Jaap Bosman

Globe Law and Business' journal Modern Lawyer is known for helping professionals navigate the changing legal services landscape, featuring insights from in-house counsel, legal tech specialists, law companies, law firms, and business leaders, who all bring a fresh perspective to legal services delivery. Essential Reads for the Modern Lawyer draws on the journal’s wealth of opinion pieces, interviews and thought leadership, which together comprise an invaluable and wide-ranging analysis of the topics that really matter to those working throughout the legal ecosystem. The book is divided into six key areas: Business development. Finance. Culture. Leadership. Talent. Technology. Bringing together the journal’s most popular and impactful articles, this collection is essential for any professional working in legal services looking to develop their career.

Like so many other professions, law is becoming increasingly influenced by an overwhelming amount of disparate, fragmented and complex data that can both help and hinder business. Data comes from a wealth of different sources, both internal and external, constantly changing, never still. Keeping control of all that data is one challenge; leveraging it to the greater good much harder. Despite the huge amount of data in the average law firm, data-driven decision-making is relatively new and uncharted. With the hugely disruptive changes that have occurred in our ways of working over the last two years, the issue of data is now front and centre. This second edition of Building the Data-Driven Law Firm looks at how the use of data has become inextricably linked with the practice of law; how it can be utilized to the good, and the safeguards that must be put in place to mitigate the bad; how Big Data will revolutionize the way lawyers work, and the cases they will work on; and how new uses for data (including blockchain and the Internet of Things) will influence the law firm of the future. Bringing the book bang up to date, new content features how we can keep data secure in the changing world of work, how data can be used for business development and client satisfaction, the implications of data bias and data theft, and whether the way we use data is even useful anymore.

Law Firm Partner Compensation is the most complete and comprehensive guide to partner compensation ever written. No decision shapes a law firm more than how it pays its partners. Most firms get it wrong, not because they lack data, but because they misunderstand what compensation actually does. Every firm has a system. Most partners believe theirs is broadly fair. And yet, in partnership after partnership, compensation remains the permanent source of friction, debated endlessly, adjusted repeatedly, and never resolved. The reason is not the formula. It is everything the formula ignores. This book examines what compensation systems actually do, as opposed to what their designers intend. Why do eat-what-you-kill and lockstep models generate the same tensions despite opposite assumptions? Why does rewarding top performers so rarely make them stay? Why does tinkering with the formula reliably crowd out the strategic conversations that matter most? Drawing on decades of direct consulting experience across North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia, Jaap Bosman and Jaime Fernández Madero cover the full landscape: the psychology of fairness and inequity aversion; origination credit battles and the rainmaker myth; modified lockstep and black box systems; the role of compensation in succession and generational transition; the arrival of private equity and what it changes; and the long-term disruption of AI. The book does not offer a universal formula, because none exists. It offers something more useful: the analytical tools and the right questions to design a system that serves your firm's strategy rather than undermining it. Essential reading for managing partners, compensation committees, and anyone responsible for keeping a partnership intact.

It has never been more important for law firms to plan for the future. A highly competitive market, an aging profession, the changing ambitions of younger generations, many of whom place greater importance on work-life balance than reaching top leadership levels, and a long-held reluctance to discuss retirement and succession, all combine to create what some are calling a succession crisis. It is time to face the issue head-on and start putting systems in place to ensure the long-term success and health of lawyers and their firms: succession planning is the answer to this. A successful succession encompasses two core elements: transitioning firm management to a new generation, and transferring client relationships. This title provides guidance not only on how these two transitions can be achieved effectively, from the perspectives of both individual partners and the firm, but also on the plethora of issues involved in preparing for the departure of retiring partners and transitioning in new leadership, including compensation, the role of diversity and inclusion and financial considerations. It also considers situations where more specific and specialised plans may be required, such as managing the succession of a rainmaker or a founding partner. A strong and effective succession plan ensures that clients are retained over the long-term, retiring partners leave optimistic and satisfied, future leaders are in place and prepared for their roles, and the firm continues to grow and flourish. The shift to a more remote work environment has also made the institutionalising of processes such as succession planning even more important. By providing a thorough understanding of its many elements, this title explains how effective succession planning can be implemented and ensure smooth leadership and client transitions, securing and enhancing the current and future success of partners and their firms.