The verdict is in: the party is over. The soaring revenue and profits of 2021 are a distant memory. As law firms glide back to earth, an interesting phenomenon is taking hold: fear. The pressures and anxiety of living through three years of unprecedented uncertainty, volatility and near-constant change has left law firm leaders spent—and highly skeptical. Despite economic indicators predicting reduced inflation, slow growth (note, not a decline) and a muted but still active transactional market, many law firms are behaving the way they often do—protecting short-term profits at the expense of long-term prosperity.
This myopic thinking, however, is not the only miscalculation leaders adopt in times of uncertainty. Several wayward tendencies threaten to set law firms back as leaders grapple with how to guide their businesses through uneven times. More importantly, ambiguity is likely to become the norm rather than the exception for decades to come. Effective leaders and successful law firms of the future will learn to embrace change, reject perfection and accept the vague. They will learn to identify and anticipate the following common mistakes and then take action to remap how they approach the world.
