Attracting, Retaining, and Advancing LGBT Lawyers

Attracting, Advancing, and Retaining LGBT Lawyers is now available in PDF format allowing for rapid distibution through your Firm.

Through to 5pm April 28th you can order your copy and benefit from a $250 discount - making your copy just $195

To order your copy simply reply to this email quoting the code ME-PDF1

Below is a very brief overview of the report, and a full executive summary can be found here

A full executive summary, introduction and table of contents are available here:
http://www.womenlegalmagazine.com/Publication.asp?pubid=478847E7-AE85-4B38-8959-8F5BFAD7BD7C

Attracting, Advancing, and Retaining LGBT Lawyers is a comprehensive step-by-step guide to not only overcoming the challenges associated with the complex issues that lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender (“LGBT”) lawyers face in the modern legal profession, but also how these issues impact the Law firms that they work for.

Although LGBT individuals have made significant progress towards equality in many social arenas, many still face negative stereotypes, harassment, and bias in the workplace. With clients, law students, and lateral candidates increasingly focused on diversity, law firms must examine their workplace policies, procedures, and cultures to encourage and embrace diversity and ensure that all attorneys experience a respectful and collegial working environment.

Creating diverse workplaces makes good business sense, as many law firms have already discovered. Clients often expect their outside legal counsel to have inclusive workplace policies and diverse client service teams.

Authored by Lisa Linsky (McDermott Will & Emery) and Amy Beard (McDermott Will & Emery) the first part of this report provides a comprehensive overview exploring:

1. The challenges that LGBT attorneys face;
2. Initiatives that firms can use to recruit LGBT attorneys (and strategies attorneys and law students can use to seek out LGBT-friendly firms and programs);
3. The ways in which firms can make their workplaces more welcoming to LGBT attorneys.

The second part of this report comprises of case studies, insight, contributions and practical real world examples from firms and individuals who have achieved high levels of success and recognition including:

C. Elaine Arabatzis (Dickstein Shapiro LLP), Petra Braybrook (Simmons & Simmons), Denise Brogan-Kator (Rainbow Law Center PLLC), Andrew Dent (Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP), James Holmes (Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP), D’Arcy Kemnitz (National LGBT Bar Association), James Leipold (National Association for Law Placement), Gail H. Morse (Jenner & Block LLP), Laura Olch (Boston University School of Law), Todd Solomon (McDermott Will & Emery LLP), Gabe Verdugo (University of Washington School of Law), Dr. Jillian T. Weiss (Jillian T. Weiss & Associates), Daniel Winterfeldt (Simmons & Simmons), Jeffrey Wolf (Williams Kastner), and Ann Young (New York Law School), amongst others.

They expand on the topics covered in part one in more depth including:

- The challenges facing LGBT attorneys,
- The need for law firms to encourage diversity
- Methods by which law firms can become more diverse
- Creating cultures of inclusion to retain and attract top LGBT legal talent
- Retaining LGBT attorneys with pro bono and community service initiatives
- Mentoring LGBT attorneys to advance their careers and create firm leaders
- Implementing employee benefits policies to cover domestic partner and other same-sex partner benefits as recruitment and retention tools.

How to order:
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To order your copy for just $195 (normally $445) contact us before 5pm April 28th quoting the code ME-PDF1:

- phone - +1 309 495 2853;
- e-mail - melam@ark-group.com

Creating the Successful Law Firm Intranet

Creating a Successful Law Firm Intranet

An essential guide to enabling you to create a successful intranet management team, design a successful project plan and successfully develop, launch and maintain your intranet into the future.

Through till 5pm April 8th you can order your copy for just $195 (excluding shipping)

To order your copy, simply email melam@ark-group.com quoting the code ME-LI2.

This report provides iis a step-by-step look at each vital phase of a successful intranet redesign project. It explains why user involvement is critical, how to engage users in an intranet project and what tasks users will perform throughout the life-cycle of the intranet project.

Creating a Successful Law Firm Intranet begins with guidance on how to build a compelling business case that will gain the support needed to help ensure the project is a success from the outset and how to identify the roles and responsibilities of your team.

