You will have noticed the KMS Future Forums I'm facilitating for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane...January and February 2012...
The first three have already been a great success, with excellent feedback during and after...lots of important topics discussed, with a consensus that in some key areas things are changing a lot faster than most participants appreciated.
In fact I'd go so far as to say that in many areas the future is well and truly already here!
Your armoury of Business development techniques is being added to rapidly...with great success reported...at the same time as threats build with heavy marketing by the likes of Slater & Gordon and other "deep-pockets" starting to impinge on areas way beyond Injury Compensation...
Premises are being turned over more and more to fee-earners, with much word processing and other support services being successfully out-sourced...resulting in big cost savings and fewer organisational concerns...these benefits are certainly not limited to the big firms...a 98% accuracy guarantee is better than most firms can get in the traditional manner!
Some firms are operating with most fee-earners off-site too!
New models of practice structure proliferate...
Firms are trying hard to find ways to manage productivity in the face of increasing demands for staff lifestyle flexibility...with some firms having no male staff at all, and some having no full-time fee-earners at all...effective mentoring is a critical area to manage...
Some firms are of course experimenting vigorously with alternatives to billing by the hour, and it's clear that in that area increased sophistication is the key note...
Technology applications are evolving rapidly, with the cloud being a reality for small firms too, and mobile connection from anywhere being the norm for successful firms...
Interestingly there are still many firms that have made great strides in some areas but are disappointed with the productivity outcomes, and of course engagement management and risk management remain key areas of focus...
All in all the gap between the average firm and the highly profitable firms is getting far wider, with some phenomenal results being achieved by small medium firms that get the fundamentals right...
Happily my assertion for twenty-five years that there are no systemic hurdles to excellent small-medium law firms achieving excellent profitability are more and more often being demonstrated to be true...there are however many law firms not making progress forward strongly because they genuinely have very little idea what to do!
What saddens is when such firms also continue to have lots of reasons why they can't do what is recommended to them...perhaps such stubbornness and closed minds have been at the root of their problems all the way along?
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