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Aon | Professional Services Practice
Insight Archive
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July 2021 - Three years after its enactment, enforcement of the European Union General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR) has been successfully challenged in some cases, with regulators also reducing a
number of significant fines that they originally imposed.
June 2021 - The ransomware epidemic is growing exponentially and is assuming geopolitical importance. The
research company Cybersecurity Ventures predicts the global cost of cybercrime will reach $6 trillion in 2021.
June 2021 - Aon’s Construction Professional Liability team hosted a four-part webinar series on
June 10th and 11th, 2021. Recordings of the sessions are available upon request to
our clients, prospects and insurer partners.
June 2021 - Suzanne Jakstavich, Chief Human Resources Officer at the national law firm, Hinshaw
& Culbertson LLP, discusses the people challenges faced by law and other professional service firms
as they respond to the critical issues driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, and prepare for the rapidly changing demands of a post-pandemic world.
June 2021 - The COVID-19 pandemic has created sustained economic uncertainty in both the construction
and global insurance industries. And professional liability coverage for constructors and designers
has indeed been swept up in this insecurity.
June 2021 - Leaders and risk managers have been tested over the last fifteen months.
The challenges facing both have been characterized by uncertainty and complexity.
Leadership is of course about deployment of resources and therefore about choices, which today often involve ambiguity.
May 2021 - “Trusted advisor” has become a much-discussed term in the business press. George J. Wolf,
Managing Director of Aon Professional Services Practice’s Law Firm Advisory Team provides some
thoughts on what constitutes a trusted advisor and value that they bring to a law firm.
May 2021 - Conflicts and intake software is at the core of a successful risk management strategy for
law firms – for identifying potential conflicts of interest, evaluating new business opportunities
and vetting lateral candidates’ clients.
May 2021 - George J. Wolf, Managing Director of Professional Services Practice’s Law Firm Advisory
Team sat down with Aon’s The One Brief to discuss succession planning and the experiences of law firms.
May 2021 - Ransomware is a leading risk for professional service firms in 2021 –
Aon’s Cyber Solutions Group statistics show that ransomware attacks have increased 486% in two years.
A recent report from Coveware, a leading extortion negotiator, shows that professional services is now...
May 2021 - Since the outbreak of COVID-19, global immobility and social distancing measures
have triggered a radical shift in working practices for professional service firms. Remote
working has enabled firms to remain operational, but prolonged social isolation is impacting employee wellbeing.
April 2021 - Starting approximately in 2005, the fiduciary liability insurance market has borne
the extraordinary costs of settling “excessive fee” class action lawsuits against insured corporations.
Excessive fee litigation generally alleges that fiduciaries of employer-sponsored retirement...
April 2021 - The events of 2020 have heightened focus on human capital risk. Not only are firms
concerned with the ability to attract and retain talent, they are also increasingly concerned
about the health and wellbeing of employees. The accounting profession is dependent on human...
April 2021 - Actuarial models can be powerful quantification tools to assist professional service
firms in making informed decisions about their insurance risk strategy. The costs associated
with alternative insurance program structures (retentions and limits) can be estimated by using actuarial...
March 2021 - Across the world, businesses are operating amid a global economic downturn, geopolitical
instability, trade embargos and sanctions and rapidly changing commercial demands. Accelerated
by the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, debts now represent 40% of current assets...
February 2021 - As professional service firms continue to respond to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic,
employee wellbeing remains an absolute priority. The pandemic has created several significant safety
challenges for risk managers, including the enhanced risks around air travel.
February 2021 - Lawyers
working remotely from a jurisdiction where they are not licensed to practice likely do not need to be
concerned about the unauthorized practice of law (“UPL”) if they are temporarily practicing there due to the pandemic.
But temporary remote work locations may ultimately become...
February 2021 - What lessons can professional service firms draw from recent events to enhance the practice
of risk management? Daniel Defoe’s, A Journal of the Plague Year, concerning the Great Plague of 1665, illustrates
that history has many lessons to teach us about pandemics.
February 2021 - Amid the ongoing economic and global health crises, Aon’s latest Law Firm Health
Trends and Data Insights – 2020 Plan Year report finds that most law firms’ benefit packages remained
relatively stable during 2020. Only a few firms adopted aggressive changes in plan design or structure.
January 2021 - Law firms must plan carefully to provide sufficient retirement benefits
to key partners. As senior partners look to retire and give up their equity, younger partners
must ensure the firm has a viable plan in place to fund partner retirement benefits.
January 2021 - Scott Fisher, Managing Partner of US law firm Neal Gerber Eisenberg, shares
his experiences of his leadership transition and advice for effective succession
planning in a rapidly changing commercial environment
January 2021 - Since the publication of our last global Design and Construction Professional Liability
outlook, a few short months ago, the professional liability insurance market in most territories has
continued to harden. A firming insurance market is challenging during...
January 2021 - The potential loss of a leader or key rainmaker is a concerning but inevitable challenge
for law firms. Without adequate measures to embed a succession strategy into the firm’s culture, client
experience and loyalty suffer when a gap in leadership is created by the departure of a partner.
December 2020 - The conflicts and intake function for professional service firms has been rapidly evolving
in recent years. Historically, a lack of innovation in technology and a general undervaluing
of the true benefits that effective conflicts and intake processes can bring to a firm...
