As featured in “Forbes” on November 30, 2020. For the last two centuries, for most young lawyers, legal training in the United States has meant studying at law school and taking courses in civil procedure and constitutional law. What it hasn’t provided, until very recently, are lessons in how to operate a business, how to innovate or how to think…
As featured in “Forbes” on July 13, 2020. Professional service firms generally produce a strategic plan every three to five years. And many had just completed new ones as 2019 came to a close. Who would have expected that those documents, just recently spell-checked and newly polished, would be tossed away once Covid-19 hit in the first quarter of the…
As featured in the March 17, 2020 edition of “The American Lawyer.” What can we as a profession do to grow or, at the very least hold onto, business during the time of COVID-19? It sounds like a riddle someone in an old movie tells a group at a cocktail party: Imagine being in a world where personal contact is…
As featured in the November 2019 edition of the European journal, “The 500.” Deborah Brightman Farone, founder of Farone Advisors LLC and former Cravath, Swaine & Moore CMO, highlights the importance of partner collaboration in law firm business development and marketing initiatives. A law firm leader recently asked me what it is that separates successful firms from the uber-successful, superstar…
As originally featured in “Forbes” on July 5, 2019. A professional service firm is hired for its strategic insight on a business challenge, whether it’s a law firm being asked to guide a client on litigation or a consulting firm advising how to bring together two corporate cultures after a merger. These firms of advisors are getting hired for their…
As featured in “The American Lawyer” on October 23, 2018. Only when each part of a firm is working toward the same business goals can it truly flourish. When it comes to law firm performance, does alignment matter? The answer is an emphatic yes. In our collective 65 years entrenched in law firms, we’ve seen well-aligned firms soar and succeed…
As originally featured in Forbes on July 9, 2018 The constant question marketing experts hear from professionals is: “What are the steps I should take to build my practice?” Building a practice within a larger organization, or even as a solo practitioner, is not an easy feat, but it is very much like being an entrepreneur. You have to look…
As originally featured in “Forbes” on April 19, 2018. The concern over losing marketing staff is one of the topics I hear most often from chairmen and their CMOs. Regardless of how satisfied they are with their marketing departments, there is an undercurrent: With such high turnover in the field, will organizations be able to retain talent when there is…
