William J. Flannery Jr. is President of The WJF Institute, headquartered in Austin, Texas. The Institute's primary focus is business development, client development, client relationship management, law firm marketing and marketing support programs. The WJF Institute also trains lawyers and provides related consulting services in substantive legal skills, law firm management and leadership. Over the past 23 years, The WJF Institute has conducted intensive, small group training sessions for over 16,000 lawyers all over the world.

Bill graduated from the University of Maryland at College Park, Maryland, in 1967. He started his career in 1966 at the Department of Justice as an instructor. He later joined Johns-Manville Corp. in their Washington, D.C., office. In 1969, he joined IBM Corp. in Washington, D.C. While at IBM, he attended the University of Baltimore Law School and obtained his Juris Doctorate in 1973. He also attended the IBM/Harvard Advanced Business Executive Education Institute.

His IBM career included assignments in marketing training, product marketing, large account marketing, corporate marketing planning, large system management, IBM corporate executive briefing program, corporate strategic planning, finance, litigation management, personal computer product development and technology for the legal profession.

Bill was instrumental in creating a new IBM marketing group specializing in technology systems for the legal profession: The IBM Legal Profession Marketing Group (LPM). The IBM LPM Group was created in January 1980 in response to the growing technology systems needs of the private practice, courts, governments and in-house counsel here in the U.S. and overseas. As a member of IBM's LPM Group, his responsibilities included IBM's relationships with key law firm computer customers, corporate law departments' in-house legal systems managers, and IBM's outside counsel. He left IBM in 1988 and founded The WJF Institute.

Bill has been a special advisor to the ABA and the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA) on technology and marketing. He has served as a member of the ALA's Long Range Planning Committee. He was involved in developing and implementing the ALA's current long-range plan. He has been a member of the ABA's Law School Curriculum Committee. He has lectured in law schools, graduate and undergraduate schools in the U.S. and overseas on strategic planning, technology, business development, sales, and marketing.

Bill has published numerous articles on business development, marketing, technology, and law firm management in law journals and legal publications. He is a frequent speaker at LMA and various legal conferences, marketing and business development forums, panels, and various international law firm consortiums.