I am generally critical about how law firms are managed, although always out of a sense of affection and respect for my profession. Even I was shocked by what I read about the management in Dorsey & Whitney’s London office:
But old-fashioned bad management is apparently playing its part too: one partner issued an email
The legal profession is extremely fragmanted. There is no IBM, Ford or even Price Waterhouse Coopers in the legal profession – the mega law firms are tiny. I believe that explains why there has been so little R&D and innovation in the profession. That may be changing. According to Bruce Macewen’s Adam Smith Esq. post
Stephanie West Allen After seeing my post called “Fun in a law firm? You bet!”, Stephanie West Allen has authorized me to share with you a glorious little piece of work she did in 1997 called DON’T DECK THE CLOWN悠NVITING HUMOR INTO THE LAW FIRM Have a look – Download file – there may be
Peter Cornell, Managing Partner, Clifford Chance I admire 53 year old outgoing Clifford Chance Managing Partner Peter Cornell for his integrity and self awareness in saying that “his skills as a lawyer were too rusty for him to return to practice” according to an article in today’s New York Law Journal by Anthony Lin titled:
Managing Partners start thinking of ways to harness this little philosophical gem in your firm:
Fun is not a distraction from work or a drain on our revenue; it is the very source of both our inspiration and our value. A genuine sense of play ignites our creativity, eases communication, promotes goodwill and engenders
Thank you Tom Peters for this tidbit from a post called “Stuff
”: 
ALL THERE IS. Damn it! I keep forgetting this! Leaving it out of presentations! Namely, a PP slide that simply reads : You = Your Calendar. THIS IS MY #1 BELIEF ABOUT MANAGEMENT. Or: “You can’t bullshit your calendar.” Or: “Your
You will see the story gets all excited about Benjamin R. Civiletti, now chairman of the Venable law firm, for reaching the lofty threshhold of a $1,000 per hour hourly billing rate. If that $1,000 rate for Mr. Civiletti is serving a well conceived strategy to differentiate by being obnoxiously expensive, I fully respect that.
Mandi Fleiser If esprit de corps in your office is so fantastic that you are looking for ways to suppress it, then skip this post. However if you want to see a brilliant, simple and time efficient way of enhancing it, then treat this as a mini case study. (Esprit de corps is “a feeling
Seth Godin, puts his Stanford MBA to good use as he illustrates that this “Local Max” is probably where your law firm is right now. The pain that you would sustain at points B and C leads to the “Big Max” (below). 
If we extrapolate from Seth’s comments combined with my observations of our
Peter Drucker in his passing is all over the internet as people pay tribute to someone who did what the rest of us aspire to: make a difference. Tom Peters’s perspective on Peter Drucker is especially meaningful to me because of my regard for him and his work (yes, he also is making a
