Legal Profession

Leadership for Law Firms After the Legal Services Act

By Patricia Wheatley Burt
Law Society Publishing December 2010

Specifications

ISBN-13
9781853286971
Publisher
Law Society Publishing
Publication
December 2010
Format
Paperback , 128 pages
Jurisdiction
International ? Countri(es) for reference only

Details

With the full implementation of the Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA) in 2011, the relevance ofleadership in law firms assumes a new importance. Managing Partners and incoming CEOs will be faced with huge choices about how to direct and lead their firms as well as decisions that may ultimately affect their survival. These challenges come not just from the impact of the LSA, rate increases in Professional Indemnity Insurance and changes in legal aid funding but also from changes in client expectation.

Leadership for Law Firms contains integrated research and anecdotal findings from over70 interviews with Managing Partners, CEOs and other experts. The report offers practicalguidance on the particular challenges faced by contemporary law firm leaders. The reportdiscusses:

  • the definition of leadership and how it differs from management
  • what firms need from a leader, and the qualities a leader should offer
  • matching the leader to the firm's strategic needs and partner following
  • how decision-making structures enable or inhibit innovative leadership
  • career leadership – the importance of succession planning in and out of the Managing Partner role.

Offering invaluable advice for every law firm from the established to those new to the market, Leadership for Law Firms offers practical guidance on all aspects of leadership based on extensive original research.

Table of Contents

1. Leadership in law firms - is now the time?;
2. Is it a leadership or management role?; 
3. Leadership and current structures; 
4. Leadership structures for the future - post 2011; 
5. Right time - right leader; 
6. Getting followers on-board; 
7. Behaviours and key traits for leaders;
8. Career leaders - as MP/CEO;
9. Sprucing up the leaders and their successors; 
10. Change or do nothing; 
11. Appendices.

About the Author

Patricia Wheatley Burt has over 20 years' experience as a management consultant specialising in the legal and professional sectors. As a director of Trafalgar - the People Business, Patricia provides pragmatic people and performance management consultancy and development including leadership and management, amongst other subjects. She has written many articles and two books; The Role of the Managing Partner (2007) and Profitable Performance Management (2006).

Reviews

'Leadership for Law Firms is an interesting report, produced at an apt time…There has rarely been a more important time to take care in choosing the leader of a law firm. For firms of all sizes, the immediate future contains both huge challenges and significant opportunities'

Eduardo Reyes, Law Society Gazette

'The Legal Services Act affects every law firm in England and Wales… All must consider their future strategy and the leadership required to help achieve that. This book provides helpful signposts along what for many could be a difficult and daunting path.'

Head of Professional Practices Group, Baker Tilly

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