Global Leadership in the Legal Profession

Table of Contents

1. ???Featured Article -Law Firm Business Strategies -Timothy B. Corcoran Principal

Timothy B. Corcoran is the principal of Corcoran Consulting Group, LLC and served as the 2014 president of the international Legal Marketing Association. A former CEO, he specializes in helping law firm and law department leaders adapt and profit during a time of great change. He authors Corcoran’s Business of Law blog.

2. Global Legal Market Consolidation - How? A Billion Dollar Opportunity

3. Introduction - The Global Business of Law - What's next?

4. Global Legal Leaders. com Features

5. Leaders in Legal Business - 2022

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???1. Featured Article: Law Firm Business Strategies

Every successful business must periodically review and adjust its service offerings in light of changing market dynamics. New entrants pose threats to entrenched players; emerging technology automates at a low cost what was once a lucrative manual undertaking; and leaders must engage in continuous game theory, acting and reacting to changing circumstances and competitors’ moves. In the global legal marketplace, rapid changes have increased the pressure on law firms and law departments alike to examine what and how they deliver legal services to clients, and leaders of these organizations must step up their game.

?Redefining Strategy

?In prior years, with near unlimited demand for legal services, legal services strategy required less rigor to identify new markets and new offerings. For law firm leaders, strategy was more closely aligned with branding and positioning — what do we want to look like in the future — with the expectation that whatever we choose to be, we will be. For law department leaders, strategy often followed the cadence of corporate strategy: decentralizing and aligning in-house counsel with business units one year; centralizing and consolidating legal services the next; but always with an eye on slowing the growth of overall legal services spending. As a result, the strategic planning process carried with it an unstated perspective: “We lawyers are here to stay, for what we offer will always be necessary.” The growth plans that resulted were quite often tactical in nature.

?For law firm leaders, there was little need to engage in an organized process of internal advocacy, aligning the firm’s capital investments toward the practices, markets, and resources that generated the best return, for all practices generated increasing revenue year after year. Indeed, many firms have only recently begun to calculate profit margin at the practice or matter level, so it was often impossible or highly impractical to measure performance in any way other than top line revenue growth. Strategy plans, therefore, focused primarily on tactics to raise the firm’s visibility in target markets, employing vague financial metrics to measure performance, with minimal accountability for the partners expected to deliver results. After all, so long as aggregate revenues exceeded aggregate costs by a comfortable and increasing margin each year, the details of how firms reached their targets were less critical.

?Tactics also ruled the day for many in-house law departments, as there was a prevailing expectation that legal services are, and always will be, a cost center rather than a profit center. As a service organization to its internal corporate clients, the law department’s reactive posture to whatever new strategy the corporate executives dreamed up left its leaders in a perpetual state of keeping up — hardly the best position from which to proactively organize and reexamine the role of the legal function.

?The global economic recession that began in 2008 demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that legal services organizations are subject to the same economic realities of other businesses, and with declining demand — or, in the face of emerging substitutes and alternatives for the provision of legal services, at least declining demand for the old ways and old prices — law firms and law department leaders have finally recognized that engaging in more formal strategic planning is not just a good idea, it’s also most likely the difference between a thriving organization and one that is facing an inevitable decline.

?Law firm leaders must account for both internal and external factors: not only what practices we want to offer, but what services are the market willing to buy, and at what price? They should no longer be deluded by the notion that “all revenue is good revenue.” Profitable revenue streams take persistence and deserve, and should consume, a greater portion of the firm’s resources and investment. Law department leaders, in turn, have come to realize that senior corporate leadership simply do not find credible that legal costs increase every year, in all areas, at a rate greater than other corporate costs, and cannot be predicted with any confidence, and furthermore that reducing legal spend will inevitably expose the business to greater risk. So, with these realizations, what are they doing about it?

Asking for Help ...

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??Tap over to read the full article by Tim Corcoran on the Global Legal Leaders' Blog.

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Timothy B. Corcoran is the principal of Corcoran Consulting Group, LLC and served as the 2014 president of the international Legal Marketing Association. A former CEO, he specializes in helping law firm and law department leaders adapt and profit during a time of great change. He authors Corcoran’s Business of Law blog.

2. Global Legal Market Consolidation - How? A Billion Dollar Opportunity

Over the last several decades there has been an expansion of firms, growth of networks, development of ALSPs, and the consulting professions. The expansion only increased the extraordinary market fragmentation in the legal profession. No firm or law business has a market share greater than .3%.

