Imagine the dream client. Upon receiving your bill for legal services, he informs you with all sincerity that you are not charging enough. It’s a sure sign that it’s time to raise your fees.

Young lawyers have more pressure to develop business (or demonstrate their potential to do so) than in the past, yet very few receive adequate training or mentoring on how to go about that. The good news is that, despite significant changes in the legal landscape over the past decade, most lawyers still get the bulk of their new clients via referrals from other lawyers. Here are tips for young lawyers (and some more experienced ones, too) on how to generate referrals from other lawyers.

It is a fundamental business and professional necessity that lawyers have a signed engagement letter for a new client, stating each party’s responsibilities for making the engagement a success.

Whether it's a Bay Street firm in Toronto, a Magic Circle firm in London, or a Wall Street firm in New York, there's little doubt that the rich keep getting richer when it comes to law firm compensation.

Technology has conspired with traditional attitudes to make many lawyers believe they truly can go it alone.

The numbers don’t lie. If your marketing programs are working, revenues will eventually rise. It’s that simple. But, the incubation period between strategy execution and revenue increase will vary.

The hiring process is complete, and your newest associates – all carefully selected for their skills, experience and firm fit – are ready to start work. Or are they?

All those years of hard work have finally paid off and you’ve been invited into the partnership! Now you have the opportunity to make more money; you can join the players at the partnership table and have an active say in the operation of the firm. Your future in the firm is assured. Or so you think…

If you’ve been thinking about quitting the practice of law, you’re not alone. Canadian statistics are hard to come by, but in the US, up to 40 per cent of lawyers want to leave the profession, and an estimated 40,000 lawyers walk away from their jobs each year.

Calgary’s Thackray Burgess might just revolutionize associate compensation.