The articles that I’ve been privileged to share with you often draw inspiration from a common source: my work as a coach. I coach attorneys on how to make their practices better and more profitable, providing advice based on years of experience and years "in the field" as a practicing lawyer.

Client relations training, not firm branding, is a law practice's best marketing tactic.

It's the latest talk in law firm boardrooms and at executive retreats. Everyone agrees that a good culture is crucial to a successful firm, but no one can really identify it, describe it, or explain its relation to profitability. Until now.

To achieve a successful law firm, its members need a fundamental reason for working together. Lawyers who physically share the same office environment should share common goals and agreement on how to achieve them. Lack of such an outlook, sooner or later, means the dissolution of the firm in its current form when one or more lawyers decide, “I no longer want to work here.”

What do you do with clients who put your competence in doubt, who lie, who don't pay their bills or who demand the impossible?

Leadership can be practised at all levels of a firm, because cultural change comes from being open to initiatives at all levels. Here's a blueprint for negotiating the dilemmas and opportunities of women and leadership.

Over the years, law firm have learned that quality service alone isn’t enough to attract and retain clients. Now, delivering quality merely gets you in the door. The new focus is on client retention.

Law firms keep jacking up their associate salary packages in desperate attempts to keep their young lawyers from flying the coop. But the more money they throw at associates, the faster they leave. Why? Simply put, law firms don't understand what associates really want in a law firm.

When we think of lawyers and public speaking, we imagine trials and administrative hearings. But more public speaking by lawyers takes place outside of the courtroom, notes Samuel Pillsbury, a law professor at Los Angeles’ Loyola Law School.

Deciding on a curfew time with your teenager… choosing which sofa to buy with your spouse… settling on a vehicle price with a car salesman… everyone is engaged in constant rounds of negotiation.