Nick Jarrett-Kerr

Nick Jarrett-Kerr LL.B is a specialist adviser to law firms and professional services firms world-wide on issues of strategy, governance and leadership development as well as all important business issues facing firms as they compete in difficult market conditions.

Over the last two decades, he has established himself as one of the leading UK and international advisers to law firms. Over this period, he has consulted to firms in more than twenty-five countries on four different continents on issues relating to strategy, governance, mergers, equity/ownership structures, partner performance, succession issues, profit sharing and other business-critical matters.

He is a regular writer and speaker on management and leadership topics with an emphasis on strategic and business planning, as well as issues of governance and structure, partner compensation and strategy execution. Prior to becoming a consultant, Nick (who is a UK solicitor by training) was for eight years the Chief Executive Partner of Bevan Ashford, a leading regional firm in Great Britain, during a period of enormous growth starting in the depths of the 1989-1992 recession. His involvement in professional service firm management, both as a partner in law firm and as a consultant stretches over the last thirty years.

Nick is the author of Law Firm Strategy – After the Legal Services Act published in November 2009 (Law Society Publishing) and of the recent best-selling Special Report Tackling Partner Underperformance in Law Firms, now in its 2019 second edition(Ark Group).Much of Nick’s written work is available on his website at www.jarrett-kerr.com.  Nick has been Visiting Professor at Nottingham Trent University where he has led the strategy modules for the Nottingham Law School MBA.  Nick is also a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management in the USA.

Nick’s particular focus and engagement in the last few years have included:

• Strategic reviews with a detailed and practical focus on strategy execution
• All issues surrounding professional service firm ownership, structures and governance, with engagements that have worked on the interface between partnership and corporate structures to produce interesting and innovative hybrid models
• Partner profit-sharing and compensation, harnessing his detailed knowledge of systems across the world 
• Partner and associate development/progression, reinforced by the preparation of specific, tailored and thorough models on competency frameworks and accompanying metrics.