The Trap Most Managing Partners Fall Into
For many lawyers, running their own law firm is more challenging than they expected. Part of the problem is that you went to law school to learn how to win cases for your clients, not how to run a business. As a result, managing partners often find themselves buried in casework, struggling to keep up with administrative tasks to keep their private practice afloat.
Working in your law firm means you’re handling all of the day-to-day operations. Working on your law firm means building systems that generate revenue without your constant involvement. So, let’s break down how to work on your law firm instead of in it.
Step 1: Audit Your Time
See where you’re spending most of your time by following these steps:
- First, track all of your hours for a single week, including billable time and administrative time. Be as precise as possible.
- Next, highlight all non-billable tasks and the time they required.
- Finally, pinpoint the bottlenecks you encountered most frequently that can often increase administrative time.
In the legal profession, if you don’t know where your time is going, it’s impossible to fix the problem. You’ll always struggle to keep up, rather than plan your tasks efficiently.
Step 2: Shift From Lawyer to Owner
Being a lawyer means you’re producing value for the law firm by working on cases and delivering results. Being an owner, on the other hand, means being an architect of your business, building better systems to boost productivity.
To put it another way, as a lawyer, your time is billable, but as an owner, it isn’t. One way to ensure you always get back into the owner mentality is to schedule a protected two-hour strategy session every week. During this session, you can see what’s working and where you need to improve.
Step 3: Build One Scalable System
If you’re struggling to keep up with your clients, you won’t be able to revitalize your law practice all at once. Instead, it’s better to focus on streamlining a single workflow, master it, and then tackle another.
For this example, let’s break down client intake. Broadly speaking, this process involves:
- Establishing contact with a client
- Qualifying the client by checking potential conflicts of interest and matter alignment with the firm
- Scheduling an initial consultation
- Adding the client to your project management system
Although this process is relatively straightforward, it can often get bogged down with bottlenecks, such as processing client checks. To improve productivity and efficiency, follow these steps:
- Define the Workflow – Outline every step of client intake, from lead generation to a signed agreement.
- Identify Hand-Off Points – Client intake may involve different in-house legal departments, as well as other lawyers. Make sure you know who is in charge of each task.
- Automate When Possible – In a law firm environment, AI can’t replace partners or paralegals. Instead, automation speeds up individual tasks and ensures nothing gets overlooked or forgotten.
- Measure the Time Saved – Track the average time it took for client intake before and compare it to the results of streamlining the process.
Stop Buying Tools. Start Designing Systems
Most law firms tend to buy software and automation tools without understanding what they do or how they will fit into the operations.
Working on your law firm means developing systems first, then identifying where specific tools can alleviate bottlenecks or friction points.
Simply put, a tool can’t fix a broken system, especially if no one really knows how it works. Instead, focus on a defining strategy and let technology help you achieve your goals.
A Simple 90-Day Shift
Upgrading your law firm doesn’t require a fundamental shift in your operations, nor do you have to spend months building new solutions. Here’s a quick 90-day roadmap to help you stay on track without disrupting your team:
- Day 1-30 – Identify three core workflows that often take the longest or eat into your billable hours. Document them with as many details as possible, including specific steps and team members.
- Day 31-60 – Pick one of these three workflows (ideally, the one that can impact your billable hours the most) and optimize it. Isolate friction points and determine what automation tools can speed up specific tasks. Make sure to train everyone until they start using new tools or methods by default.
- Day 61-90 – As your law firm starts saving time, reinvest those savings into more revenue-focused tasks, such as increasing billable hours, taking on more clients, or increasing your realization rate.
What Working “On” Your Firm Buys You
Taking a step back and working on your law firm as an owner yields some incredible benefits. First, you can save time on redundant or time-consuming tasks, allowing you to focus more on high-level strategy for your clients.
Second, you can improve your margins to ensure profitability and positive cash flow, so your firm isn’t always one missed invoice away from insolvency. Finally, you can exert more control over your law firm, enabling strategic growth and long-term success.
Working harder or for longer hours won’t help you scale your firm. Building optimized systems will.
