The 25th Annual Law Firm COO & CFO Forum

This fireside-style client session explores the evolution of what clients expect from outside counsel and how operational excellence has become the foundation of lasting partnerships. We’ll begin by looking back: clients will reflect on how their roles, their companies, and their legal needs have transformed, from how in-house departments were structured and staffed, to what mattered most when selecting outside counsel, to how business pressures and budgets shaped those relationships. That retrospective sets the stage for today’s operational reality. What do sophisticated clients now consider a signal of reliability: budgeting rigor, staffing transparency, data readiness, security posture, responsiveness rhythms, matter scoping discipline, and where do firms still unintentionally create friction? With one moderator and two clients in candid dialogue, we’ll surface the operational habits that earn trust (and win repeat work), the disconnects that quietly erode it, and the specific changes COOs and CFOs can drive with practice leadership to improve the client experience without overpromising or inflating overhead. 

Please join us for two concurrent interactive sessions wherein attendees are encouraged to gamify specific skills while networking with program attendees.  

Firms are surrounded by data, but leaders still struggle to translate it into a narrative that partners trust and clients respect. With all of this data, do firms have a clear picture of how proficiently they are generating revenue and controlling costs? This workshop demonstrates how to build a coherent performance story, linking matter data, staffing patterns, and capacity signals with vendor spend and investment outcomes, so leadership can make decisions faster and explain them more convincingly. This session will examine what an effective COO‑level dashboard actually needs to drive action, how to avoid reporting volume that obscures insight, and how shared definitions and disciplined metrics can improve profitability, predictability, and operational trust. 

In this interactive game session, participants work through realistic “you can’t fund everything” scenarios that force the same tradeoffs leadership teams face in real life: invest in technology or talent, standardize or stay bespoke, build new capabilities or fix the foundation, absorb risk or slow down. Teams will be given shifting constraints (client pressure, margin compression, vendor changes, regulatory curveballs, partner expectations) and will need to make decisions, defend them, and adjust as the scenario evolves. The goal is not to “win,” but to pressure-test decision logic, uncover hidden assumptions in your operating model, and leave with sharper language for how you frame tradeoffs to partners and stakeholders when the future refuses to be linear.  

Please join us for two concurrent sessions discussing themes of law firm management. 

As technology accelerates, pricing becomes less about defending hours and more about designing a commercial structure that clients trust and the firm can deliver profitably, especially in midlaw where competitive advantage often depends on being both high-quality and predictably priced. This panel dives into the nuances behind AFAs: how to decide where hourly still wins, where fixed fees are safe, and where hybrid structures outperform both; how to use tiered rate strategies, collars, phased budgets, and risk-sharing components to balance predictability with uncertainty; and how to operationalize pricing so it isn’t a matter-by-matter negotiation. We’ll explore the mechanics that protect margin: scope definition that sticks, matter planning discipline, change-order triggers clients accept, and post-matter feedback loops that improve future pricing, while also addressing the uncomfortable truth that faster delivery can compress hours and expose weak leverage models. The discussion is designed for leaders who want pricing to be a growth lever: a system that improves win rates, reduces write-downs, strengthens realization, and helps clients clearly see what they’re paying for in a market where efficiency is expected and transparency is increasingly non-negotiable. 

What will finance and operations teams look like in 2031, and what should law firms be doing now to prepare? As intelligent automation moves beyond lawyer-facing tools and into back-office functions, firm leaders are grappling with fundamental questions about staffing models, skill sets, and digital readiness. Some suggest that routine tasks—from generating reports to reconciling general ledger accounts—will increasingly be handled by AI, fundamentally reshaping what operational roles require and how teams are structured. This session explores what that transformation looks like in practice. Panelists will share examples of generative AI already being deployed in their operations, discuss which competencies will matter most as automation accelerates and examine how firms are building roadmaps to upskill leaders and existing talent, rather than replace it. The conversation will address practical questions: Which back-office processes are ripe for automation? How do you identify team members ready to transition from task execution to technology partnership? What does a future-ready finance and operations staffing model actually look like, and what steps should firms take today to get there? 

Please join us for cocktails and canapés as we wrap the day’s proceedings.

Amidst a continued environment of economic recalibration, geopolitical tension, and evolving client expectations, law firms wrap 2026 balancing cautious optimism with sustained pressure to perform. Clients remain focused on value, predictability, and business alignment, while firms contend with shifting demand patterns, changing cost structures, and accelerating investment decisions around technology and talent. At the same time, questions around growth, consolidation, pricing resilience, and organizational agility remain unresolved. Looking ahead, firm leadership must assess not only where the market is headed, but how quickly conditions may change again. Join us for our annual discussion exploring the state of the legal market, the forces shaping law firm performance, and what the current moment signals for the future of the legal industry.   

