In the current climate of uncertainty, two of the chief responsibilities for any law firm leader are as follows:

– to envisage scenarios in which only a portion of the work that is done by the firm today will exist in the foreseeable future; and,
– to build business models and enabling structures that will drive profitability and sustain the firm’s competitiveness in that world.

A managing partner’s efficacy and the ongoing success of the firm will be determined by the degree to which these responsibilities are discharged.

Whilst one might argue that this has always been the case, the challenge is made more difficult today by a reliance on a model that is no longer fit-for-purpose and a lack of strategic clarity around what will continue to be the core work for a firm. Organisational inertia and general aversion to change amongst law firm partnerships compound the challenge yet further.

In this article, we explore the need for principle-based adaptive thinking to address changes to law firms’ business models as a means to drive profitability and, hence, competitiveness.