An Attorney, a prolific writer and an experienced advisor to law firms, Brian Ritchey was selected to succeed the retiring Tom Collins as the host and Chief Contributing Editor for morepartnerincome.com. He also takes over as the Editor in Chief of the Managing Partner Advocate, a bi-monthly publication focused on issues affecting law firm managers.

Brian Ritchey, previously a Regional Vice President for Juris, Inc., became part of the Practice Management Division of LexisNexis upon the purchase of Juris by LexisNexis in July 2007. He actively practiced law for 7 years in a firm in Birmingham Alabama. Brian was recruited away from his practice early in his career to join a leading case management company and spent a year working as a liaison between attorneys and software developers to provide customized case management solutions to clients. He went back to private practice in 2000, but was lured away again to join the Juris team in 2005 where Brian used his knowledge of law firm dynamics to help partners, directors, shareholders and legal administrators manage their firms’ practice through the utilization of technology, strategy and process.

Brian obtained his J.D. from Cumberland School of Law after attending the University of Alabama for his undergraduate degree in English. He was admitted to the Alabama Bar in 1997, is licensed and in good standing with the Alabama Bar, the U.S. District Courts of Alabama for the Northern, Middle and Southern Districts as well as the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Brian will transition into his new role over the next six weeks. Readers can expect to continue to see posts of Tom Collins and other authors as well as those of its new host. The blog’s mission continues to be providing information to law firm leaders that will enhance partner income. That objective is achieved by doing the right things right. When you do everyone wins including clients and non-partner members of the firm.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center: 877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.

 

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Shortly after posting Wild Weather, Fires, Floods Threaten Law Firms, I received an e-mail from Ed Poll telling me about a new publication he has authored. The special report, Disaster Preparedness & Recovery for Law Firms, is scheduled for release in June but can be ordered now. According to Ed, the book draws on the work of more than a dozen firms that came together after 9/11 to create a recovery template for their firms.

Ed wrote the following about his new book:

Disaster planning is one of the most specialized, most overlooked, and most vital business planning endeavors. The goal is to develop a recovery strategy to get your firm up and running again and thus ensure its survival. This volume gives you the critical steps, including:

• The essentials of a comprehensive recovery plan
• How to create a team to plan the firm’s response
• Where legal ethics and disaster planning intersect
• Must-dos to safeguard and support your people

You can order Disaster Preparedness & Recovery for Law Firms in advance of its June 2007 distribution date for the prepublication price of $47.00.

Ed Poll, J.D., M.B.A., CMC, advises law firms and their leaders on practice management, business development, and financial matters. He is a nationally recognized coach and the author of a widely read series of practical guides for law firms. His advice has benefited national, regional, and local law firms. Ed is unique in that he has long-term experience in both business and law. For more about Ed or his consulting enterprise LawBiz®, visit his web site or the blog Ed hosts.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center: 877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.

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We often take for granted that everyone is on the same page when it comes to how clients and prospective clients are to be treated. Unfortunately, life just isn’t that simple. The leadership of the law firm has to communicate service standards—the firm’s expectations about how every member of the firm will treat clients and prospects. Law firms are in a constant state of change. People come and go. For services standards to become institutionalized, to become a integral part of the firm’s culture, the standards must be formalized, communicated frequently, and the leadership must hold people accountable for honoring those standards—they must be job requirements!

 

Janet Ellen Raasch has penned an excellent paper dealing with implementing a formal client service standard in the law firm. Her paper,Set Your Law Firm Apart with a Formal Client Service Standard Policy, appears on CBA PracticeLink, and the site also includes an online or downloadable presentation on the subject. The Canadian Bar Association puts out a wealth of top quality practice management material on their web site. Add it to your favorites list as a source of ideas for continuous improvement.

