Brass monkeys and the law as business

After struggling with a bit of an injury since the Robin Hood Marathon in Nottingham in September, I managed to do the training and turn up to do the Brass Monkey Half Marathon in York last weekbend - by gum it were brassy. It's supposed to be fast and flat, but at 1 hr 41 mins I was not at the fastest I've been, so back to the interval running for me. In the meantime, and not least for consideration whilst running - how should law firms operate? We run as partnerships, whereas our commercial clients are companies with a distinction between shareholders, who share in profits, and directors, some of whom manage the business. And the key mananger may be neither. At Berwins we are working on ways to run ourselves as a business, and working on a corporate model is one of the challenges. Breaking down traditional expectations is of course another. We are going to move to describing ourselves and then treating ourselves as directors, managers and shareholders; keep reading...