E ditorial
“
Firms need leaders who
are `peacemakers´
IBERIAN
LAWYER
March/April 2017
Number-crunching
Using data to boost profits
Keeping it in-house
General counsel outsourcing less
Lisbon calling
Global firms eye Portugal
Give peace a chance
Time for a new style of leadership?
www.iberianlawyer.com
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”
The managing partners who steered their law firms
through the economic crisis needed to be tough. As our
News Focus on page 16 highlights, law firm leaders during
this period often had to ruthlessly reduce headcount in
order to ensure their organisation stayed afloat. Those
who performed that task most effectively currently find
themselves in calmer waters, but, as our report outlines,
managing partners now face a new set of challenges.
Specifically, they have to ensure that their `key lawyers´
are happy, motivated and properly rewarded. In other
words, while, during the crisis, law firms needed
decisive leaders who were unafraid of making unpopular
decisions, in this new era, what is required is managing
partners who are `peacemakers´ with a more conciliatory
outlook.
Also in this issue, we report on a new study that shows
general counsel in Spain and Portugal are outsourcing
less work to law firms than they were a year ago (News,
page 6). The survey showed that, generally speaking,
in-house legal department budgets have not got smaller
in the last 12 months. However, in what may be of some
concern to law firms, it did indicate that there is a trend
for businesses to expand their legal departments in order
to do more of their legal work in-house – one in four (25
per cent) of in-house lawyers who responded to the survey
said their budget was smaller because their in-house
department had got bigger and therefore they were less
reliant on external help.
Finally, Iberian Lawyer has also conducted some research
into law firms’ use of data analytics. Intriguingly, it shows
that firms are upping their investment in this area, as
lawyers realise better data management can boost profits,
cut costs and improve client retention (News, page 8).
Ben Cook
Editor
Iberian Lawyer
[email protected]
Twitter: @BenCook_Iberian
www.iberianlawyer.com
March / April 2017 • IBERIAN LAWYER •
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