Law Firm Compensation Think Tank

Adapting compensation and resource allocation strategies to meet a rapidly changing legal landscape

Many law firm partner compensation plans are outdated. They over-emphasize some contributions while ignoring others. They perpetuate conflicts between what's good for the partner and what's good for the firm. And they also fail to capture or reward profitability, client satisfaction, or "intangible" contributions that reflect critical responsibilities of the owners.

How can law firms best address the internal struggle between long-standing cultural norms and an evolving data-focused business environment in which firms must be willing to adapt and accept new ways of analyzing their businesses?

How has a global pandemic shifted what matters most to clients?  And what are the implications as it pertains to rewarding “success” (and profitability) within law firms?

One clear consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it is forcing many law firms to reconsider staffing and resource allocation for their businesses, in essence accelerating the pace of change.  Some roles will soon be deemed unnecessary, as revenue pressures demand that firms reevaluate their spending.                                                      

Ark Group’s 2nd annual Law Firm Compensation Think-Tank will provide an opportunity for attendees to learn how compensation can be leveraged as a forcing function to drive positive change and adaptations in partner behavior – aligning incentives with strategic priorities, client needs and financial goals.

This hands-on, highly interactive workshop – facilitated by Tim Corcoran, Principal, Corcoran Consulting Group, LLC – is designed for compensation and management committees addressing several pressing compensation-related challenges facing law firm leaders today – in a wide-open format that encourages interaction.  Attendees will work through case studies and exercises to identify gaps between their current plans and modern practices in a variety of contexts.

We invite entire compensation committees and/or management teams responsible for awarding partner compensation, including both lawyers and finance professionals, to attend as a group. The facilitator will conduct a pre-workshop discovery session to identify key learning objectives.  Teams will not be asked to reveal confidential information during broad group discussion. We also invite individuals to attend to work on real but anonymized compensation scenarios.

Sessions

• Rethinking Compensation as a Driver of Change, not a Lagging Indicator

• How to Reward Firm Profitability… Particularly in a Non-Hourly Fee Environment

• The Voice of the Client: Helping to Inform the “Satisfaction Metric” as it pertains to Compensation

• Managing Expectations: Performance, Culture & Pay Equity

• What are Firms Doing to Modernize Compensation Criteria, Processes, and Tools? Participants will determine in what order and to what depth we will cover the following six modules:

  • Structure -- Objective, subjective, open, closed, or all of the above?

  • Metrics -- Quantifying the value of intangible contributions, applying weighting to different contributions

  • Origination -- Rewarding business development while maintaining a collegial culture

  • Management Pay -- When and how to reward management roles

  • Tools -- Data and systems for capturing and disseminating performance data

  • Process -- Reducing the annual burden of shareholder distribution