June/July 2022
- Intervening Upstream: Why Firms Must Lead in Preventing Burnout
By Kendra Brodin
Burnout is a shared responsibility. Both organizations and individuals play a role in preventing and managing burnout.
March 2022
- Approaching Bias in the Workplace as a Business Problem
By Pam Hernandez
Bias is a business problem and needs to be approached with a business mindset.
February 2022
- Leading Through Connection: The Key to Increased Retention
By Michele Powers
Only through elevating the connections between individuals can you leverage your team to become a place where people are meaningfully engaged, support their well-being, and, ultimately, want to stick around.
January 2022
- DEI Benchmarks: What You Need to Know Now
By Silvia Hodges Silverstein
Diversity continues to be a hot topic in our industry. More and more, corporate legal departments regularly select firms that embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
August 2021
- How to Manage the Return to the Office
By Ellen Cohen
Managing the return to in-office work using the SCARF model.BY ELLEN COHEN
June 2020
- Meet the Managing Partner: James Frazier
By Nicholas Gaffney
An interview with the managing member of McBrayer PLLC in Lexington, KY. - Managing the Multigenerational Law Firm
By Lindsey Pollak
Five actionable best practices for managing attorneys of all ages.
October 2019
- How to Build Resilient Law Firm Leadership
By Renee Branson
Well-being goes well beyond mindfulness and massages.
September 2019
- Back to Basics
By Judith H. Katz & Frederick A. Miller
Tips for leaders who want to create higher performing, more inclusive organizations
April 2019
- Meet the Managing Partner: Keith Donovan
By Dawn Sheiker
An interview with the managing partner of Morris James LLP.
March 2019
- Lateral Partners and Their Missing Books of Business
By Rachel Silverman
Follow these five keys to help your laterals bring in business.
January 2019
- Making the Performance Review Process Better
By Diane Rosen & Laurie Lyte
Turn a negative process into a win-win for your firm and your people - Meet the Managing Partner: Rafey Balabanian
By Nicholas Gaffney
An interview with Rafey Balabanian of Edelson PC.
October 2018
- Five Success Strategies for the Modern Law Firm
By Yuliya Laroe
Take steps to attract, develop, and retain top talent. - Meet the General Counsel: James Rizzo
By Stephen Embry
An interview with the general counsel of the National Association of Home Builders.
July 2018
- Meet the Managing Partner: Edward Kang
By Micah Buchdahl
An interview with the managing partner of Kang Haggerty & Fetbroyt LLC.
June 2018
- Meet the General Counsel: Stephen Teplin
By Amy L. Drushal
An interview with Assistant General Counsel Stephen Teplin of Fidelity National Information Services (FIS).
January 2018
- The State of the Business of Law: Leadership and Governance
By John Remsen, Jr.
Too many law firms have “managers” instead of “leaders.” - Meet the General Counsel: Dennis Garcia
By Stephen E. Embry
An interview with the assistant general counsel of Microsoft.
October 2017
- Leadership: Do We Have It All Wrong?
By Susan Letterman White
Are law firms selecting leaders for all the wrong reasons - Looking Beyond the Hiring Process
By Cynthia Thomas
Tips on avoiding bad hires and retaining good ones.
July 2021
- Meet NAMWOLF’s New CEO: Leslie Davis
By Edward T. Kang
An Interview with Leslie D. Davis
(No Date)
- The Complete Guide To Being a Leader At Your Law Firm
Legal Marketing Education
August 2017
- Lawyers as Managers: How to Be a Champion for Your Firm and Employees
By Andrew N. Elowitt and Marcia Watson Wasserman
Today more than ever, all members of a law firm must work together as a team for the benefit of clients. Coordinating and getting the most out of everyone's contributions is the responsibility of a firm's managers. Helping you accelerate your growth as a manager of lawyers and legal professionals, this is a comprehensive and practical guide that includes the checklists, charts, and resources attorneys and managers need to lead thriving and resilient firms.
April 2014
- The Failing Law Firm: Symptoms and Remedies
By David Parnell
More than just illuminating the symptoms of a struggling firm, this book shows that by the time most symptoms are revealed, it is often too late for firm leaders to do something about them. This book provides a tool focused toward predicting destabilization, rather than just defining it once it happens, and supplies a blueprint that attorneys, management, and leadership can use in analyzing and planning for the robustness, cohesiveness, and strength of a firm's infrastructure.
September 2013
- Lawyers as Leaders
By Deborah L. Rhode
No occupation in America supplies a greater proportion of leaders than the legal profession, yet it has done little to prepare them for this role. Lawyers sit at the helm of a vast array of powerful law firms, businesses, governmental, and nonprofit organizations. Two of the last three presidents have been lawyers. And yet almost no occupation rouses greater public distrust. This paradox raises two important questions: Why do we look to lawyers to lead, and why do so many of them prove to be so ill-prepared for that role? In Lawyers as Leaders, eminent law professor Deborah Rhode not only answers these questions but provides an invaluable overview for attorneys who occupy or aspire to leadership positions in public and private practice settings.
July 2013
- Learning to Lead: What Really Works for Women in Law
By Gindi Eckel Vincent and Mary Bailey Cranston
One of the Commission on Women's highest priorities throughout the years has been to provide women lawyers with the information and tools they need to advance into leadership positions in all areas within the law. Learning to Lead provides a concise road map of the latest collective wisdom on leadership and applies those principles to women lawyers. It also features interviews with 11 women legal leaders who share their lessons learned and tips for success.