 

In her paper, Raasch includes the following sample list of client service standards which she complied from a variety of Canadian and U. S. sources:

 

We will put clients first – on our premises

• We will be welcoming – the client will be greeted by name first by a professional receptionist and later by attorneys and staff.
• We will be punctual – so the client will not have to wait.
• We will make an unavoidable wait pleasant – offering a beverage, a comfortable waiting area, entertainment (television or print materials), directions to the restroom or coat closet, and access to the phone and Internet. We will apologize for any delay.
• We will not make negative comments or discuss any client’s business in a public place (hallway, elevator, or snack room) where it might be overheard by a visiting client.
• We will keep the files of other clients out of the view of visiting clients.
• We will give a visiting client our undivided attention – putting other calls and distractions on hold until after the meeting.
• We will introduce the visiting client to other attorneys and staff – especially those on the client team.
• When we see an unfamiliar person in a hallway, we will ask “Can I help you?” and then stay with the visitor until the visitor’s need is met.
• When a client sees our office space or our print and electronic materials, the design will convey the message that we place clients first.

We will put clients first – by being accessible

• We will provide clients with our office, cell, and home phone numbers as well as e-mail addresses.
• When out of the office, we will carry BlackBerries, cell phones, and laptop computers with remote access to firm resources.
• We will provide clients with extranet sites where they can access information about their matter 24/7.
• We will answer our own phones. When this is not possible, the client will have a choice of phone mail or talking to a real person.
• We will train all attorneys and staff (especially switchboard personnel) in professional communication protocols.

We will put clients first – by being responsive

• We will check for phone and e-mail messages regularly and return them within a set period of time – no longer than 24 hours, and preferably much less.
• If we can’t respond to a message personally, we will make sure someone else who is familiar with the client’s case or matter returns the call.
• We will check for and acknowledge the receipt of all faxes.
• We will let clients know when we will be out of reach and give them the contact information of the person who can answer their questions in our absence.
• We will make sure that each client has multiple contacts at the firm, and that the client’s staff has contacts among parallel members of the law firm’s staff.
• We will learn and use the names of a client’s staff; we will be courteous and respectful at all times.
• We will respond to any complaints, fix them, and let the client know how the problem has been fixed.

We will put clients first – by understanding their needs

• We will ask clients about their service preferences before, during, and after each engagement.
• We will create a client service ombudsman – and encourage clients to contact this person if they are less than perfectly satisfied.
• We will listen more than we talk. We will never give the impression that we are too busy to give a client our complete attention.
• We will visit each client on their premises at least once a year – off the clock – to ask about client satisfaction. We will ask for a tour to learn more about their business.
• We will take a hard look at our own interpersonal skills – and ask for professional development assistance if necessary.
• We will keep current with developments in our client’s industry, reading industry publications and participating in industry organizations. We will keep track of and congratulate clients on their industry successes.
• When appropriate, we will co-locate a lawyer on the client’s premises.
• To respect the client’s financial needs, we will staff each matter in a way that provides the best value for the service provided.

We will put clients first – by continuously improving our procedures

• We will manage client expectations through clear client intake procedures.
• We will communicate clearly regarding fees, costs, team members, deadlines, risks and outcomes.
• We will hold a team meeting with the client at the start of any engagement.
• We will avoid surprises.
• We will discuss a proposed action with a client before we incur any fees.
• We will provide clients with copies of documents – in the format they prefer.
• We will review documents carefully for typos, misspelled names, or missing pages.
• We will meet or exceed our deadlines. If we cannot, we will let the client know well in advance.
• We will handle client correspondence promptly upon receipt, using a routing system.
• Our bills will be clear, correct, prompt, and in a format that meets the client’s needs.
• We will review the first bill with the client and resolve any questions promptly.
• We will provide a status update monthly, even if there are no billed hours.
• We will accept responsibility for any mistakes, apologize, and provide a solution.
• At the end of any engagement, we will send a thank you note. We will survey to find out how we could have provided better service. We will make changes to our procedures based on what we learn from our clients.

Sample Client Service Standards

Janet Ellen Raasch is a writer and ghostwriter who works closely with lawyers, law firms and other professional services providers – helping establish these clients as thought leaders within a targeted market through publication of articles and books for print and rich content for the Internet. She can be reached at (303) 399-5041 or jeraasch@msn.com.

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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For regular blog readers who saw yesterday's blog about Tom's surgery, it was a success!  You'll probably hear more about it from him later.  Until he's back at the computer, his pre-written blogs will be posted daily, starting with the following:

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According to a recent survey by Thomson Elite, 50 percent of law firms are planning to increase technology spending in 2007.   A large majority of reporting firms, 80 percent, say they will spend more on software than on hardware. Likewise, the survey indicates that firms do not plan on increasing technology staff levels.  The emphasis is on software and infrastructure investments to improve competitiveness and partner income.

