Editors' Blog

CC's cautionary tale of scale (or how City firms fell out of love with big)

3/07/2009

With financial results from CC, Freshfields and Linklaters coming out pretty much as expected, I haven't currently got much to add. You can feel the tectonic plates of the industry and its hierarchy shifting, but that has been evident since...

A whole new kind of recession

30/06/2009

Incisive Media's professional service division, of which Legal Week forms a part, recently gathered together senior figures from the recruitment industry to discuss the current malaise affecting the sector over a glass of wine or two. Although clients and...

Welcome to the Nike recovery

29/06/2009

History teaches us certain things about attitudes to booms and busts. We know both are usually exaggerated at the time. We also know that attitudes often lag reality, especially with busts. The lag factor means people can come their...

New to the legal game? No problem, you're hired

23/06/2009

In a recent blog I asked why the legal industry was sizing up outsourcing to foreign countries such as India when, in the UK at least, the market has failed to effectively utilise lower-cost regional centres. It seems to be one extreme...

You don't have to be cuddly, but you better play it straight

19/06/2009

What makes staff feel satisfied? For law firms, as people businesses, that is the proverbial $64,000 question. Legal Week's research arm, Legal Week Intelligence (LWI) provides some answers with its annual Employee Satisfaction Survey, some headline findings of which...

Legalweek.com upgrades again (and we even added a print function)

10/06/2009

Regular readers will have noticed legalweek.com has gone through a substantial upgrade this week, its second since its groundbreaking relaunch in 2007. I'll spare you most of the back-room jargon beyond saying that the primary reason was to move...

Partner chargeout rates are too low - discuss

4/06/2009

Should clients get used to paying more for a partner's time? It seems a bizarre idea in this market, but it sprung to mind recently while taking one of my periodic online bashings from readers angry that I encouraged...

The warm embrace of suffering; the embarrassment of success

28/05/2009

If anyone doubted Legal Week's recent assertion that law firms would this year be concerned with managing client expectations over the awkward level of their profits, one only has to glance at the official statements from Lovells and Eversheds this...

A client's guide to getting it right

27/05/2009

There's a lot of pontificating about how lawyers should get those all-important client relationships right (or at least a little less wrong than they often manage). Personally, I suspect the main ingredients are mutual respect, good communication and an understanding...

The war for talent may be on a break, but reputation still matters

21/05/2009

Since its launch five years ago, the Employee Satisfaction Survey - Legal Week's annual report on the attitudes, priorities and morale of lawyers at major law firms - has always been interesting reading. But for several reasons this year, it promises to be...

 

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