November 2020 - Since the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
came into force in May 2018, it has had a powerful impact on the international privacy landscape.
In July 2019, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced fines of £183 million...
November 2020 - After encountering this year’s highest ransomware demand of USD 80 million, Aon’s experts
are acutely aware of the rapidly rising threat of ransomware attacks and the resultant
risks faced by professional service firms. Alongside the multimillion dollar ransom demands...
November 2020 - In September 2020, our article entitled
Addressing the Challenge of Affordability
in 2021 and Beyond
discussed the cost and affordability challenges facing many professional service firms
and their participants. For professional service firms looking...
October 2020 - Please click here to access US Mid-Year Market Overview – Design and Construction Professional Liability. Aon’s recent review of the Current Global Insurance Market Conditions for Design and Construction
Professional Liability (PL)...
October 2020 - In March of 2010, a Houston-based lawyer fell victim to a scam asking the individual to represent
a Hong Kong corporation to pursue debtors in the US that owed the company over USD 4 million. Engagement letters
were signed, but before the law firm...
October 2020 - Ransomware has emerged as the major cyber threat affecting professional service firms in 2020. As we approach Q4,
several studies have been published by insurers and cybersecurity specialists that have highlighted the dramatic
increases in these attacks since 2019...
October 2020 - "It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future" physicist Niels Bohr famously opined, but it
is becoming apparent that certain changes in the way we work may be irreversible. Consensus appears to be
building that the world may be quite different for some...
September 2020 - REvil is a known hacking group that has been active for some time and has been named in several ransomware
attacks on a variety of targets including financial institutions, recently hitting a major travel exchange
entity and a South American bank. The group has not been...
September 2020 - Over the last five months, law firms and their clients have successfully transitioned to remote working
arrangements for most, if not all, of their employees due to COVID-19. While there has been a slow return
to the office environment for some, most law firms and companies...
September 2020 - Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic upending health care delivery systems in the United States and around the world,
the affordability of health care for individual consumers was one of the biggest issues facing benefits
decision-makers at law firms...
September 2020 - For contractors and designers, the effect of a recession comes on top of other recent professional liability challenges.
The market has seen some insurers adjusting their appetite for risks, as well as twelve carriers withdrawing
from the market altogether...
July 2020 - Balancing technology with human skill is enabling law firms to bring stability to new business intake and conflicts of
interest processes. The phenomenal rise of the global law firm has transformed international legal practice. Aided
by rapid technological...
July 2020 - Work-from-home migration, decreased reliance on office space, and certain support staff positions may present
opportunities for improving profits. Will firms take advantage of these times to act? While much has been reported on the
financial challenges...
May 2020 - The importance of calculating payment cycle metrics in forecasting 2020 financial projections.
For decades, law firms have focused their management attention on billable hours, billing rates, realization
and cash collections. As COVID-19 continues to...
April 2020 - A number of notable risk trends continue to cause concern in 2020. High-profile scandals receive
widespread media attention and focus attention on reputation. Regulators remain active and are increasingly
enforcing sanctions in addition to fines.
April 2020 - In February 2020, a major vendor to the legal profession suffered a ransomware attack that forced it to take
its legal services platform offline for over two weeks. In addition to the inconvenience of having
to reschedule matters, law firms were left with the uncertainty...
April 2020 - For firms with more than 500 health plan participants and a geographically diverse footprint,
Aon’s COVID-19 Employee Impact Model forecasts the impact on your employee population based on
geographic-specific infection rates and advanced..
April 2020 - The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused significant disruption to businesses and a degree of panic within the
employee community. Companies across all industrial nations have activated contingency and business
continuity plans and have allowed or instructed employees...
April 2020 - Reputation is now listed routinely in surveys of major risks facing organisations. This is
particularly true for professional firms. It is also regularly included amongst the lists of emerging risks.
Brand and trust have always been important, but clearly there...
March 2020 - For law firms, alignment of compensation is critical to both cultural engagement in, and accountability
for, competitive strategy, especially given the "loose confederation" culture trait. Each member and employee
of a firm or practice group must understand the firm’s...
March 2020 - Accounting firms continued to grow and diversify their practices throughout 2019, with many transforming into
multi-disciplinary professional services and product firms. At the same time, risks associated with conduct and
compliance were put under...
March 2020 - Professional service firms’ risk profiles are changing due to the increased use of technology and
tools such as artificial intelligence. Firms may encounter significant impacts on business models and client needs.
While the additional complexity will reduce...
February 2020 - Aon expert David Christensen discusses how law firms are using different types of captives as a
risk management solution. Captive usage is evolving. Since early 2018, several law firms have developed
their use of single parent captives for PI risk programs, and these trends are...
December 2019 - Law firms are increasingly investing in technology and talent to meet clients’ and general counsel’s
changing expectations. Since the global financial crisis of 2008, clients increasingly value the
delivery of tangible results and are less likely to feel duty-bound...
December 2019 - Access to sensitive data and commitments to client confidentiality put professional service
firms at particular risk from cyber-related exposures. While safety measures and risk management strategies
can eliminate a substantial portion of cyber risks...
December 2019 - In the past, professional service firms faced limited intellectual property risk.
This exposure primarily centered around the creation and dissemination of publications as well
as and branding and advertising activity. Today, professional service firms are becoming ...