June 2013
- Lessons in Leadership: Essential Skills for Lawyers
By Thomas C. Grella
All too often, the difference between a successful and unsuccessful law firm is the quality of its leadership. Exemplary leaders have the power to motivate attorneys and staff to serve clients, collaborate, and innovate to the best of their ability. In times of trouble, ineffective leadership can drive a firm to ruin. Lessons in Leadership: Essential Skills for Lawyers will be required reading for any attorney--from newly hired associates to seasoned managing partners--seeking to develop their leadership skills. Through a series of practical lessons, veteran law firm leader Tom Grella draws from his own experiences and applies time-tested leadership principles to lawyers and law firms.
September 2012
- Learning from Law Firm Leaders
By Michelle C. Nash and Susan Manch
This book aims to crystallize views on a number of relevant aspects of leadership that have not been discussed in great depth in the current literature on leadership. It's a necessary resource for all law firm business strategists, management committees, chief strategy officers, chief executive officers, chief advertising officers, and law firm leaders at any stage in their leadership journey.
August 2012
- The Lawyers Guide to Professional Coaching
By Andrew Elowitt
Become more efficient and profitable in your law practice by employing a professional coach. The Lawyer's Guide to Professional Coaching will teach you to find, select, and work productively with the right coach for your needs--and transform your practice in the process. Learn how to get the most out of coaching, decide whether coaching is right for you and your firm, and use coaching skills when you collaborate with clients and colleagues.
June 2011
- Serving at the Pleasure of My Partners: Advice to the New Firm Leader
By Patrick J. McKenna and Brian K. Burke
This book is a compilation of the best questions and answers processed over the past three years by the Managing Partner's Leadership Advisory Board (LAB) a hand-selected group of distinguished current and former firm leaders, all with at least 10 years of experience, who address the distinctive challenges facing first-time law firm leaders. Eighteen chapters address some of the most common questions that new leaders have as they take office. Contents cover a wide range of issues, including how to better manage your time, how to deal with a chronic complainer, how to measure performance, and how to deal with complacency. This work focuses on helping leaders develop the skills to handle all of these issues and more.
October 2010
- The Art of Managing Professional Services: Insights from Leaders of the World's Top Firms
By Maureen Broderick
Maureen Broderick draws on her 30 years of experience in professional services to explore both the art and science of running a high-performance firm. She presents tangible processes and programs including 40 featured best practices that readers can tailor to their own organizations and cultures.
January 2008
- Leadership for Lawyers (2nd. Ed.)
By Herb Rubenstein
Leadership is essential for anyone who wants to steer their firms and organizations to new heights. This book is first in its field to help those in the legal profession become more effective leaders. Readers will discover the various brands of leaders, and the strengths and weaknesses of each. Herb Rubinstein has taught leadership at five universities and is the founder and president of Growth Strategies, Inc., a strategy, management, leadership, and innovation consulting firm in Bethesda, Maryland.
November 2007
- When Professionals Have to Lead: A New Model for High Performance
By Thomas J. DeLong, John J. Gabarro, Robert J. Lees
This book offers an integrated model of leadership that identifies four critical activities effective leaders must carry out:- set strategic direction
- secure partner and associate commitment to this direction
- three facilitate execution of strategy
- set a personal example of behavior
November 2005
- Leading Leaders: How to Manage Smart, Talented, Rich, and Powerful People
By Jeswald Salacuse
Whether you were born a leader or have had leadership thrust upon you, you’re in for a whole new set of challenges when managing other leaders. Think of the qualities that have brought you to a leadership role: your vision, confidence, and charisma, or perhaps your experience, unique skills, expertise, or network of powerful allies. Now remind yourself that other leaders share some or all these qualities with you. The leaders you are called upon to lead may be other executives, highly educated experts, investors, board members, government officials, doctors, lawyers, or other professionals. The potential contributions of these elites to any organization are vital, but the likelihood of friction is also high if you don’t manage relationships carefully. In any case, they are people with significant resources -- and strong opinions. How do you leverage the assets of the talented and powerful while making sure that egos remain unbruised?
April 2005
- First Among Equals: How to Manage a Group of Professionals
By Patrick J. McKenna and David H. Maister
In this strikingly unique "playbook," professional service experts Patrick J. McKenna and David H. Maister provide real-world examples, a wealth of self-evaluation materials, and concrete advice on stressful day-to-day management issues that every leader of professionals will welcome. The authors offer penetrating insights into the basics of coaching, dividing their attention equally between energizing and guiding the individual performer and the group.
July 2003
- Practice What You Preach: What Managers Must Do to Create a High Achievement Culture
By David H. Maister
Digging deeper by conducting in-depth interviews with managers and employees of the firms he surveyed, Maister has found that the key to success is not the systems of the firm, but the character and skills of the individual manager. He explores in detail the central role of the manager (what he or she must be, must do, and must require of others). The reader will find specific action recommendations from the managers and employees of these "superstar" businesses on how to build an energized workplace, enforce standards of excellence, develop people, and have fun -- all as powerful profit improvement tactics.
June 1997
- Managing the Professional Service Firm
By David H. Maister
Drawing on more than ten years of research and consulting to these unique and creative companies, David Maister explores issues ranging from marketing and business development to multinational strategies, human resources policies to profit improvement, strategic planning to effective leadership. While these issues can be complex, Maister simplifies them by recognizing that “every professional service firm in the world, regardless of size, specific profession, or country of operation, has the same mission statement: outstanding service to clients, satisfying careers for its people, and financial success for its owners.”