual Meeting's "Gay Bar" hearing had to say about efforts to address LGBT workplace best practices in the profession.

marketing

Broadcast Your Expertise to Build Your Reputation

By Janet Ellen Raasch

Here are tips for "pitching," "catching" and "self-broadcasting" to spread the word about your know-how to the market.

Chair's Column

The Ratings & Rankings Game: Lawyers and Law Firms Weigh In Regarding the Impacts

By Micah Buchdahl

This second installment of a two-part column details the results of a program and accompanying attendee survey on "Ranking the Raters; Rating the Rankers," held at November's ABA Law Firm Marketing Strategies Conference .

management

Departing Employee Technology Checklist: Keeping the Fox Out of the Henhouse

By Thomas W. Shumate IV

One of the best ways for employers-including law firms-to minimize the destruction and theft of data is to have a departing employee technology checklist and follow it religiously.

Watching the Digital Detectives: The Arrival of Next-Generation Legal Skills

By Ernie Svenson

The young turks coming out of law school today instinctively connect the dots in ways that traditional lawyers don't.

Taking the Lead: Managing Technology Requests

By Ed Flitton

This past March, Ed Flitton, the LPM Section's finance director and longtime member of Law Practice magazine's editorial board, passed away suddenly. Ed, who was former managing partner of Holland & Hart, wrote a number of insightful articles on managing a law firm, including the following "Taking the Lead" column, originally published in Law Practice magazine. For more of Ed's writings, including his award-winning "Riding the Economic Roller Coaster: What NOT to Do in the Downswing," see the list of links at the end of this article.

TECHNOLOGY

Putting Diversification at the Center of Your Firm's Technology Strategy-Using a Simple Grid Approach

By Dennis Kennedy

The idea of diversification can also be applied to technology strategy. In fact, given today's economic challenges and rapidly changing technological innovation, diversification might well be the best approach to technology strategy.

Will Free Fit into Your Technology Budget? An Open Source Software Primer for the Solo and Small Firm Lawyer

By Dennis Kennedy and Gwynne Monahan

It's time for all lawyers, but especially solos and small firms, to learn more about Open Source software.

Best of ABA TECHSHOW: Alternative Billing

By Jim Calloway and Natalie Kelly

Alternative billing is certainly not new to the legal industry. However, with unprecedented changes in the economic climate during the last couple of decades and the resulting chaotic financial backdrops for many law firms, now is a good time for lawyers to really look at what makes alternative billing both economically feasible and practically realistic.

FINANCE

Making Staff Integral to Your Mission: A Successful Firm Is an All-Inclusive Firm

By Ed Poll

Involving everyone in the office so they feel a sense of inclusiveness will produce more harmony and productivity and therefore increase the firm's profitability.

Meet the Women Rainmakers!

Wendy Lazerson

Interview by Natasha Innocenti

This labor and employment partner takes the time to innovate to achieve good results for clients.