 

Thomson’s finding parallels the emphasis on software indicated by law firms responding to an earlier Law Firm Economic Survey conducted by Juris, Inc.  In addition to financial information, the Juris survey polled participating firms about their financial and practice management priorities.  It turned out to be a wish list for better tools to guide the firm. Here are their top wishes:

 

• Real-time information for fee earners

• Improved reporting systems for better business intelligence

• Budgeting & forecasting tools

• Benchmarking tools to improve competitive information

 

The top two desires, real-time information and business intelligence, signals that traditional reports are no longer adequate. Managing partners want actionable information that is instantly digestible and in time to do something about it.  The new dashboard technology arriving on the scene is delivering on this need for constant situational awareness. Partners want timelier information in smaller doses. Rather than dig for information, they want to be alerted when their attention or action is needed. They want to control the flow of information according to what is important to them at the time. Delivering all of that is a big deal for software vendors. But the leading business system vendors are in business to address buyer preferences, so some exciting new breakthrough products are hitting the market—for example, the new Active Information from Juris, Inc. and Elite 3E® from Thomson Elite. 

 

Benchmarking's move into the top wish list reflects the growing awareness by law firm leaders that their firms can ill afford to continue flying blind. They need competitive intelligence.  They want to know key financial information from their peer and competitive groups. Surveys that are 12 to 18 months behind the curve aren’t satisfying that need.  Thus, we see the rise of new continuous benchmarking and monitoring services from the likes of Thomson, Redwood Analytics, and Juris.

 

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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Last week I had the opportunity to serve on the faculty of a Tennessee Bar session on technology.  During the day-long meeting, I served on a panel dealing with case management options.  Vendor representatives on the panel included Legal Files, Time Matters™, Amicus®Attorney, and Prolaw®.  All of products represented serve as a depository of case related information and perform the same basic functions:

·         Client intake information, including billing arrangement, etc.

·         Case information: contacts, counsels, experts, witnesses, facts, dates, issues, strategies,

·         Calendaring, docketing, reminders, to-do lists

·         Conflict searches

·         E-mails and internal documents related to the case

·         Discovery documents

·         Notes

·         Templates of case related information used for document assembly or preparation

Prolaw’s claim to fame is their built-in court rules. While not on the panel, the other court rules provider is Compulaw®.  Compulaw is the leading provider of rule-based docketing software; they offer an online service called Deadlines on Demand®. Compulaw does license others to use their rules and may have arrangements with some of the products represented on the panel.

 

One of the things I found interesting in the Juris Law Firm Economic Survey conducted last year is that case management software was not among the top practice management priorities for most firms.  It did make it to the top-three list for the lowest performing 25 percent of firms.  I assume that most law firms feel they have case management under control through their existing systems and procedures.  That makes sense from the standpoint of a practicing lawyer. You are already managing your cases.  Case management software is just a tool for doing so, but so are file folders and day timers.  So is the Microsoft^® Office Suite including Outlook^® — which is the most widely used software by law firms for organizing and managing law firm cases.

 

Case management systems aren’t just for litigation matters. They facilitate management of any project or activity—for a client or otherwise.  The question is, are you better off using a commercial case management system or a combination of general purpose tools to develop your case management solution? The tools you use to get there are less important than just getting there.  You need to look at the commercial products related to your particular needs and firm culture.  You need to research the existing case management capabilities of your business software in combination with other software such as document management, file management, Microsoft’s Office Suite, etc.  You may not be using the case management tools you already have through the connective capability of your existing software.

 

If your firm has multiple practice areas, keep in mind that trying to fit different specialized practice areas onto the same set of case management tools can create inefficiencies rather than efficiency. To that end, you may need different tools for different folks. For example, there are specialized requirements for intellectual property, immigration and personal injury, among others, and there are products that target these areas. Solutions that facilitate litigation and particularly complex litigation can cause the real estate people to rebel. The objective is to be able to handle the practice areas more efficiently. There is no requirement that everyone use the same case management tool. 

