Kim Verska, one of our managing partners, was recently interviewed by Thrive Global about the model advantages and work culture of the largest national full-service women-owned law firm in the country.

The following are some brief excerpts and you can read her entire interview HERE.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

The primary way our company stands out in the legal services market is by providing services equivalent in quality for a much better value than the “white shoe” law firms that we commonly are up against.

For example, one of my clients was replacing their CEO, and they turned to us for the employment work on their side. My client was also responsible for the personal legal fees for the new CEO, who had hired a large traditional firm. My team wound up doing most of the drafting, yet our bill was 1/5 of the traditional law firm’s bill. My client, the company’s general counsel, laughed with me saying, “Their bill looks like they dragged this project up and down the hallway, letting everyone in their employment group have a shot at it.”

It’s these stories about traditional law firms — and almost every client has one — that makes it so easy to get a meeting once you explain that you have a different value proposition with equivalent quality.

What advice would you give to other female leaders about the best way to manage a large team?

There are a few things that I think keep everyone on track. The best way to start is to establish collaborative goals from the outset. If that isn’t possible, the leader should strive to make clear the advantages or disadvantages (collective and/or individual) that will flow from the project’s success or failure. I even had one manager who kept a printout listing these outcomes handy at meetings in case she heard anyone question the goals of the project!

Beyond that, not only establishing, but calendaring (with group calendar invites!) timelines for the accomplishment of various tasks goes a long way towards disincentivizing slacking off.

Lastly, the team should include a wide array of skill sets and personality types appropriate to the task at hand. I’ve found that team members function best when they’re allowed to volunteer for specific tasks instead of having them assigned in micro-managing fashion. This allows the team to function more like a natural ecosystem as it works towards achieving goals and timelines established at the outset.

About Culhane Meadows – Big Law for the New Economy®
The largest woman-owned national full-service business law firm in the U.S., Culhane Meadows fields over 70 partners in ten major markets across the country. Uniquely structured, the firm’s Disruptive Law® business model gives attorneys greater work-life flexibility while delivering outstanding, partner-level legal services to major corporations and emerging companies across industry sectors more efficiently and cost-effectively than conventional law firms. Clients enjoy exceptional and highly-efficient legal services provided exclusively by partner-level attorneys with significant experience and training from large law firms or in-house legal departments of respected corporations. U.S. News & World Report has named Culhane Meadows among the country’s “Best Law Firms” in its 2014 through 2020 rankings and many of the firm’s partners are regularly recognized in Chambers, Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers and Martindale-Hubbell Peer Reviews.

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