Representative Projects

Partner Mentorship Program

Developed and implemented a junior partner mentorship program.  The junior partner, or non-equity partner, cohort in the group was very large due to the firm making many lateral hires during COVID and shortly after in order to support the increased amount of work from PE clients.  This firm had a defined “up or out” timeline for new non-equity partners to be elevated to equity partner.  Many of them were being deferred but there were many complaints that any issues blocking their elevation were not communicated to them in time for them to address and fix them.  Leadership requested a mentor program where each non-equity partner would be paired with an equity partner.  Developed the pairings and rolled out a meeting schedule with guidelines and talking points.  The project consisted of three phases which were executed: the initial meeting and get to know you; more in depth meetings about any issues the non-equity partner was having; and the third involved a short business planning template the non-equity partners had to complete and walk through with their mentor for feedback.  The meetings were all tracked, followed up on and results were collected, tabulated and followed up on for incorporation in individual partner plans.

Large Group Annual Retreats

Led the planning and logistics for many internal retreats for significantly large groups.  Recent accomplishment was running point on all logistics for an 800-lawyer retreat in Boston which spanned four different practice groups and staff.  Heavy coordination between practice management, IT staff, event staff, travel staff and others to secure the event space, manage a hotel block, book air and rail, provide on-site support, and plan meals and all other on-site logistics and audio visual. This was the largest retreat the firm had ever done and our team ran point on it with no mistakes.

 

Revenue Budgeting

Prepared the main timekeeper and forecasted hours budget for a major top 10 corporate group for years.  Worked with firm finance teams to revise as needed according to demand throughout the year.  

 

Expense Budgeting and Review

Prepared annual anticipated expense budgets for management review and approval.  Managed the back-end expense reimbursement process and pushed back when needed.  Built approval processes around expense reimbursements.

 

Fiscal Year-End Collections

Ran and managed multiple year-end collections efforts for practice areas with over 35% of firm revenue.  This sometimes involved organizing the team to collect over $100 million over the course of two months.  Built collections teams among offices, deputized certain partners and cheerleaders of those teams, and managed and communicated all status updates to drive and push where needed.  Ten out of ten times hitting the collections target and exceeding it enabling partners to collect additional bonuses.

 

Large Practice Integrations

Led the administrative process for a major finance practice joining the firm from a collapsing firm.  This involved heavy facilitation between firm leadership and practice leadership of both the incumbent and joining practices. Heavy communications efforts, the drafting and execution of an integration timeline, and countless individual meetings with the incoming partners to help them understand and feel at ease with new systems and procedures were involved.  It also involved discussion around rates and pricing to make sure the joining group was aligned with the existing rate structures.  Separately, helped facilitate the integration of a powerhouse healthcare private equity group into the existing private equity practice of another firm.  This effort involved the same required communication as the prior acquisition with added office administration efforts.  This integration involved heavy “boots on the ground” efforts from practice management to organize office space, assist new office administrative personnel, and to host meet and greet events.

 

Law Firm Merger

Worked heavily with leadership of a corporate practice to integrate into a new firm due to a merger. This involved heavy organization, planning and execution on rate analyses and negotiations, client and industry synergies and other administrative needs to bring the teams together. 

 

Drafting of Major Annual Documents

Led the drafting of significant, annual documents and reports such as annual strategy overviews and updates, partner compensation memos, partner elevation memos, and year-end financial updates.  These have all been for practice areas consisting of over 200 lawyers and hundreds of millions in revenue. 

 

Matter and Project Management

Implementation and training on matter/project management tools.  This initiative involved working with financial programming teams to build and roll out specific tools designed to monitor alternative fee arrangements or any matter requiring a budget.  Presenting and coaching partners on these tools for use resulted in the firm reducing write-offs by more than 15%.  

 

 

Client Rate Agreements

Worked in conjunction with finance departments to lead the review of annual or bi-annual client rate agreements with partners and worked with them to update the rates, discount arrangements and/or pricing.  

 

Partner Onboarding and Offboarding

Led the onboarding process via setting up initial meetings, arranging a curated list of people at the firm the new lateral should meet and then having regular check-ins with them throughout the first year to answer and address anything that may arise.  For offboarding, developed procedures and checklists departing partners need to do in order to complete a smooth transition out of the firm.  The key task in this was inventory management and making sure accounts were billed and collected or transitioned to another responsible partner at the firm.  Work with partners to make sure commitments to pay or write-off are made and tracked.

 

Technology Implementations

Led the piloting and implementation of three different deal tool technologies over the past six years, two of which were AI-based.  Two were for deal document review and comparison and another was for building the flow structures for private investment funds.  Have also led the implementation of two event-based platforms and assisted with the consensus building and implementation for a knowledge management platform designed to serve as a dashboard between the firm and clients.

 

Special and Ad Hoc Projects

Projects that fall outside of existing strategy or that arise due to business circumstances and needs.  These have been announced to the firm and practice areas or were covert and under-the-radar projects where practice/firm leadership needed research conducted and reports prepared on special situations.

 

Theme/Agenda/Panel Development for Meetings

Planning, execution, and leading practice group monthly, quarterly and annual meetings.