Law Practice Management Asked and Answered Blog

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Oct 04, 2017

Personal Injury Law Firm Strategy & Strategic Planning

Question:

I am a partner in a four attorney personal injury plaintiff in downstate Illinois. Three of us are partners and we have one associate attorney. We handle run of the mill slip and fall, vehicle and premises accidents, and products liability cases as well as workers’ compensation cases. We have a very aggressive advertising and marketing program. We are having issues with reduced case flow and dwindling and diminishing profits and earnings. For the past year the partners have been living off our credit line. We believe that we need to be thinking about doing something different and are not sure as to what that should be. However, we have agreed to start doing some long term planning. We would appreciate your thoughts.

Response:

I believe that the very process of developing a strategic plan would be very helpful, beneficial, and enlightening. Strategic planning does not need to be the involved and complicated process that sometimes it becomes. It a nutshell it is nothing more than a series of logical steps. The process is often more important than the written plan. Most workable strategic plans are put in writing at the end of the process, and then often in summary or outline form. Generally, the steps include:

Develop the mission statement
Develop the vision statement
Develop the long range goals statement
Develop specific objectives
Gather information – internal and external – identify the firm’s strengths and weaknesses
Identify key issues
Formulate strategies
Develop detailed action plans
Write-up the plan
Implement the plan and monitor

Your first step will be the mission statement – you should take a hard look at who are you as a firm and who are you serving as clients? Many of our personal injury law firm clients across the country are facing similar problems that you are and they have been forced to take a hard look at their their practice and geographic area segments. Some firm’s have tried to balance the cash flow ups and downs of contingency fee work by adding time billing practice areas that provide consistent cash flow such as employment, family law, criminal, and bankruptcy. Other firms are extending their geographical reach through additional offices and some are getting involved in mass-tort cases.

I think this is the most important step if you don’t do anything else. You may have to consider expanding and diversifying your practice.

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

Feb 24, 2015

Law Firm Succession Planning & Mid-Career Partner Roles

Question:

I am a partner and a member of the Executive Committee of a 250 attorney firm in the mid-west. We have had a succession plan in place for several years for our senior partners. Several have completed their phasedowns successfully and others are struggling. One of our challenges is many of our mid-career partners are simply not ready. I would appreciate your thoughts.

Response:

This is a common problem that many larger firms face as their senior partners phasedown to retirement and try to transition client relationships and firm managerial and leadership roles to the next generation. Often the focus of non-founders is on billable hours and working attorney fee collections as opposed to non-billable longer-term investment activities such as client development, firm leadership, and management.

Unlike smaller law firms most large law firms do invest time and effort in developing mid-career partners in these areas. However, often more can be done. Here are a few thoughts:

Profile and Personal Brand Building. While developing new clients and new sources of business is always a goal – another questions is – is the mid-level partner, who is planned as the future responsible partner, bio/brand strong enough to entice the client to stay with the firm after the senior partner retires? Often it is not. All mid-level partners should have active personal development plans that requires profile enhancement and personal brand development. These plans should include steps to be taken and tasks to be completed as well as a timeline including milestones and deadlines.
Go Deep with Client Relationship Development. Clients hire lawyers – not just law firms. In fact, the law firm brand is what gets the firm on the client's short list – the lawyer and his or her personal brand is what lands the client – the lawyer's relationship with the client is what keeps the client. Clients work with lawyers they like and trust – transitioning this to another lawyer in the firm will take time and nurturing – more than one or two meetings.
Encourage Mid-Level Partners to Invest the Time to Understand Their Client Business as Well as Their Industries. Clients of law firms are always telling us that their law firms do not understand their business.
Encourage Mid-Level Partners to Raise Their Hands, Volunteer, and Take Baby Steps Toward Leadership and Management Roles in the Firm. Such steps will cause senior partners in the firm to take notice and eventually lead to appointments to various committees and possibly eventually to an appointment on the Executive Committee.
Work at Producing Excellent Work Product. In addition to the above excellent work product and hard legal skills, client service, and personality are all critical as well.

I would encourage mid-level partners to try to budget 70% of their worked time for billable client production and 30% for non-billable investment activities.

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