« | Main

Nov 11, 2026

Law Firm Back Office Operations Improvement with AI – How and Where to Begin

Question: 

I am the managing partner in a twelve-lawyer estate litigation law firm in Chicago. I believe that our firm needs to be doing much more with AI implementation in our firm. We are using AI for legal research, litigation support, and general case related support activities. However, we have not implemented AI at all in general administrative and accounting operations which are areas where we have five staff employees handling a variety of tasks. I believe that we are inefficient and over staffed. I am having a tough time finding where to start so we can get a handle on this issue. Please provide any information that you are willing to share.

Response: 

Before you can successfully implement AI and related tools to improve administrative and accounting operations and related processes you need to review and understand existing work distribution and workflow and identify and fix any work distribution and workflow issues. I would start with a work distribution analysis and workflow study.

There are questions that you must ask yourself in order to analyze the work distribution of your intake and accounting operations. Such questions as the following will help you in knowing what to look for:

  1. What activities (operations and tasks) are being performed?
  2. What activities take the most time?
  3. Is there any misdirected effort?
  4. Are skills being used properly?
  5. Are you staff doing too many unrelated tasks?
  6. Are tasks spread too thinly?
  7. Is work distributed evenly?
  8. Are the right people performing the tasks? (Right people of the bus and in the right seats)

Before you can analyze your client intake and accounting operations you must be able to see clearly, in one place, all the activities of your client intake and accounting operations and the contribution of each employee on each activity. A work distribution chart is the easiest and best way to arrange these facts in simple form. A properly made work distribution chart will help you determine if the largest time of your staff is devoted to the major function of each operation. Setup a work distribution chart (spreadsheet) with operations and tasks listed down the left rows and staff names listed across the columns with time listed for each operation and task. It may indicate that more time is being devoted to other functions than is necessary. An operation or task may require a more detailed study, as might be indicated where total hours seem unreasonable. You may discover that your client intake and accounting operations staff are spending too much time on relatively unimportant or unnecessary work. Misdirected effort appears on the work distribution chart when staff are involved in tasks not contribution directly to the mission of the client intake or accounting operations.

Here is an overview of the work distribution analysis process:

  1. Have each staff member prepare a task list.
    1. List specific and clear activities for a specific time period with time listed for each activity.
    2. Task lists should cover a complete cycle of work. (Weekly, Monthly, etc.)
  2. Determine operations performed.
    1. Prepare an operations list grouping related or same kind of tasks (operations).
    2. Check operations list against breakdown of client intake and accounting operation mission.
  3. Complete the work distribution chart.
    1. Complete heading.
    2. List operations.
    3. Enter staff names in a column of the chart.
    4. Enter tasks, time, and work count for each operation.
    5. Total the columns and rows.
  4. Examine the present work distribution.
    1. What operations take the most time?
    2. Are they essential?
    3. Is there misdirected effort?
    4. Are skills used properly?
    5. Are you staff doing too many unrelated tasks?
    6. Are tasks spread too thinly?
    7. Is work distributed equitably?
    8. Is the department overstaffed?
    9. Are the right people on the bus?
  5. Improve work distribution.
    1. Consider eliminations, additions, and rearrangement of tasks and operations.
    2. Prepare a proposed work distribution chart.
    3. Discuss proposed changes with your partners.
    4. Put proposed changes into effect.

One you have completed the work distribution analysis, prepare a work flow analysis using a drawing tool such as Microsoft Visio or other suitable drawing tool.

Once you have fixed any issues that become evident from your study they you can identify candidate areas for workflow automation and possible AI adoption. Start with reviewing work flow capabilities in your existing practice management software and any recent AI capabilities that have been implemented in your software or are planned for the future.

Click here for our blog on AI

Click here for our blog on human resources

Click here for our blog on profit improvement

Click here for articles on other topics

John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D., CMC

Posted at 07:03 AM in AI, Management, Profit Improvement

Archives

Categories

    Subscribe to our Blog