Problems

1. Market fragmentation in the legal markets creates inefficiencies.
2. Hundreds of thousands of law firms and related businesses offer similar services. ?Firms and businesses are duplicating new innovations.
3. Clients,?Market fragmentation in the legal markets creates inefficiencies.
4. Even with pronounced segmentation, clients cannot locate the exact services they require.

Results

1. Market inefficiencies increase costs to clients.
2. Innovative products/services are unable to reach the global market, increasing costs.
3. Service and product differentiation are almost impossible.
4. Unparalleled financial opportunities are lost to innovators and investors.

How??Consolidate the Global Market and Integrate the 4 practice functions?(law firms, networks, ALSPs, and consultants)?and the media.

This Consolidation makes 20% of the global B2B legal and accounting market easily accessible in minutes. This is $300 billion law related services.

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??Tap over to read the full article by Stephen McGarry on the Global Legal Leaders Blog. Reader Views: 2945

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Stephen McGarry (Amazon profile), BA, MA, JD, LLM (Tax), is the founder of GlobalLegalLeaders.com. He also founded Lex Mundi, WSG, AILFN & HG.org, one of the first 10 legal websites in 1995.

3. The Global Business of Law

In 2024 what approach can the legal profession take to unify the highly fragmented $1.1 trillion global legal market to increase efficiency to benefit everyone?

Three years ago this was the pivotal question that became the? catalyst for this venture. It culminated in the creation of the Global Legal Leaders (GLL) website as the solution. With the understanding that the legal sector encompasses more than just law firms, but also networks, consultants, Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs), and legal media, GLL set out on a mission to comprehensively bring together the recognized leaders in the global legal ecosystem.

The initial steps were targeted to identify the leading 230 law firms and their management across the 50 largest global markets. The scope broadened to encompass 50 legal and accounting networks, organizations that have invested billions in forging relationships to benefit clients. More than 20 ALSPs and 200 consultants were integrated into GLL, recognizing their crucial role. To round off the foundational framework, legal media, the essential channel for keeping the profession interconnected and well-informed were included.

Presently, the GLL platform facilitates direct access to a vast network comprising over 10,000 firms, with 600,000 professionals across 12,000 offices in 160 countries. Together, these entities offer $300 billion in annual services. GLL is accessible at no charge to the 500 organizations to advertise their expertise and interests. Individual users are invited to create a free account to tap into this expertise Each listed entity and user manage their own profiles. GLL is in 109 languages.

Newsletter's Objectives

The objective of the newsletter of the newsletter is to become the central nexus for the global legal community, offering a dependable venue for networking, sharing, and gaining insights into the international legal field. GLL, is dedicated to breaking down barriers and fostering connections between professionals and their clients. Its role is to spotlight the most influential leaders and innovators in the profession, who are at the forefront of driving the legal profession forward.

Each issue of the newsletter delivers articles and insights from leading thinkers in the profession, focusing on the business practicalities of legal practice and addressing the unique challenges you encounter. Its goal is to keep you informed of the newest trends and revolutionary practices in the legal sector.

Furthermore, your interaction with us and your colleagues via comments on LinkedIn is encouraged. This invitation extends beyond mere dialogue; it is an opportunity to connect with a community that shares your professional interests and challenges. Your active participation is crucial, enriching our vibrant business and professional community with diverse ideas and perspectives.

Thank you.

Global Legal Leaders

4. Global Legal Leaders.com Features

• The Global Legal Leaders Blog - Hundreds of articles on the business of law written by recognized leaders in the legal profession.
• Claim Your Profile: If your firm or you are already included on the website, claim you profiles for a changes and to receive business referrals.
• User Profile: As a user create your own profile to us the RFP system.

• 109 Languages: The website can be translated into 109 languages.
• Artificial Intelligence: You can access the entire world through ChatGPT 4.0 already included on the website, claim you profiles for changes and to receive business referrals.

5. Leaders in Legal Business - 2022

Law is a profession and a business.

At its core, the argument (against advertising) presumes that attorneys must conceal from themselves and from their clients the real-life fact that lawyers earn their livelihood at the bar. We suspect that few attorneys engage in such self-deception ... Bankers and engineers advertise, and yet these professions are not regarded as undignified.

? Bates v. Arizona, 433 U.S. 350, 369 (1977).

Forty (42) leaders write about their and their organization’s contribution to both. (253 Pages)

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Mission

The mission of Global Legal Leaders is to provide real-time access to the expertise of lawyers, accountants, consultants and ALSPs in 10,000 firms in 160 countries - for free.

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