March 29, 2007
The One-Person Planner Approach for the Law Firm
Survey after survey discloses that only about 20 percent of midsized law firms engage in a formal planning process. Yet, the evidence is clear that those that do have a process outperform those that don’t. If your firm is one of the 80 percent without a formal planning process, you still need to plan—to think about the business of the law firm and into what and how do you want the law firm to change.
I previously posted a step-by-step quide for structured strategic planning as a team, but in this post, let’s take a simpler approach—a “one-person planner” approach. How do you proceed as one individual when thinking about the business of the law firm? Start by taking an inventory—what is the nature of the business today and then proceed to what you want it to be and what is required to get there:
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What do our clients have in common (who are they)?
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What do our clients think of us?
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Who are our Partners- professional strengths, people and team skills, business strengths, marketing strengths, aspirations, traits, ages, satisfaction with income level, satisfaction with status quo, retirement goals?
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What do our other lawyers have in common (who are they); are they the right people; do we have the right number; are we fully utilzing them; are we training and developing them as we should?
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How do we stack up financially—per-partner income, rates, leverage, realization, margin?
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How are we growing our business; where does our new business come from?
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What is good and not good about our facilities?
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What is good and not good about our administrative team?
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What is good and not good about our systems and equipment?
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Who are our competitors, if any, that really matter?
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What are we really good at?
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What do clients ask of us that we are not good at?
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What are our biggest threats, if any, that really matter?
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What are our best opportunities?
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What is the firm’s value proposition—what elevator response would we give to someone who asks, “Tell me about your firm”?
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Are you satisfied with who and what your firm is? If not, what do you want it to be?
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If you are not satisfied, what do you want your value proposition to be—what elevator response would you like to give?
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What is keeping you from being what you want to be?
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Make a list—what has to change to get where you want to go?
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Go back over your list and reshape it into a big picture.
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The vision: This is who we are and want to remain or this is who we want to be.
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What are the three to five main things that will determine the success of that vision?
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What strategies are we going to rely on to achieve those main things?
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What tactics or programs will we implement to support the strategies and who is going to be responsible for what?
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How are we going to measure and report progress?
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How are those responsible going to be held accountable for their delegated role?
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Now here is the caveat. Now you have to sell your plan. A one-person planning team can only take the progress so far. You need a consensus for a plan to work. Everyone doesn’t have to agree with every aspect, but they must agree to the destination and the road, the key strategies, for getting there.
I call that consensus “getting on I65 North”. The message I65 North conveys is that we are going north and we are going on this specified road. You can travel at your own speed as long as you are not endangering other travelers or impeding their progress. But you can’t go South, East, or West. If you want to go somewhere else, there are exits along the way.
The truth be told, the easy way to sell your plan is to move to the next level and repeat the process as a team. You’ve gone through the process and, having done so, you are in a position to facilitate the planning process. New light bulbs may go off during the process, but the team is likely to wind up with a plan very similar to the one you scoped out initially. Only this time, they have ownership.
When you plan as a team, you may want to use the strategic planning guide from a prior post or you may feel more comfortable initially by sticking to a modified version of the above one-person planner approach for now.
Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.
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