10 Things Firm Leaders Should Consider For 2025

The Edge International Principals hope you find these suggestions helpful:

Bithika Anand, India

In 2025, law firm leaders need to recognise that relying solely on compensation paid for doing client work will no longer be enough to drive the lawyers to go above and beyond the work assigned to them. A relationship based purely on monetary rewards and delivery of work becomes transactional. While competitive compensation remains important, leadership teams need to invest in creating a sense of purpose in their teams – offering opportunities for growth and building a culture where lawyers feel valued and connected to the firm’s vision.

Chris Bull, UK / Global

Take time to think deeply, invite contributions from all levels in your firm and discuss openly ‘what will our firm look like in 2030′? Who will still be here and who might be stepping up to lead the firm into the next decade? How different do we expect the delivery of legal services to be and what changes will we need to make to compete? What size will we need to be to succeed and how do we reach that scale? The new decade is less than 5 years’ away and the changes you need to implement probably need to start now. 

Gerry Riskin, Anguilla, Global

You are likely experimenting as best you can with the current plethora of technological changes. Be careful not to take your eyes off the fundamentals. Remind your attorneys to focus on what clients really want. Clients want to solve business problems — not legal ones. Clients want to be updated with clear and understandable reports. Clients want value for their fee.

Joel Barolsky, Australasia

2025 is the year to go to the gym. Think about which organisational capability or ‘muscle’ you’d like to strengthen that will make your firm more competitive and resilient. The muscle might be around business development – winning new mandates and clients. The muscle might be how you lead, develop and motivate your partners and staff. The muscle might be the way you operate and deliver your services. The context and needs of each firm are different. What’s your primary gym goal for 2025?

Jonathan Middleburgh, UK / Global

For the most part, stick to the knitting.  The fundamentals haven’t changed over the last 30 years and they won’t change in 2025. Clients want you to understand their business and to come up with solutions, ideally innovative ones. Continue to innovate in how you deliver timely cost-effective solutions and add value. And remember that the most talented lawyers remain at a premium and will move elsewhere if you don’t flex to their needs.

Leon Sacks, The Americas

Changes in the values and priorities of professionals taken together with the more dispersed work environment make communication an essential part of a firm’s day to day business. In 2025 ensure that a communication is a pillar of your strategy and not just a mechanism for distributing information. 

Mike White, North America

Transparency can be an important asset as part of your attorney retention value proposition. Younger lawyers become commitment phobic and transactional about their relationship with their employer when the path to partnership is cryptic and the (financial) benefits of law firm business ownership are opaque. Most law firms are doing well financially; educate your younger lawyers in concrete ways about what this could mean for them over the long term so they can have an easier time committing their career to their employer. 

Nick Jarrett-Kerr, UK / Global

In what is likely to be a turbulent year in which inhumanity of all kinds may well continue to grow exponentially, how will your firm stand up and fight for justice, fairness and equity?

Vikki Bentwood, UK / Global

Embrace the potential of AI to improve your law firm’s marketing strategy in 2025. From tailored content creation to smart client targeting and competitor analysis, start to understand how your team can use AI tools to boost your firm’s marketing.

Yarman J Vachha, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur

In this day and age of increasing costs, tight legal budgets and pressure on fees, it is incumbent on MPs and COOs to look at improving their internal hygiene and realisation rates rather than pushing up their fee rates and fees to paper over and pay for their internal inefficiencies

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