Peer to Peer Magazine

ask the expert What roles do you envision will develop in the next few years? Randi: Looking first to our core group of technologists, I see the CIO or director of IT becoming a key executive position in law firms, if they're not already established. There are some unique opportunities in leveraging social media and exploiting the convergence of personal and business computing environments. The nature of client confidentiality and pressures to comply with federal mandates provide some great career opportunities for individuals with security backgrounds. Financial analysts, especially those knowledgeable in big data, can create some interesting opportunities in partnership with more traditional marketing roles. Law school graduates might look more to expanding knowledge management roles in law firms. HR personnel are looking more and more like talent scouts these days. And traditional marketers are now client sales and service managers. That list goes on and on. ALSO SEE: "OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND! THE FUTURE OF LPS" http://epubs.iltanet.org/i/126361/4 Oliver: A number of firms are looking into having chief pricing officers who are focused on new ways of being more efficient and creating billing processes and approaches that will address their clients' needs. We're also seeing chief strategy officers come into play. These are positions designed to take advantage of the firm's strategic plan and drive the implementation firmwide. These are not necessarily individual roles but rather team roles, so it's not just one person responsible for implementing the strategic plan or for creating new pricing models. In many cases, a variety of folks will be put on the team across practice groups and from various departments within the organization. Betsi: We recently commissioned some research that indicated we can expect a 14 percent increase in the number of legal marketing and business development professionals between now and 2015. Much of this growth is to support some of the key paradigm shifts in law firms that are caused by, as we've mentioned, economic and globalization pressures. Firms are responding to these pressures with a stronger focus on traditional business dimensions like pricing, technology, marketing, global alliances, client communications and business development activities. Of particular interest for our group is the emerging role of the pricing professional that we envision will continue to develop over the next several years. Legal Calendar and Docketing — Could it be that easy? Docket Enterprise provides a comprehensive calendar and docket solution that is ideally suited for both litigation and non-litigation practice areas. 100 Peer to Peer See just how easy it is. Contact

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