 

Most popular and specialized case management software has taken advantage of the tools Juris, Inc. makes available to all vendors to enable them to interface their products to Juris® law office business software.  There are Juris law firms using all of the case management products represented on the panel.   Among Juris law firm products represented on the panel, Amicus and Time Matters tend to appear in smaller firms and Legal Files tends to be the choice as firms move up in size.  That is one of the nice things about the Juris approach of making “connect tools” available to all vendors.  You can have environments where the litigation people are using one solution, the intellectual property group another and the rest of the firm using Outlook, and yet they all connect to the firm’s Juris system.

 

In many respects, any tool you use for case management is a blank sheet of paper. To successfully implement case management, you have to be committed to training and investing the resources to set up the system to fit your practice areas. You have to continue to invest to keep your system fine-tuned to those needs.  It is not something you just take out of the box and start using. What comes out of the box is just the beginning.

 

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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Last week I was in Milwaukee attending the Milwaukee Bar's annual Conference. Technology and law firm management are an important part of their conference. It traditionally attracts faculty members of national (make that international) stature. One of the faculty members was Dave Bilinsky, the Practice Management Advisor for the Law Society of British Columbia. Among his other insightful tips was this high value four-pointer worth framing:

1. Teach someone

2. Delegate, delegate, delegate….

3. Concentrate on results

4. Push work down

When partners hoard work, they limit the firm’s prospects for future profitable growth. “Doing it yourself” means that you are short-changing associate professional development, limiting your ability to plan, bring in new business, or get more done by leveraging off of others. Taking the time to teach someone rather than doing it yourself increases the firm’s capacity in the long term.

Number two speaks for itself. Try to never do something someone else can do.

Too often we think first of the process required rather than the end result to be achieved. Short-cutting a process (or finding a new way) saves time, if it achieves the same or a better end result. Take the time to think creatively. Give delegates the opportunity to be creative.

For a partner, “push work down” means pushing it down to an associate. When you do, you get double the bang for your buck. The associate gets the work done, and you get a more experienced associate.

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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Competitive intelligence and specifically peer group benchmarking has been growing in importance as law firms increasingly adopt traditional business practices. This post is one of several summarizing information garnered from the September 2006 Benchmarking Symposium held in Nashville, Tennessee.

Understanding the Importance & Power of Legal Surveys was the title of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ presentation at the September 2006 Benchmarking Symposium. While their presentation slides are not generally available, Laurie J. Lieb, PWC’s Director of Law Firm Surveys, indicated that she would make them available to attendees. I have noted below some of the key points made during their presentation. For more information about PWC’s benchmarking programs or to request a copy of their presentation, contact Ms. Lieb. You can reach her at 623.561.8481 or laurie.j.lieb@us.pwc.com.

Why are surveys important? PWC noted the following key reasons:

• It gives the law firm a sense of its place in the market compared to peers.
• It provides the firm with insights for making strategic decisions such as expanding into new areas or practice areas.
• It points to opportunities to improve performance by disclosing weaknesses compared to similar firms.

One of the helpful tips was the speaker's point that not everyone in your firm needs the same benchmarking information nor do you have to settle for a one-size-fits-all survey report. As I understood the speech, PWC can custom design survey reports to fit a law firm’s needs. With that in mind, the speaker suggested that you find out the needs of the functional and practice management members of your firm: 1. where you are currently blindsided; 2. what do you need to know? PWC also pointed out that you can control the focus of information needed:

• Firm-wide by geographic area
• Office level by location
• Practice group comparisons
• Your custom peer group

The point is benchmarking is detective work; it is market intelligence.

Participating in surveys can be costly because of the drain on law firm resources. With that in mind, the firm should determine carefully which surveys it will participate in. Certainly you should follow PWC’s advice and consider the reputation of the survey vendor—and today you have the option of going with a vendor that extracts survey information automatically, substantially eliminating the labor and billable hour drain of participation on the law firm. PWC will introduce its data extraction option in 2007.

PWC has two off-the-shelf flavors of survey offerings. Their Law Firm Statistical Survey (LFSS) is the more mature one. The LFSS program was started in 1957 and has a consistent base of participants. The total number of firms participating in 2006 was 180. PWC’s standard surveys are aimed at large firms, those generally characterized as BigLaw. The statistical survey is unique for its focus on expenses including staffing ratios and functional area cost.

