What does a retreat mean for your firm? A little team-building exercise, but not much more return on investment than a few rounds of golf? As with many things in life, Carolynne Burkholder writes, the secret to getting the most out of a law firm retreat is in the planning stage – setting goals and doing your due diligence.

If you’ve heard about millennials in the workplace, chances are you haven’t heard anything good – they have a bad work ethic, they need constant reinforcement … that’s the usual message. But here’s another one – they’re going to be there after you’re gone, so something’s gotta give. James Careless provides some common-sense tips for finding a bridge across the generation gap.

When you’re setting out on a car trip, whether you use a road map or a GPS, you find your route by identifying where you are in relation where you want to be, and working out how to get from one spot to the other in the most efficient way for your particular requirements – whether that’s speed or scenery. You can think of project management as a road trip you take in the office.

Everyone knows it’s beneficial for young lawyers to have good mentors, but fewer talk about the vice-versa – that interacting with young lawyers is also good for the mentors. Carolynne Burkholder talks to mentors who’ve seen how that relationship benefits their own practices.

Within their first five years, 57 per cent of female lawyers and 49 per cent of male lawyers leave private practice, according to data collected by the Law Society of Alberta. Experts say the numbers are likely similar across Canada.

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself. Many professionals live by that axiom, and lawyers are no exception. But productivity expert Ann Gomez says lawyers will accomplish more in a day if they leverage the strengths of their support staff.

Privacy and confidentiality concerns took centre stage in April in the wake of Panamanian-based law firm Mossack Fonseca’s massive data leak. The theft of millions of its confidential documents exposed the names of the firm’s clients and their use of offshore shell companies and tax havens.

Richard Susskind, who’s been acting as a special advisor to the CBA Legal Futures Initiative since its inception, has prepared a practical guidebook for law firm strategizing, and it’s as useful for small firms as for big. Read some of the testimonials we’ve received!

Want to be successful? Set up another division of your firm and give it the mandate of putting you out of business. That’s the way to innovation and creativity – figuring out how your competitors will take you down before they can, Len Brody told the CLC in Calgary last month.

Because of the jobs they do, the social stigma surrounding mental health problems seems to go double for lawyers, judges and others in the legal profession. The Canadian Bar Association has developed an online education course to help the profession deal with its issues, and some of the country’s biggest law firms are stepping up with their own wellness campaigns.