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CRUNCHING NUMBERS With greater pressure from clients about fees, firms are starting to understand the importance of associate profitability and are ramping up efforts to make it part of their business plans. By Mark Cardwell $ $$ $ $$ $$$$$ $$$$$$ $ $ $$$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$$$ $ $$ $ $$ $$$$$$$ $ N orm Letalik remembers the reaction he got the day in 2002 when he told a room of fellow lawyers and manage- ment experts at a monthly profes- sional development meeting that he was helping his newly merged firm put the final touches on what soon became what he believes was the first national training program for associates in Canada. "There was a lot of chuckling," recalls Letalik, a partner in the Toronto office of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. "People basically said, 'Good luck with that.'" Who's laughing now? A decade after BLG was created through a fusion of five independent law firms across Canada, today it ranks as Canada's largest full-service firm and the only one, believes Letalik, that has registered increased annual revenues every year since 2000. "It's 26 JUNE 2011 www. CANADIAN Lawyermag.com $ hard to gauge our development program's contribution to that success in terms of increased revenues or even reten- tion rates of young lawyers who can leave a firm for 1,001 different reasons," he says. "But what I can say with abso- lute certainty is that the program is one of the elements in the mix that is helping us." BLG isn't alone in its efforts to maximize the revenue earning potential of associates — not by a long shot. As the legal profession continues to deal with fundamental changes in the way it serves an increasingly wary and demanding clientele, large law firms across Canada, and in the United States and Britain, are taking long looks at different methods of improving the professional compe- tencies and productivity of their wage earners in an effort to boost both firm revenues and partner profits. "Associate profitability could be the most important management $$ $ $ $ gary taXali THE