Their Billing Rate & Associate Salary Survey program was initiated in 2000 and for 2006 had three hundred participating law firms. Three fourths of the participants are in the AmLaw 200. Its focus has traditionally been on billing rates and associate compensation but in 2005 PWC added other revenue drivers. They have the ability to provide office level and practice group benchmarks. The introduction in 2007 of a new data extraction tool will give firms the option of eliminating the labor intensive participation of the traditional survey format.

As noted by the PricewaterhouseCoopers representative, there is always a small group of firms (perhaps 5%) that are unusually concerned about confidentiality, security and antitrust considerations. The well established vendors have procedures in place for confidentiality and security that all but that small minority of firms consider adequate. As for antitrust, there are safe harbors. For example, the following safe harbors currently apply for shared fee-based information:

• Conducted by a third-party
• Data that is three months old
• Minimum of 5 firms in a peer group

PWC follows the safe harbor guide and adds others as well. It is worth noting that the safe harbors represent a conservative approach. One you would expect from PWC’s Big Four position among CPA firms. Technology lets us capture and return more current information. That does not automatically mean an antitrust problem exists. Likewise a group of three versus five may be perfectly okay with regard to some data.

There is significant value from benchmarking to participating law firms and in the end it is the law firm that has to sign off on the acceptability of the vendor’s confidentially and security measures. Likewise, the firm has to decide that it may participate in the benchmarking process without violating antitrust laws.
 

Other benchmarking providers speaking at the symposium included Juris, Inc., Redwood Analytics and CitiGroup Private Bank. Juris Insight service is targeted at midsized U.S. law firms. Redwood, PWC, and CitiGroup are primarily targeted at the largest, 250-attorney to 300-attorney law firms.

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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Attorney Harry Styron writes an instructive article in the August 2006 online publication from the ABA Practice Management Section, Law Practice Today, titled The Art of Time Entries.

While you may think it is a pain to record your time and write those entries, they are a running record of your work, including how well you listen and communicate with your client. Those entries can build the confidence and trust of your client or sow the seeds of distrust, bill disputes, or worse. There is one thing that you send to your client that is certain to be studied in detail—your bill. Use it to show professionalism and customer care. This will convey value and develop the kind of trust that earns you more business and referrals.

The article is worth reading. You will not only find instruction on best practices but the reasons that should motivate you to follow them. Here is how he concludes his message:

”Time entries are not just the cash register tape of our profession. The process of entering time, despised in some ways by all of us, can be more constructively viewed as the manner in which we show our respect for the client and ask the client to respect our profession.

The result of mutual respect is client loyalty and job satisfaction. Since time entries are read attentively by most clients, we are foolish not to use them to strengthen our practices. We are insane if we allow time entries to undermine our client relationships.

Associate attorneys rarely receive instruction in the preparation of time entries. Pressure on associates to bill many hours creates in them the pressure to pad. Reviewing, correcting and adjusting associates’ time entries is a tiresome task for the supervising attorney. The associate whose time entries show accomplishment, rather than churning, will please those who must review them.”

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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Howard Mudrick lists the following obstacles that can stop the planning process in its tracks.

Partners may be spending too much time and energy focusing on internal matters. This tends to happen when partners have not reached consensus on basic philosophic issues. If the partners can't get beyond this problem, the firm usually falls behind its competitors.

Some partners may not fully understand the economics of their practices. They may have a tendency to set economic goals without regard to whether the firm's client base/capacity for growth can support those goals. They may focus on cutting overhead rather than on increasing gross revenues.

They may not understand how their practice management habits impact the firm's financial success. Even if they do, they may not be willing to change those habits, including:

• Work selection.
• Pricing, billing and collections, including write-downs of time and write-offs of accounts receivable.
• Delegating to other partners and associates and properly supervising work that has been delegated.
• Specialization.
• Keeping time and turning it in.
• Using systems.
• Doing work on time.
• Communicating with clients regularly.

Some partners may not understand the necessity of having a strong, well-managed organization to implement strategic goals. They assume that, regardless of internal issues that are not resolved, there should be no reason that the firm would not be successful in implementing a plan.

