Change has long been a defining element of the legal services market and, over the past decade, the pace of change has accelerated more rapidly than perhaps ever before. The greatest business challenge, however, remains the same: to continue to be competitive and profitable. This Special Report presents practical strategies to help law firms protect and sustain their profitability as shifting client expectations, advanced technology and global influences challenge many of the old paradigms in law firm management.

Authors Norman Clark and Lisa Walker Johnson demonstrate that although traditional factors influencing profitability remain valid, they must be managed in new ways to meet new financial realities. Insights include:

• lessons learned from the global recession of 2009–2010 and the COVID-19 pandemic;
• innovations in pricing, productivity and cost management; and
• rightsizing the law firm for sustainable performance and profitability.

This report highlights what sustainable profitability really means for the 2020s and beyond, and how any law firm can achieve it.

Norman K Clark
Founding principal, Walker Clark LLC
[email protected]

Norman K Clark is the managing principal of international legal management consultancy Walker Clark LLC, which he helped to found in 2002. His consulting practice specialises in issues of strategic planning and implementation, law firm profitability, governance and quality assurance.
His 52-year career as a lawyer includes experience as a trial lawyer, trial judge, law professor and senior manager of the delivery of legal services on a global scale. He has been a full-time business adviser to the legal profession for the past 30 years, having advised clients in law firms and corporate and government law departments in more than 90 countries.
Norman holds a BSc, a JD and an LLM. He is a retired member of the Pennsylvania Bar and a past chair of the International Bar Association Law Firm Management Committee and the American Bar Association Cross-Border Practice Management Committee.

Lisa M Walker Johnson
Founding principal, Walker Clark LLC
[email protected]

Lisa Walker Johnson’s professional background is as a counselling psychologist, with more than 35 years’ experience in providing senior levels of business management and consulting to corporations and law firms worldwide.
As a psychologist with deep experience in law firm management issues, Lisa helps law firms to manage sensitive and frequently difficult change management issues, such as the integration and retention of lateral partners, leadership transitions between generations of partners, cultural due diligence during mergers and the implementation of strategic change in the disruptive business environments confronting the legal services industry.
Lisa has published extensively in these areas and frequently speaks about them at major international conferences for legal professionals.