A full executive summary, introduction and table of contents are available here

Overview:

Creating the Successful Law Firm Intranet begins by addressing and clearly defining:

- Where to begin: building the business case for an intranet
- Who to include: why governance is critical to a successful intranet
- How to do it: methodology to follow for a successful intranet project:

It covers the 5 key phases of an intranet redesign project including:

- Research,
- Design,
- Development,
- Rollout,
- Measurement and Maintenance

Each of these phases include processes, helpful hints and suggested tools that will enable a firm to successfully move to the next phase in the process. Expected deliverables and outcomes of the phase are explained and illustrated.

Creating the Successful Law Frim Intranet features numerous case studies from firms including Baker Donelson, Reed Smith, Torys, amongst others, that demonstrate the methodology and processes being used successfully or in some cases demonstrating how not using these methods can be disastrous.

Who should read this report:
This report is intended for use by intranet managers, librarians, chief knowledge officers, executive administrators, management committee members, chief information officers and anyone who is a champion, manager, creator, developer or user of a law firm’s intranet.

How to order:

To order your copy for just $195 (excluding shipping) contact us before 5pm April 8th quoting the code ME-LI2:
- phone - +1 309 495 2853;
- e-mail - melam@ark-group.com

The Value-Able Law Department: Securing Maximum Value from Internal and External Legal Resources

The Value-Able Law Department

Executive Summary:

The current pressures on law departments. which are likely to intensify rather than abate, are such that the law departments must explore new avenues to maximize the value that their companies realize from their investment in legal services. The internal and external resources deployed on a company's behalf must all contribute as fully and as efficiently as possible to achieving the company's legal goals. Benchmarking against other law departments may no longer satisfy the expectations of corporate management, since many companies have driven continual improvement processes throughout the rest of their organizations. They're unlikely to accept anything less from their in-house lawyers.

Those pressures will, therefore, prompt forward-thinking law departments to re-examine their approaches to identifying and deploying the legal resources at their disposal. They likely will revisit periodically the "make-or-buy" equation. In the context of their companies' uses of outside legal expertise, rather than engage in the discussion of "do we retain the lawyer or do we retain the law firm," they should ask something akin to the following question: "which outside lawyer can best provide the specific type of legal expertise we need and how can we most effectively combine that lawyer's assistance with that of the other members of the legal team?"

The line between work done by internal talent and that completed by external talent may need to be redrawn for a variety of reasons. In some cases, perhaps more work should be completed by in-house attorneys and other personnel of the company. Other companies may need to assign more work to outside counsel in order to achieve the most efficiency. Some companies may find that they should pull more work in-house on some matters and more work should be handled by outside counsel as to other matters.

What talents should a law department have on its staff to meet the company's legal needs? How should it fill the slots so identified?

Correspondingly, what types and amounts of legal talent will it need among its external legal advisers? Where should they be located?

Once it determines what work should be completed in-house and which assignments are better left to outside counsel, how can a law department assure itself (and its corporate management) that the entire team of lawyers and other professionals (both inside and outside the company) will work together seamlessly so as to deliver the best legal work appropriate to meet the company's needs?

In addition to recalibrating the application of personnel and other resources internal and external, law departments should consider whether techniques that they might have failed to apply previously can assist them in delivering the "most bang for the buck" that their companies spend on their legal needs. Does "total quality management" offer some benefits that would be useful in that regard? Might some project management approaches provide insight into the most appropriate use of legal talents?

Ultimately, law departments will need to become more specific and granular in their selection of personnel and outside counsel. Rather than continue to the age-old debate of "choose the lawyer" versus "choose the law firm," law departments will need to assemble teams of individuals to represent their companies in specific matters (litigation or otherwise). While some law departments have formed teams by having several of their network law firms work together on one or more matters, in at least some situations in-house lawyers will need to dig into the firms and other organizations with which they're familiar to select individuals or groups to form ad hoc, cross-organizational teams. They may have to find on-demand or contract solutions to immediate talent voids when a longer term solution is not feasible or appropriate.

This book addresses the implications of such a more-granular approach to identifying and selecting the legal resources necessary to address a company's needs for legal service. How might that approach affect or change the nature of the relationship between in-house and outside counsel? What tools and techniques will law departments need to implement such an approach? Will they need to find new expertise or train the in-house lawyers on new approaches or techniques?