Some partners may not understand the importance of decisions that must be made regarding the practice itself. Even if they do, they may be unwilling to make decisions that cut or curtail a given practice, especially if they are involved in it.

If any of the above situations are present in your law firm, the first step toward taking control away from fate as the future determinate for a law firm is to eliminate the obstacle.

The above insightful points were extracted from a paper by Howard L. Mudrick, president HM Solutions. Mudrick is president of HM Solutions, Inc., a Dallas based management consultancy to the legal profession. Howard Mudrick, a CPA and a former partner at Hildebrandt, has more than 20 years experience consulting with law firms plus on-ground experience in financial management positions with midsized law firms. For a copy of Howard Mudrick’s paper, Will Fate Plan Your Future or Will You?, email HLMudrick@aol.com.

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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Law firm partners need the right financial information at the right time to steer the financial performance of the law firm. Yet, in carrying out its annual survey for IOMA 2005-2006 Practice Management Reference Guide, IOMA found that partners were not happy with the financial information they were receiving.  Partners’ number one wish was to receive information “earlier”.

 

Today’s pace of business is too fast for yesterday’s news.  Most traditional law firm reporting can only help the managing partner determine what has happened after the fact. Partners also complained that information is too aggregated, too detailed or irrelevant to their everyday decision making.  They want actionable information—information structured around real performance issues and areas of vulnerability.  How do they get that? 

 

First, get rid of as many reports as you can:

 

·        Dashboards, like that available from Juris, Inc.track performance on a real time basis. They provide the attorney with situational awareness with information that, like the dashboard in your car, is instantly digestible. They include drill-down functionality for actionable information to enable the firm’s attorneys to make day-to-day adjustments in order to achieve targeted performance.

 

 

·        Systems like those available from Handshake Software or from Juris, Inc. provide law firms with the option of automatically monitoring conditions and events.  The systems then electronically notify the appropriate persons in the firm when events or activities require their attention. Monitored items might include, for example, low trust balances, missed payment promises, missing billable time, budget limits being approached, etc.

 

 

Second, the firm needs to decide on 10 to 15 Key Performance Indicators. “KPI’s”, that measure the health of the firm.  Those indicators need to be continually tracked on a macro level. 

 

 

When the KPI’s indicate that the firm is drifting off course, the administrative team needs to drill down, as needed,  to provide partners with the actionable information needed to pull things back on course.  For a more detailed discussion of KPI, see the post Key Performance Indicators—KPI.  What are some typical KPI that should be on the managing partner’s radar screen at all times?

·        Productivity or utilization: The sum of billable hours for fee earners.

·        Blended rate: The dollar value of worked billable hours divided by the total billable hours worked.

·        Realization: The percent of billable dollars worked that actually gets paid, i.e., what is left after write-downs, adjustments and bad debts.  It is collected fees divided by the original billed value of the hours worked related to those collections.

·        Margin: What is left of a firm's fees after all expenses other than partner compensation has been paid. It is the amount available for the partners. Margin is tracked as a percent of fees.  

·        Days of Work in Process: Worked fees not yet billed to clients divided by the average fees billed per calendar day (annualized fees divided by 365 days).

·       Days of Receivables: Billed but uncollected fees and expenses divided by the average fees and expenses billed per calendar day (annualized fees and billed expenses divided by 365 days).

 

Third, not all measures and reports deal with the immediate financial aspects. There are other softer targets and objectives that, while not financial in nature, will influence financial performance down the road.  These targets include such areas as professional development, rainmaking, client relations, etc. Goals can be as detailed as assigned individual goals for taking a certain number of prospects to lunch each month.  As in the case of financial information, partners need actionable information regarding these areas to adjust or correct firm and individual behavior to keep the firm on track with its goals and objectives.  Remember, goals will be taken seriously only if you measure them and hold people accountable.  You have deadlines and deliverables for your clients and they measure you every day.  Do the same internally.

 

Partners should not have to dig through reports for the information they need. They need situational awareness over their area of responsibility. They need actionable information that is instantly digestible and current as of the moment.  Today they can have it! Talk to your business system vendor about available solutions and services to solve the useless reporting problem. If you would like more information about the Juris products and services addressing this area contact the Juris national sales center at 877/377-3740 or e-mail sales@juris.com.

 

 

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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