If people are your law firm’s greatest asset, then attracting and nurturing human capital is critically important to the ongoing success of your business.
We are experiencing the most extraordinary and volatile market for recruitment, retention, and management of talent that the legal services industry has seen in the last 40 years.
Law firms often struggle with partner succession not because it’s the end of a lawyer’s active career—it often isn’t—but because a sequential handoff is not smoothly organized, well managed, and executed cleanly both internally and/or externally.
As a critical element of a comprehensive business strategy, smooth and seamless succession requires forethought, planning, and client input.
Book Chapter
This is why I authored the chapter on Succession: Transition Strategies for Lawyers, Law Firms, and Clients that appears in the book, Talent in the Legal Profession: How to Attract, Retain and Engage Top Talent published April 2024 by Globe Law and Business.
As you would expect, mine is the last chapter in this book that spans a 360-degree examination of global legal market talent from recruitment to—you guessed it—succession, and how talent and the management of it must evolve to best serve demanding clients within the global legal services market.
It is a pleasure to be among a group of experts whose insights will help both legal talent and management grapple with current and future challenges.
Succession Strategy Series
Succession will be impacted throughout the next decade by the retirement of senior law firm partners and a bumper crop of associates seeking new or different work styles.
As Baby Boomer lawyers shift out – willingly or not – thinning ranks will be expected to service clients conditioned to high expectations for speed and results.
This is the same class of clients who, already aware of the hollowing out of private practice legal talent, have been adding to their in-house departments. They will also be proactive in electing to send outbound work elsewhere and get it done by other means, if and when necessary.
Because succession and the planning of it is such a critical issue, I have produced a series of articles pertaining to succession strategies that will appear here shortly.
Heather Suttie is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading authorities on legal market strategy and management of legal services firms.
For 25 years, she has advised leaders of premier law firms and legal service providers worldwide — Global to Solo | BigLaw to NewLaw — on innovative strategies pertaining to business, markets, management, and clients.
The result is accelerated performance achieved through a distinctive one of one legal market position and sustained competitive advantage leading to greater market share, revenue, and profits.
The effect is accomplishment of the prime objective — To Win.
Reach her at +1.416.964.9607 or heathersuttie.ca.