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Practice Management

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Ronda Muir is a senior consultant at Robin Rolfe Resources, specializing in the area of law firm and law department organizational development and dynamics.
By Ronda Muir

Post Frequency: 1.1/day

Last Entry: March 23, 2011 at 19:58:24

Muir Conducts Associate Compensation Videoconference

Posted on February 29, 2008
On Thursday, March 12, 2-3:15 pm EST, Muir will be conducting a audioconference for the Center for Competitive Management on Associate Compensation: Remain Competitive Without Breaking the Bank. Included in the discussion will be a review of current trends and out-of-the-box ideas for dealing with the impact of escalating associate compensation, how to find the best strategy for your own law firm and overcoming the problems and pitfalls in making that strategy work...

Muir Conducts Associate Compensation Audioconference

Posted on February 29, 2008
On Wednesday, March 12, 2-3:15 pm EST, Muir will be conducting an audioconference for the Center for Competitive Management on Associate Compensation: Remain Competitive Without Breaking the Bank. Included in the discussion will be a review of current trends and out-of-the-box ideas for dealing with the impact of escalating associate compensation, how to find the best strategy for your own law firm and overcoming the problems and pitfalls in making that strategy work...

Decorum, Virtue and Other Values in the Age of the Internet

Posted on February 26, 2008
Law firms are often bedeviled by the on-line shenanigans of their young (and sometimes not so young), who can carelessly leave a footprint permanently in cyberspace. While these irritations don't often rise to the level in titillation value or PR devastation as some of the old-tech crimes perpetuated by errant employees/partners, like the Cravath tax lawyer who solicited children for sexual favors, those types of cases are (thankfully) fairly rare and have a limited media shelf life...

The Mathematical Proof for Diversity

Posted on February 08, 2008
What's the route to higher efficacy and productivity? Might that be by staffing with "messy" groups? So suggests a recent book entitled The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Societies by Scott E...

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Muir Lectures on Group Decision-Making

Posted on February 08, 2008
On February 12, 2008 Muir is scheduled to discuss with students at Northwestern University's Business Institutions Program how to improve decision-making. Based in large part on the information contained in "Promoting an Effective Board or Management Group," the discussion will explore, among other subjects, optimal personality traits for good decision-making and how to avoid extreme decisions.

Muir Participating in BigLaw Business Development Program

Posted on February 06, 2008
Muir is participating in a business development program for new partners of a global law firm. The program involves small group training and individual coaching to produce individual business development plans that can help put new partners' careers on a productive course...

Look Who's Changing Now!

Posted on February 04, 2008
Lawyers have been making it into the big-time news lately. That is, not just into the AmLaw publications, where spots about closely-argued decisions vie for those on the merger of the month, but onto the front page of the New York Times SundayStyles section in early January ("The Falling Down Professions") and more recently the front page of the NYT ThursdayStyles section ("Who's Cuddly Now?")...

Will You Ever Get Rid of Those Baby Boomers?

Posted on January 28, 2008
Baby-boomers are making their mark on the demographic frontier again--this time valiantly fending off the mandatory retirement that generations of law firm partners before them submitted to. The Sidley Austin age-discrimination case, which arose when 32 partners lost their full partner status, ended last fall after two-and-a-half years and seven court decisions (all lost by Sidley Austin) without a decision on the merits...

Make Way for the Global Chief People Officer

Posted on January 21, 2008
In the era of the global law firm comes (wisely, in our view) the introduction of the position of Global Chief People Officer into law firm senior management . Reed Smith announced last week that its creation of the position underscores the increasing importance the firm places on running itself as a business...

Taking "Bah Humbug" out of Success in the New Year

Posted on December 31, 2007
Is living a life filled with distrust and deception the price of achieving professional success? As we head into another year, it is a query worth pursuing.Steve Katz, adjunct professor at Northwestern University's Business Institutions Program, points out a bestseller published in 1998 that purportedly draws from centuries of powerful leaders (on the order of Machiavelli, Talleyrand, Bismarck, Catherine the Great, Mao, Kissinger, Haile Selassie, etc...

Is the Party Over?

Posted on December 26, 2007
For the first time in six years, law firm expenses in the US and the UK are growing faster than revenues, according to a recent article in The American Lawyer. For the first six months of 2007, gross revenue grew at a strong 13.1%, well above the compound annual growth rate of 10...

The Fracturing World of Lock-Step Compensation: The Beginning of the End of Big-Firm Glory?

Posted on December 12, 2007
It is a scenario we in the legal field have come to expect--announcements of associate compensation increases are responded to in waves. First the largest firms rush to match them, then the mid-size firms determine how much they are going to raise compensation, often not in a dollar-for-dollar match, and then there is the soul-seeking by the smaller firms...

Women Board Members Are Where The Money Is

Posted on December 04, 2007
In a report released October 1st, Catalyst, a New York consultancy, found that Fortune 500 companies with at least three women on their boards strongly outperformed those companies with fewer or no women. Based on a study of four years of corporate results, the correlation was found to be so direct that the more women who serve on a board, the better the bottom line...

Professional Development Makes the Diversity Associate Happy

Posted on November 30, 2007
As many of the biggest law firms are concluding, “professional development” has become the preferred vehicle for addressing diversity attrition. Professional development encompasses enhanced orientation, mentoring, assignment and delegation processes, leadership training, career planning, diversity training, management skills, feedback training, business-development training, affinity groups and other tactics aimed at recruiting and keeping a diverse associate group...

