7.

PRACTICE MANAGEMENT
Amidst rapidly changing legal landscape, effective law office
management is an evolving challenge.
Readings
1. “Best Practices for successful law firm management”
To manage a big or small law firm successfully, lawyers must
- link
cultivate a growth mindset (link) and be willing to break free
2. A complete guide to Law firm structure and effective
of tradition.
management - link
3. An Effective Guide to Productive Law Firm
Every law firm will have its management style, but one key to
Management - link
successful management is knowing what you’re doing.
4. Law firm management – Great practices to apply
today - link
Law firms must be strategic about how they create and
5. What stage of growth is your Law Firm in? - link
implement these systems.
6. Link

“Law is not a profession at all, but rather a business service

Methods
station and repair shop”
- Adlai E Stevenson
Five (5) pillars under Practice Management in Law
1. Case Management and Statistics
What is Practice Management?
2. Client Management
Law firm practice management encompasses everything
3. Document Management
needed to manage the business side of your law firm. This
4. Task Management
includes marketing, client relations, finances (including
5. Finance Management
partner compensation structures, payroll, budgeting,
collections, and trust accounts), hiring, staff management, and
Case Management (Source)
law firm management (including policies and procedures,
working with vendors, and more). Cases are the lifeblood of any law firm and managing them
right is paramount.
Source : A complete guide to Law firm structure and effective
management (link) Understandably, this is hard in the beginning because at that
stage, you’re probably willing to take on any case to get the
revenue flowing.
Importance of Law Practice Management?
It will be a waste of valuable time looking for misplaced files Over time, however, you start to have some retainers, so the
or documents, missing deadlines, or mishandling clients. process of assigning and managing cases tends to change.

You want to be able to maintain the quality of your legal

This can occur when a lawyer is multitasking by managing
services to regulars while also being able to attract new
back-end activities, dealing with clients, and performing legal clients.
tasks all at the same time.
It’s never an easy job. And that’s why many people struggle
As a result, regardless of how large or small the organisation to accomplish an optimal case management process.
is, having an effective law office management system is
Another challenge is finding ways to streamline filing and
essential to running a successful law firm. process management systems. The legal profession is the
leading user of the paper.
“Every industry of the world is being digitised and
transformed by technology, and the law industry isn’t an Fueled by the need to accommodate remote work as a norm, a
number of tools are springing up to replace manual filing and
exception”
document management. This even includes confidential
documents like contracts and non-disclosures.
Law Practice (firm?) Management link can pose a herculean
task. In one breath, you are dealing with the expectation of Switching to these legal technology tools can improve end-to-
demanding clients; in another, you are handling the financial, end efficiency of the whole case management process.
ethical, and administrative responsibility of keeping your law
office in tip-top shape.

1
Client Management (Source - same as above) There’s an art to staff management. Productivity, high morale,
motivation, smart work, and other recipes for success depend
Client service is one of the most important metrics that firm on how well you can manage your staff members.
leaders must track.
There’s always so much to do, especially at the startup stage.
Regardless of the practice area, a good law office manager
must always be on the lookout for ways to improve the One of the biggest challenges in this department is working
overall client experience. out how to assign the appropriate amount of work to
individual employees. Many law firm managers inevitably
In fact, many law firms were able to ride out the effects of the face the problem of — how much of my operations can be
pandemic on the legal industry thanks to the strength of their replaced by legal technology solutions and how much should
client relationships. be managed manually? In other words, is this something I can
automate, or do I need to hire a person to do it?
Today’s prospects have much higher expectations when
dealing with brands. Staff management is not just about hiring and firing.

As such, quality client service needs to be a priority in Managers must also be able to groom individuals to be fit for
business development. The best way to do this is to be aware business leadership.
of the user journey — their entire experience with your law
firm. When you understand this journey, you can better Investing in continuing legal education (CLE) is a great way
anticipate their needs and have a solution standing by and to do this.
ready to bring in more revenue for your law firm.
This way, there’s continuity, and you don’t have to hir
Avoid making assumptions. Your clients are humans too. externally to fill critical roles in the law firm.
Talk to them, ask lots of questions, be clear on their pain
points. Ideally, a law practice should have a systematised workday
schedule for all staff.

This includes the following roles:

Document Management (Source - same as above) ● Lawyers
● Legal Apprentice/Intern
With a manual, you can document and clearly communicate ● Paralegals
to staff members how things should be done at your law firm.
● Assistants / clerks
It helps to maintain consistency in approach while also ● Accountants
striving to achieve set goals. ● Office managers

It also means a more predictable workday for everyone in the Process manuals should be created and made available to
firm — managing partners, associates, paralegals, legal simplify the onboarding process for new staff. Having this as
assistants, and even office administrators. For example, there a goal will, to a large extent, help your firm grow more
should be a manual for the client intake process and time quickly.
tracking, workflows, and billing.
For superior law firm management, you need to pool the right
Two things to keep in mind at this point. First, it’s always a experts into your team to help lay the right foundation of
good idea to get these processes mapped out and documented work processes that will be involved. By doing this, wasted
by those with relevant experience. For instance, let your time is cut off and attention can be channelled into more
accounting team build out the collections processes while productive things that will bring about huge success.
your sales team creates the manual for lead generation.

Second, remember to review these procedures manuals from

time to time.

You may want to adopt a new and improved process, and it Finance Management (Source - same as above)
will need to be documented. Perhaps your staff may come up
with a better way to get things done, or maybe the legal Usually involves an income and expenditure sheet.
industry is experiencing sweeping changes, and you need to
revise your management approach. The only data being tracked is how much is coming in VS
how much is going out.
Task Management Service (Source - same as above and
Link) Other important financial records, revenue projections, cash
flow statements, and other relevant documents are hardly ever
existent.
2
Some businesses don’t even have a budgeting system.

It’s not that these Attorneys at Law don’t understand the

importance of proper financial management.

Most of the time, it’s because the intricacies of setting one up

are beyond their expertise.

So, they need to either outsource the task to an expert or use

law practice management systems to automate various aspects
of the process and generate relevant reports. Whichever
option you choose, the primary goal should be to have
actionable data about your finances that can aid decision-
making.

One important area to focus on is optimising the firm’s

accounts receivables. Invoicing and payment processing
should be operating like clockwork. The faster you are
bringing in revenue, the better equipped your law firm will be
in tackling current and potential issues.

Invoicing
● Work in Progress – one of the easiest ways to ensure
that you are paid regularly is to record the work you
undertake, as a work in progress (“WIP”)
immediately as and when the work is completed
● Interim billing

Automated billing software

Unpaid invoices

Other best practices for successfully managing legal

practice
● Create a law firm business
● plan/system
● Outsource your law firm marketing
● and branding
● Utilise legal technology tools
● Conduct regular reviews