Legal Marketing & PR

Stakeholders in your law firm

By Edward Poll, J.D., M.B.A., CMC

News about the health care reform package is getting more interesting. As we get closer to a vote of some kind, the identities of the players and respective positions are becoming more clear.

In today's analysis, the drug companies are joyous. If universal health care is adopted, the pharmaceutical industry benefits ... with more folks insured, more drugs will be prescribed that will be covered by insurance ... to their benefit.  However, insurance companies will hurt a bit ... no one is yet sure how much. With more people insured, their costs presumably increase. With the right to maintain - retain insurance despite the loss of employment, COBRA income goes down. With prior medical history being irrelevant for coverage, insurance carriers will have to take on some risks they would have eschewed earlier. Hmmmm. Sounds a bit like mandatory auto insurance. The details are not so significant to the ideas here and certainly not to some of the stakeholders.  Can you name them all?

In your law practice, even if a sole practitioner, can you name all of the stakeholders? How do you seek to reconcile the differences among all of your stakeholders? As I mentioned in an earlier article, providing value is the name of the game in today's world. And how much more value could you provide with the stakeholders on "the same page," all working together for you and the same goal? And with that, how much more profitable would your firm be -- how much more income would you receive -- if you could create harmony among your various stakeholders .... such as clients, associates, staff, assistants, et al.?

Full post as published by Law Biz Blog on October 19, 2009 (boomark / email).