For law firms considering restructuring their business to meet the demands of a highly competitive market, hiring an experienced chief operations officer (COO) is sure to be a consideration. However, the reassignment of duties and shift in perspective this appointment will require may prove challenging for some firms. Finding the perfect match for a firm's unique culture and requirements is a difficult yet essential task. With input from a number of current law firm COOs and executive directors, alongside some of the most respected and sought-after consultants working in the legal space, Rise of the Legal COO examines the scope and variety of the legal COO role and how the challenges and demands of the position have altered as law firms have evolved over the last two decades. Heavily backed up by the first-hand experience of the contributors, the book also covers key topics such as how the COO fits into and supports the firm's leadership and what happens when leaders transition, factors that influence success (or not) as a legal COO, and key considerations for law firms thinking about introducing or developing the role. This book features: *A number of current COOs at large and midsize law firms share first-hand experience of the role at one or more firms. *In exclusive interviews, current COOs talk about how they relate to and support other leadership positions, get buy-in for change, and how they add value in the role. *Insight is provided from sought-after consultants who regularly advise the leaders of big name law firms. *Key topics covered include the most popular COO models used in the legal sector and reasons for the adoption of each model, what makes a COO-MP relationship successful, and how to deal with leadership transitions.

In today's modern, techno-centric world with its endless endless supply of data, and the multitude of ways to collect and utilize it, Intelligence has become the best tool for law firms when it comes to understanding client needs, offering quality value-oriented services, and garnering and retaining business. Ark Group's new report Strategic Intelligence for Law Firms offers a robust overview of how, and why, strategic use of intelligence can foster real results in your firm. Featuring advice and case studies from experts in business development; analytics; and the ABC of artificial, business, and competitive intelligence, Strategic Intelligence for Law Firms covers topics including: - Client success through better intelligence - Why client intelligence is (or should be) the new CI for law firms - Balancing pricing and client perceptions of value - Utilizing multiple intelligence sources to create an opportunity scoring assessment - Developing a CI function in a resource-constrained environment - Compiling a useful and user-friendly competitive intelligence report - Design, Thinking, and the why of BI - Using software to increase access to legal services - The evolution from business intelligence to artificial intelligence With insight, opinion, and practical working knowledge from the likes of Mark Medice and Jennifer Roberts Intapp, Zena Applebaum, Bennett Jones LLP, Peter Lane-Secor, Pepper Hamilton LLP, Patrick Fuller, Neota Logic Inc., Annie Johnson, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, Mark A. Gediman, Best Best & Krieger, Ed Walters and Jeffrey Asjes, Fast Case, Joanna Goodman, Law Society Gazette and The Guardian and John Alber, ILTA Strategic Intelligence for Law Firms will help all law firm leaders establish a flexible intelligence strategy that will address the current and future strategic needs of the firm.

The lack of women in power positions represents a poor return on investment for law firms, and could be costing them far more than they think in both economic and cultural terms. Quite aside from the widely accepted understanding that more diverse teams perform better, research shows that it actually costs more and takes longer to replace female partners than their male colleagues. Moreover, the scarcity of women mentors could be having a long-lasting effect on up-and-coming female associates. The problem is far from new but law firms' usual answers - business development training, diversity programs, investment in "women's initiatives" - doesn't seem to be having much of an effect, despite the collective millions firms are spending on these. The numbers of women attaining power positions in law firms have remained static for decades. By contrast, the percentage of women holding GC positions in Fortune 500 companies is growing, and women are increasingly likely to be found in in-house roles. Packed with fascinating insight, experience, and research from a broad range of lawyers, coaches, academics, thought leaders, and consultants, Beyond Bias: Unleashing the Potential of Women in Law considers just how much firms are costing themselves by failing to promote and retain talented women, the reasons their efforts have so far seen so little return, and the practical steps they can take to start to move the needle. We'll also consider what women can do more of to create and seize opportunities, claim credit where it's due, and get the most out of their business development efforts, wherever they practice. "Beyond Bias redresses some ancient wrongs with practical observations although who can say where we are going and where we will end up: the book is a major start on this new road so do read it soon." review by Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers and Phillip Taylor MBE, Head of Chambers and Reviews Editor, "The Barrister". See the full review here.

An exploration of how power and political society were imagined, represented and reflected on in medieval English art Images and imagery played a major role in medieval political thought and culture, but their influence has rarely been explored. This book provides a full assessment of the subject. Starting with an examination of the writings of late twelfth-century courtier-clerics, and their new vision of English political life as a heightened religious drama, it argues that visual images were key to the development and expression of medieval English political ideas andarguments. It discusses the vivid pictorial metaphors used in contemporary political treatises, and highlights their interaction with public decorative schemas in English great churches, private devotional imagery, seal iconography, illustrations of English history and a range of other visual sources. Meanwhile, through an exploration of events such as the Thomas Becket conflict, the making of Magna Carta, the Barons' War and the deposition of Edward II, it provides new perspectives on the political role of art, especially in reshaping basic assumptions and expectations about government and political society in medieval England. LAURA SLATER is a Fulford Junior ResearchFellow at Somerville College, University of Oxford.

An examination of written and other responses to conflict in a variety of forms and genres, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. War and violence took many forms in medieval and early modern Europe, from political and territorial conflict to judicial and social spectacle; from religious persecution and crusade to self-mortification and martyrdom; from comedic brutality to civil and domestic aggression. Various cultural frameworks conditioned both the acceptance of these forms of violence, and the protest that they met with: the elusive concept of chivalry, Christianity and just wartheory, political ambition and the machinery of propaganda, literary genres and the expectations they generated and challenged. The essays here, from the disciplines of history, art history and literature, explore how violence and conflict were documented, depicted, narrated and debated during this period. They consider manuals created for and addressed directly to kings and aristocratic patrons; romances whose affective treatments of violence invitedprofoundly empathetic, even troublingly pleasurable, responses; diaries and "autobiographies" compiled on the field and redacted for publication and self-promotion. The ethics and aesthetics of representation, as much as the violence being represented, emerge as a profound and constant theme for writers and artists grappling with this most fundamental and difficult topic of human experience. JOANNA BELLIS is the Fitzjames Research Fellow in Oldand Middle English at Merton College, Oxford; LAURA SLATER holds a Postdoctoral Fellowship from The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London. Contributors: Anne Baden-Daintree, Anne Curry, David Grummitt, Richard W. Kaeuper, Andrew Lynch, Christina Normore, Laura Slater, Sara V. Torres, Matthew Woodcock,

'Vintage Secrets' reveals exactly what went into creating the looks made famous by the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly, detailing the eating habits, exercise routines and style tips that helped usher in a golden age of silver-screen sophistication.

This is a stylistic and informative guide to beauty from the golden age of Hollywood glamour. The book teaches readers how to recreate a wide variety of iconic looks - from the pencil-thin, arched eyebrows and kohl-rimmed eyes made famous by silent-film starlet Clara Bow, to Rita Hayworth's luxuriant locks and Marilyn Monroe's 'blonde all over' glow.