Table of Contents:

Part One: Identifying and deploying internal resources to maximum value and advantage

Chapter 1: Value - Some thoughts regarding a definition
- The in-house counsel perspective
- Factors affecting value
- A discussion of ‘quality’

Chapter 2: The measure of value
- Internal and external factors affecting value determination
- The balancing act of resources versus goals

Chapter 3: Planning to identify and apply the appropriate resources
- Contents of a strategic plan
- Strategic strengths and challenges

Chapter 4: Identifying the highest value of in-house counsel
- Benefits and value of in-house counsel
- Qualification and skills of in-house counsel
- Case study: A new in-house lawyer focuses on delivering value

Chapter 5: The role and importance of metrics
- Benchmarking
- Self-diagnosis
- Selecting measurements
- Case study: American Express
- Case study: Motorola

Chapter 6: The ‘make-or-buy’ dilemma
- Cost
- Necessity of admission to practice
- Type(s) of legal work that comprise most of the ongoing work for the company
- The degree to which the particular work is core to the business
- Volume of work and its variability
- Business plans and expectations
- Location work to the extent that work must be done in particular locations
- Centrality of issues to the company’s compliance posture
- Importance of consistency across matters
- Corporate culture/ethos
- Repetitiveness of issues or matters
- Frequency of the need for counseling

Chapter 7: Areas to consider for possible increased in-house role
- Creating a discovery centre within the law department to increase security of data
- Creating a discovery management unit to realize better results in addition to cost savings
- Utilizing on-demand personnel to reduce costs

Chapter 8: The knowledge management challenge
- Why does an organization need a knowledge management system?
- Compliance: A particularly difficult knowledge management challenge
- What value can a knowledge management system offer?
- Hurdles to an effective knowledge management system
- Overcoming the hurdles
- Conclusion

Chapter 9: Using technology to realize greater value
- Improved collaboration
- Case study: Creating a law department extranet to enhance collaboration with outside counsel
- Technology to enhance compliance

Chapter 10: Law department organization and structure
- Managing disputes and litigation
- Compliance
- Managing outside counsel
- Support of the board of directors and the corporate secretary function
- Contract management and administration
- Human resources and employment law

Chapter 11: Cost control – Some possible approaches
- Counsel-selection tools
- Counsel-management tools
- Information management

Part Two: Identifying and deploying external resources to maximum value and advantage

Chapter 12: The value of outside counsel
- Amount of resources
- Type of resource
- Location of resources
- Expertise
- Connections

Chapter 13: An overview of the identification and selection of outside counsel
- Methods of identifying candidate law firms
- A new, improved approach
- Ongoing evaluation

Chapter 14: Unbundling the outside legal service to realize increased value
- Legal research
- Document or data management
- Court reporting
- Temporary or on-demand personnel
- Case study: Unbundling

Chapter 15: The importance of consistent process

Chapter 16: Don’t select either the firm or the lawyer – Select ‘appropriate counsel’
- Case study: Team building

Chapter 17: Setting yourself up to succeed
- Project management
- Strategic partnering
- Business objectives for resolving litigation
- Communication

Chapter 18: Prepare to defend your selection
- Case study in the use of objective criteria
- Evaluation against stated expectations
- Case study: KONE, Inc.

Chapter 19: Managing outside legal resources to maximize their contribution to achieving business goals
- Selection of outside counsel
- The retention of counsel
- Day-to-day management of counsel
- The importance of communication
- Evaluation of firms
- Incorporating other providers in its legal service delivery

Chapter 20: Fees and value
- Corporate law department perspective
- Law firm perspective
- The contexts in which alternative fees should be discussed by clients and law firms
- Alternative fees – Different types
- Fixed fee
- Blended rates
- Retainer
- Value-based fee
- Case study: Engaging clients in a ‘value’ discussion about assignments to support alternative fees
- Percentage fee
- Contingent fee
- Task-based fee
- Hourly rate plus contingency
- Volume discount
- Incentives to expedite
- Task-based budgeting
- Graduated discount
- Convergence
- Obstacles to wider use of alternative fee arrangements
- Overcoming the hurdles

Chapter 21: Law firm structure and its impact on value
- Case study: A law firm structure that benefits clients by delivering more value
- Case study: Impediments to law firm being responsive to client’s needs regarding value

Chapter 22: Reporting by outside counsel
- Case study: Wal-Mart

Chapter 23: Tracking your success and reporting about it

Transition and Succession Planning for Law Firms

Transition Planning for Law Firms

A comprehensive guide to securing core knowledge and expertise in the legal Profession

Managing Partner Magazine's new report Transition Planning for Law Firms is now available.