Growing Leaders at Harvard and Other Business Schools

Posted on November 16, 2007
Growing future leaders at our best business schools increasingly involves teaching "softer" skills, and often using personal style assessments. One of the more rigorous and long-standing low-residence courses at Harvard Business School is the nine-week Owner President Management Course (OPM), which spans three years...

Lucky Is As Lucky Does: The Muscle Behind Happiness

Posted on November 13, 2007
A recent article in the New York Times on young 20-something Internet mega-millionaires quoted one as saying “You ask yourself, ‘Why am I not happier given how lucky I’ve been?’”While we as lawyers, being supremely circumspect, would rarely verbalize this sort of “squishy” sentiment out in the open, given the levels of unhappiness in our profession, it is a question we should be asking ourselves...

The Critical Ability of Emotionally Intelligent Legal Managers

Posted on November 06, 2007
What is the most important attribute to be looking for as you groom your young lawyers for management? A 2006 study reviewed in the Leadership and Organization Development Journal assessed the relationship between emotional intelligence and managerial effectiveness, confirming what you might expect...

Assessing Courage and Courageously Assessing

Posted on October 17, 2007
"We evaluate 'courage' as a behavioral characteristic of our lawyers, and we link this evaluation to compensation," says John P. Donahue, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Rhodia Inc., in the July 2007 issue of InsideCounsel...

<a href="http://technorati.com/claim/96kqh4u9v4"

Posted on October 11, 2007
<a href="http://technorati.com/claim/96kqh4u9v4" rel="me">Technorati Profile</a>

Interview with Steve Davis, Chairman of Dewey & LeBoeuf: It's All in the Feeling

Posted on October 03, 2007
According to Steve Davis, it all went pretty smoothly and quickly: negotiations in July and August, a preliminary agreement the last week of August, votes last Wednesday, September 26, and on Monday of this week, he became chairman of Dewey & LeBoeuf, the newest megafirm in the global law firm firmament, with 1300 lawyers, 26 offices in 12 countries, and a billion dollars in revenue...

Web Technology Makes Face Time Virtual

Posted on October 01, 2007
There is no substitute for face time, as people in my business are wont to insist. But maybe there is. During an interview with Mark Chandler, General Counsel of Cisco, to discuss the evolving legal marketplace, see Leaving Behind the Medieval Model, he demonstrated for me Cisco's newest entry (competing with Hewlett-Packard, Polycom and Tandberg, among others) into the web conference market— a small meeting room that boasts an IP (Internet Protocol) phone, three broadcast-quality cameras, three ultra-sensitive mikes, three 60-inch plasma screens, a crescent-shaped table that seats six and soft back-lighting...

Sullivan & Cromwell Proves Mom Right?

Posted on September 26, 2007
A grand old firm has gone through a rough patch recently—one of its associates not only sued for sexual orientation harassment and discrimination, but also proceeded to file partnership documents and communications that S&C certainly would prefer to not have circulating publicly...

Muir to Lead IOMA Audio Conference on Associate Compensation: Where Do We Go From Here?

Posted on September 12, 2007
On Thursday, September 21, at 2:00 pm EST, Ronda Muir will lead an audio conference on Associate Compensation: Where Do We Go From Here? Included in the discussion will be a review of current trends and out-of-the-box ideas for dealing with the impact of escalating associate compensation, how to find the best strategy for your own law firm and overcoming the problems and pitfalls in making that strategy work...

Building an Ethical Culture

Posted on September 04, 2007
One of the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley rules for publicly traded companies is that they demonstrate that they are promoting an "ethical culture" in the workplace. What does that mean?"The Manager's Book of Decencies: How Small Gestures Build Great Companies" by Steve Harrison, chairman of Woodcliff Lake, N...

Article on Succession Planning Quotes Ronda Muir

Posted on August 30, 2007
"Think of a succession plan as life insurance for a law firm." An article in the August 24-30 issue of the Puget Sound Business Journal entitled "Firms Make Plans to Carry on When Leaders Go" quotes Ronda Muir on the subject of succession planning and describes the services that she and Robin Rolfe Resources performed for a Seattle law firm...

Brilliant Women

Posted on August 27, 2007
As a woman, a lawyer and a consultant who specializes in emotional intelligence among arguably one of the most challenged professions of our species-- lawyers-- I cringe every time I see articles such as "Brilliant Women Last in Love," published August 18, 2007 in Australia's Herald Sun...

The Superman General Counsel

Posted on August 15, 2007
Behavioral science is not often invoked in the halls of law departments, but maybe it should be. Two recent articles highlight the importance to a GC's success of understanding why people think and act as they do.General counsel are in the position of having to reconcile two jobs: being both a business partner in the management of the company's business and the guardian of the company's integrity...

Article on "The Looming Associate Crisis"

Posted on August 10, 2007
Ronda Muir's article "The Looming Associate Crisis" leads the July 2007 ALM Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report, Volume 13, Number 6. After reviewing statistics that show an ever-tightening supply, and potentially less qualified pool, of associates who are paid more yet leaving earlier than in years past, Muir recounts some of the tried (and perhaps less currently true) strategies for coping, and also identifies some more radical solutions that innovative, forward-looking firms can benefit from.

Banking Our Image

Posted on July 31, 2007
Burnishing an image that is bankable is what every professional tries to do--both for him/herself individually and for the profession as well. Doctors take bed-side manners lessons, the NYPD are being instructed on common courtesies. What about lawyers? What do they do to bring out the gold?From the looks of things, not much...

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