Looking Tall by Standing Next to Short People

About the Book

With wit, wisdom and a knack for cutting through the nonsense, Ed Wesemann’s latest book, Looking Tall by Standing Next to Short People again addresses the most perplexing issues facing law firms today.  Hoping that you “disagree with large portions” of his take on the minefield of legal management, Ed’s purpose in offering his extensive insights is to ignite the exchange of ideas, creative dialogue, enthusiasm and – most importantly – action. 

Ed tackles legal management’s hot button issues by delving into six general topics: 

§         The role of partners ~ Massive non-equity partnership ranks results in a large group of lawyers who don’t meet any “full partner” criteria but are too senior to be associates.  What happens when there are no “up or out” reviews in place to prevent partners from sapping up the work that should be going to associates? 

§         The operation of partnerships ~ We used to talk about managing law firms – now we govern them.

§         Mergers ~ It’s been a sleepy couple of years where merger activity has largely been less than expected.  But the natural maturation of the legal industry won’t let the lull last for long.

§         Business development ~ Business development is the same as it has been since the founders of our most venerable law firms hung out their shingles.  Everything else is details.

§         Strategy ~ Figuring out what has to be done to be more profitable is easy.  The issue is what to do to make those things actually occur – that’s strategy.

<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wi

About the Author

Ed Wesemann is a consultant to law firms, assisting them with strategic issues.  His work ranges from creating strategies to helping firms compete more effectively and advising on law firm mergers to working on partnership governance issues.  Ed is the author of four books on legal management issues including The First Great Myth of Legal Management is that It Exists and Creating Dominance: Winning Strategies for Law Firms.  Ed is a partner in Kerma Partners, a professional service sector consulting firm where Ed specializes in working with law firms.  Prior to joining Kerma Partners, he was a partner with Edge International for eight years and the Executive Director for several large law firms for over 20 years.

In addition to having published hundreds of articles, Ed is a frequent speaker and the author of a monthly email message that is read by thousands of law firm leaders around the world. He holds an M.B.A. from Roosevelt University and a B.S. in Business Administration from Valparaiso University. Ed has served on the faculties of a number of law and graduate schools of business and is an Adjunct Professor at the Graduate Business School of the University of Pretoria, South Africa. An avid but mediocre golfer, Ed and his wife Janice live in Savannah, Georgia.