Clarity

More than 100 leading academics and senior leaders of professional organizations came together recent at the Professions Summit: Leading through Uncertainty to Clarity, to discuss current organizational challenges and their implications for professionals. In our latest podcast, Natalie Runyon, ESG Strategist for the Thomson Reuters Institute, sits down with Summit organizer Laura Empson, Professor in the Management of Professional Service Firms at the Bayes Business School at the University of London, to discuss key take-aways and highlights from the event.

Every law firm has a strategy to serve clients and win business, and every law firm also works with some sort of technology in today’s digital world. But how often does that overall strategy take law firms’ digital initiatives into account? Recent research from the Thomson Reuters Institute (TRI) found that most law firms are satisfied with how they’re tying their firm’s digital transformation to its overall strategy — but in practice, only about half actually have a fully realized digital strategy at the C-suite level, and many of those have been instituted only in the past couple of years. In the latest TRI Insights Podcast, Zach Warren, TRI’s technology and innovation insights leader and Lucy Leach, director of research strategy at TRI, discuss why many law firms think they’re above average (but not perfect) on digital strategy, how clients are too often left out of the process, and what the rise of generative artificial intelligence means for digital strategy’s future.

Dealing with economic uncertainty has become a part of daily life for law firm leadership and it seems there is always a new crisis to be worried about. In this week’s Thomson Reuters Institute Insights podcast, Thomson Reuters Industry Data Analyst Bryce Engelland discusses with Lawrence J. White, professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business, how the second half of the year may fare and what events law firm leaders should be on the lookout for.

In this week’s Thomson Reuters Institute Insights podcast, our technology content leader Zach Warren dives into the generative artificial intelligence (AI) craze within law firms, speaking with Kelley Drye & Warren chief information officer Judi Flournoy. As a law firm CIO with years of legal technology experience, Flournoy has seen tech trends come and go. However, generative AI and ChatGPT isn’t just a continuation of past AI initiatives, she believes, but a true game-changer. That’s why she’s encouraging those within her firm to get acquainted early. “They need to understand this technology early so they understand where it’s going to lead them later,” Flournoy explains.  In the podcast, she discusses not only the use cases she sees now, but her prognostications for law firms’ future, why generative AI will be here “faster than anyone realizes,” and why one AI is reminiscent of the movie Her.

Fraud, waste & abuse in government are very important topics in a time when many government agencies are being asked to do more with less and are attempting to use technology to bridge the gap while bringing new staff up to speed. With the global pandemic moving to the rearview, government workers must focus on the monumental task ahead, including improving their efficiency and technical ability. In the latest episode of the Thomson Reuters Institute Insights podcast, Rabihah Butler, Enterprise Content Manager, speaks to Andrew Pellington, Senior Director in Product Marketing for Thomson Reuters, about the upcoming Government Fraud, Waste & Abuse Report from the Thomson Reuters Institute.

After several banner years, many law firms find themselves in a different position in 2023. While billing rates set new record marks, law firm profitability continues to slip, driven down by a continued rise in overhead expenses and a slowing of how effectively law firms collect the cash that is owed to them. In the latest Thomson Reuters Institute Insights Podcast, host Bill Josten is joined by Brent Turner from Thomson Reuters Institute Advisory Services to discuss the realities of today’s legal marketplace and what law firms can do to protect their profitability this year and beyond. As the podcast explains, the solution doesn’t necessarily lie in ever-increasing rates or in pushing clients to take smaller discounts. Instead, the answer most likely comes from ensuring the firm’s partners are following best practices for how they handle their bills.

As demand for legal services shifts and tightens, how law firms differentiate themselves in the market is critical. Jen Dezso, director of client relationships for the Thomson Reuters Institute, joins the podcast to discuss recent research into how law firms are effectively developing standout brand positions and the importance of clear brand equity for law firms. While it can be tempting to try to be all things to all clients, the research shows that, much more often, those law firms that have the strongest brand identities are the firms that are known for excellence in specific areas.

In our latest podcast, Nadya Britton, tax & accounting specialist for the Thomson Reuters Institute, chats with Corey Greene, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Thomson Reuters, about some of interesting findings around operational efficiency from the 2023 State of the Tax Professional Report. Although efficiency isn’t a new concept for most businesses, until recently it was hardly something a tax & accounting firm would see as a strategic priority. In this new report, however, efficiency was listed as the number one priority. In the podcast, the pair discusses how tax & accounting firms can optimize their operations to maximize productivity, and provide-quality services to clients and reduce costs.

As the world buzzes about the chaos caused by 21-year-old Jack Teixeira and the online chat service Discord, the new Thomson Reuters Institute Insights podcast examines the real conversation around the data breach controversy and other security concerns. Rabihah Butler, corporate compliance & risk specialist for the Thomson Reuters Institute, speaks to Jim Dinkins, former executive associate director of Homeland Security Investigations, who provides a unique perspective on the data breach. In a world of checks and balances, where privacy is competing with security, the pair discusses how best to keep the balance.

In the new Thomson Reuters Institute Insights podcast, Zach Warren, technology specialist for the Thomson Reuters Institute, revisits the "2023 Alternative Legal Services Provider (ALSP) Report" with Jim Jones, Senior Fellow at the Center on Ethics in the Legal Profession at Georgetown University. Now a few months out from the report’s initial release, Jim and Zach explore what surprised them from the results, including how quickly the ALSP market has grown in such a short amount of time, and how law firm attitudes towards ALSPs are shifting.