Through till March 24th you can order you copy with a $200 discount making it just $295 (excluding shipping). To order this report simply email melam@ark-group.com quoting the code BL-TP1 before March 24th.

The full overview, executive summary and table of contents are now available here

For more information on this report please contact us on 309 495 2853

The Value-Able Law Department: Executive Summary

The Value-Able Law Department - Executive Summary

By Steven A. Lauer ©2010

The current pressures on law departments. which are likely to intensify rather than abate, are such that the law departments must explore new avenues to maximize the value that their companies realize from their investment in legal services. The internal and external resources deployed on a company's behalf must all contribute as fully and as efficiently as possible to achieving the company's legal goals. Benchmarking against other law departments may no longer satisfy the expectations of corporate management, since many companies have driven continual improvement processes throughout the rest of their organizations. They're unlikely to accept anything less from their in-house lawyers.

Those pressures will, therefore, prompt forward-thinking law departments to re-examine their approaches to identifying and deploying the legal resources at their disposal. They likely will revisit periodically the "make-or-buy" equation. In the context of their companies' uses of outside legal expertise, rather than engage in the discussion of "do we retain the lawyer or do we retain the law firm," they should ask something akin to the following question: "which outside lawyer can best provide the specific type of legal expertise we need and how can we most effectively combine that lawyer's assistance with that of the other members of the legal team?"

The line between work done by internal talent and that completed by external talent may need to be redrawn for a variety of reasons. In some cases, perhaps more work should be completed by in-house attorneys and other personnel of the company. Other companies may need to assign more work to outside counsel in order to achieve the most efficiency. Some companies may find that they should pull more work in-house on some matters and more work should be handled by outside counsel as to other matters.

What talents should a law department have on its staff to meet the company's legal needs? How should it fill the slots so identified?

Correspondingly, what types and amounts of legal talent will it need among its external legal advisers? Where should they be located?

Once it determines what work should be completed in-house and which assignments are better left to outside counsel, how can a law department assure itself (and its corporate management) that the entire team of lawyers and other professionals (both inside and outside the company) will work together seamlessly so as to deliver the best legal work appropriate to meet the company's needs?

In addition to recalibrating the application of personnel and other resources internal and external, law departments should consider whether techniques that they might have failed to apply previously can assist them in delivering the "most bang for the buck" that their companies spend on their legal needs. Does "total quality management" offer some benefits that would be useful in that regard? Might some project management approaches provide insight into the most appropriate use of legal talents?

Ultimately, law departments will need to become more specific and granular in their selection of personnel and outside counsel. Rather than continue to the age-old debate of "choose the lawyer" versus "choose the law firm," law departments will need to assemble teams of individuals to represent their companies in specific matters (litigation or otherwise). While some law departments have formed teams by having several of their network law firms work together on one or more matters, in at least some situations in-house lawyers will need to dig into the firms and other organizations with which they're familiar to select individuals or groups to form ad hoc, cross-organizational teams. They may have to find on-demand or contract solutions to immediate talent voids when a longer term solution is not feasible or appropriate.

This book addresses the implications of such a more-granular approach to identifying and selecting the legal resources necessary to address a company's needs for legal service. How might that approach affect or change the nature of the relationship between in-house and outside counsel? What tools and techniques will law departments need to implement such an approach? Will they need to find new expertise or train the in-house lawyers on new approaches or techniques?

For details on how to order your copy of this report contact us on 309 495 2853

Report: Social Networking for the Legal Profession

Social Networking for the Legal Profession

Social Networking for the Legal Profession provides best practice examples, and clear strategies for adopting and exploiting social networking for business, both internally and externally for operations, communication, and business development strategies.

The report takes into account the risk issues surrounding the use of social networking in a legal context and explains the challenges you must overcome to make implementation of a social networking strategy a success.

Through till March 5th you can order you copy with a $200 discount making it just $295 (excluding shipping). To order this report simply email melam@ark-group.com quoting the code BL-TP2 before March 5th.