Please join us for two concurrent workshop sessions wherein attendees are encouraged to participate in honing specific skills while networking with program attendees. 

Successfully measuring AI productivity gains requires attorney engagement, yet many firms struggle to secure meaningful participation in tracking initiatives. This session provides leaders with practical strategies for building genuine buy-in by demonstrating how AI metrics benefit attorneys directly, from justifying investments in tools they want to supporting workload reallocation and improved work-life balance. This workshop will share their proven approaches for framing measurement as a collaborative effort that serves both firm strategy and attorney interests. Participants will explore tactics for creating a culture of trust: positioning metrics as evidence for securing technology budgets; designing opt-in pilots where early adopters showcase benefits; implementing lightweight collection methods that respect attorney time; establishing transparent data governance; and engaging practice leaders as champions. 

In many firms, the biggest hidden performance lever isn’t a new system, it’s the consistency, ownership, and follow‑through behind the revenue cycle. This session explores how leaders are strengthening billing, collections, and working capital by pairing process improvement with the cultural and operational changes required to make it stick. Where do delays actually originate: time entry habits, scope management, write‑down patterns, client e‑billing complexity, training gaps, or unclear accountability? And how do you address them through better implementation, role clarity, and firm‑wide expectations rather than month‑end heroics? We’ll look at how firms are approaching e‑billing enablement as an operational change effort, like investing in training, reinforcing standards, and aligning attorneys and staff around shared success metrics, so cash discipline becomes embedded in daily practice. Attendees will leave with practical approaches for tightening cycle time, improving forecasting confidence, and reinforcing a culture where cash‑flow management is recognized as a core component of operational excellence, not a back‑office clean‑up exercise.   

Law firm mergers may remain on the horizon, but advantage increasingly comes from whether a firm is built to integrate growth without losing speed, culture, or client trust. This panel reframes integration as an operating discipline that supports multiple growth paths, including selective M&A, lateral expansion, and the ability to scale specialized practices across the firm. We will examine how firms assess growth through market access, practice depth, client adjacency, talent, and platform efficiency, and how governance, accountability, and metrics ensure growth reinforces strategic differentiation rather than diluting it. The discussion focuses on integration in practice, including unifying profitability and reporting standards, aligning pricing philosophy, rationalizing technology and vendors, and establishing client transition governance so growth is earned through execution. We will also explore how firms use integration capabilities to connect specialized strengths across offices and service lines, avoid fragmentation as complexity increases, and build a repeatable integration function that supports long‑term capability building. The outcome is a practical framework for using integration to drive resilience, optionality, and sustainable growth, whether expansion comes through consolidation or focused excellence. 

Please join us for two concurrent sessions discussing themes of law firm management. 

As delivery speeds up and clients push harder on predictability, firms are confronting an uncomfortable question: are partner incentives and leverage assumptions still aligned with how value is actually created? This session examines how firms are adjusting internal economics, like origination credit, matter leadership expectations, staffing leverage, and productivity signals, so profitability doesn’t depend on outdated logic. We’ll explore how leaders are incorporating a broader set of performance indicators, from margin consistency and matter velocity to capacity utilization, quality outcomes, and client retention, to better reflect contribution and impact. How do you protect margin without incentivizing busy work, and how do you reward behaviors that improve quality, client trust, and repeatable delivery? Join us to discuss what’s shifting in compensation conversations, how CFOs and COOs can introduce both traditional and emerging metrics without sparking a culture war, and how to modernize the rules of the road before the market modernizes them for you. 

The rapid evolution of legal technology and generative AI is transforming relationships between law firm operations, finance, and IT functions, creating unprecedented risk considerations for CFOs and COOs. As departmental boundaries blur, administrative leaders must enable innovation while managing enterprise risk and ROI. This session examines how IT departments are evolving into strategic partners essential for risk mitigation, while CFOs and COOs navigate operational, financial, and reputational implications of technology investments. We’ll discuss emerging hybrid roles, strategies for managing confidentiality and privilege concerns in AI deployments and developing cross-functional talent. Attendees will gain insights into assessing integration maturity, implementing governance frameworks, and creating centers of excellence that drive competitive advantage. 

This fishbowl session is designed for real talk: what is genuinely difficult in law firm management right now, what leaders are doing about it, and where the partnership model makes change harder than it needs to be. Participants will rotate into the conversation to share what’s shifting in their firms, while the group interrogates what actually scales versus what is too firm-specific to replicate. Expect practical peer exchange, unvarnished perspective, and a stronger sense of which operating moves are becoming table stakes as firms prepare for 2027 and beyond.  

Please join us for cocktails and canapés as we wrap up the day’s proceedings.