Control or Consensus
Every law firm starts life with a flurry of entrepreneurial adolescence and adulthood, the unmet demands of strategic and managerial decision making can cause the firm to plateau or even regress. Identifying the four phases of law firm development can be the key both to avoiding premature stagnation and to progressing toward institutional status.
I have recently been involved with two mid- sized law firms, each structured and man- aged quite differently from the other. Both firms, however, are becoming stifled. They need to work out where they are in their growth cycles and, after mature reflections and discussion, develop some studies and make some decisions about their strategies, governance and decision-making processes for the future.