View table of contents, introduction and executive summary here

Overview:

Social Networking for the Legal Profession

There has been a great deal of interest in social network-based technologies among law firms and corporate legal departments in recent years, but relatively few of them have been able to adopt these new tools in a meaningful way. Now, with the advent of the global recession and increased competition, more orgainizations are looking to social technologies for innovation, cost savings, and value enhancement.

This report will explore the networking practices and social tools that are currently being adopted by individuals in law firms and corporate legal departments, and provide you with practical guidance for getting started with an online social networking strategy, including:

- What do we mean by social networking in a legal context?
- Using online social networks for recruitment, value-added legal services, thought leadership and reputation management;
- Using networks across the orgainization to improve experience location, knowledge sharing, current awareness and internal communications;
- The role of social networks in improving both personal and network productivity, decision making, collective intelligence and relationship building;
- Challenges to establishing and participating in online social networks;
- How to evaluate and select social networking tools, and assimilate them in to your professional and personal life in ways that suit and make sense to you;
- Policy and governance issues around social networking adoption;
- A survey of personal, professional and lawyer-to-lawyer social network sites, including the best sites for lawyers and what they have to offer;
- How social tools support social networking within the firm, including blogs, wikis, presence sharing, social bookmarking and tagging; RSS, social news reading and syndication; and,
- Future social networking trends and their impact on the legal profession.

The guidance and expertise provided within the report is supported by case studies and interviews with legal professionals offering practical advice and insight into social networking and the use of social tools.

For more information on this report please contact us on 309 495 2853

New Report: Transition and Succession Planning for Law Firms

Transition Planning for Law Firms
A comprehensive guide to securing core knowledge and expertise in the legal Profession

Managing Partner Magazine's new report Transition Planning for Law Firms is now available.

Through till March 3rd you can order you copy with a $200 discount making it just $295 (excluding shipping). To report simply email melam@ark-group.com quoting the code BL-TP1 before March 3rd.

Below is a brief overview and a full executive summary and table of contents can be found here

Overview:

Law firms are facing a leadership crisis - Quite simply, the ‘baby-boomer’ generation is nearing retirement and will soon leave their firms.

With this demographic crisis looming on the horizon, firms are left with a situation in which the younger generation are either unwilling or not suitably trained to take over the reins of leading their businesses.

In the next five years, your law firm will be transitioning to the next generation. If you fail to implement succession strategies now you may well find yourself with a leadership gap in just a few years’ time. And what will start as an internal problem will soon escalate to a business crisis, as your firm loses vital knowledge and the means to effectively serve your clients.

Managing Partner magazine's new report on Transition Planning for Law Firms will help you devise a sound succession plan for your firm that ensures not only a more secure organisational set-up that locks-in your core knowledge and expertise, but the means to impress your clients with the kind of long-term thinking that protects business interests.

The report begins by identifying the key challenges that lie ahead by examining the emerging demographic trends against most recent developments in the legal profession.

It then looks to provide innovative, realistic and simple solutions that can be cost-effectively applied in a post-recessionary environment. The report considers numerous issues including:

- The impact of generations X and Y on the practice of law in the 21st century. What do senior management need to know to ensure a smooth transition to the next generation?
- The retirement of the baby-boomer generation. What ongoing risks does this pose to a law firm’s business stability?
- The current preparedness of the younger generation to take the reins of their businesses. Do they even want to follow in the retirees’ footsteps?
- To what extent has the recession turned an ongoing succession challenge into a potential crisis, as numbers of lawyers, support staff and resources have been cut?
- What are the potential solutions – how can strategies such as mentoring, after-action reviews, story-telling and interactive learning help enable smooth transition between generations?
- What role can technology – and particularly Web 2.0 tools – play in addressing the succession challenge?
- And whose responsibility is succession planning anyway?

In the post-recession environment, firms will be keen to demonstrate to clients their long-term resilience following months of uncertainty. This important new report will include highly practical case studies from firms who have successfully implemented succession planning, including Weightmans LLP; Mills & Reeve LLP; Eversheds; Optim Legal; Macpherson & Kelley Lawyers; Altman Weil; Borden Ladner Gervais; and many more..

For more information on this report please contact us on 309 495 2853