Published in Legal Management, April 2009
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Law firm administrators are facing unprecedented uncertainty and upheaval in their firms. Part of that reflects the impacts of a financial crisis and recession that have become the most severe in living memory.
But another major challenge comes from structural changes within the profession itself that the recession has intensified. As an entire generation of lawyers moves toward retirement age, the current crisis may make it financially impossible to do so – creating the potential for generational conflicts involving older and younger lawyers within firms and for talent shortfalls once the recession is past.
Administrators will be squarely in the vortex of these intersecting trends, and firms will likely be relying on them to manage and defuse a variety of potential conflicts. Being able to do that requires that firm administrators and senior managers understand the seismic shifts under way in law firm demographics and have a clear vision of their roles in dealing with them.
