In the quarter century leading up to 2006, law firms didn’t really need to worry much about strategy. It was a sellers’ market and commercial success was generally achieved without any formal strategic planning. But the business world is now spinning on a different axis. Clients are radically reducing their legal expenses and insisting that law firms charge much less. It is a buyers’ market now and there are new competitors in the wings by dint of the Legal Services Act. Now is the time, more urgently than ever before, for firms to think systematically about their strategies, about which markets they wish to be in, and how they intend to compete in their chosen markets.