Law Practice Management Asked and Answered Blog

Category: Expectations

Jul 04, 2018


Lawyer Performance and Setting Expectations

Question:

I am the owner of a real estate practice in Rockford, Illinois. I have two offices – one in Rockford and the other in Chicago. I started my practice twenty years ago and have had my associate for the past five years. He works in the Chicago office and I work in the Rockford office. Prior to this associate I had two other associates that did not work out. My present associate has fourteen years’ experience and worked in three other law firms prior to joining my firm.  While he has been with me for five years I am not happy with his performance. The legal assistant that works with him has advised me that he often does not come in the office until ten and often leaves in the middle of the day. Clients have complained that he does not return phone calls or emails. His production is low – his annual billable hours have never been above 1200 hours. I am paying him a salary of $98,000. I have had numerous conversations with him about these issues to no avail. Frankly, I am sick of it – I don’t trust him and things need to change. What should be my next step?

Response: 

I find that often owners of law firms and partners in multi-partner firms when dealing with associates often fail to really lay their cards on the table when counselling associates. They beat around the bush and fail to lay out expectations and consequences for non-compliance.

As owner of your firm you can’t beat around the bush and be sheepish concerning your expectations concerning desired performance and behavior in the office. Confront the performance or behavioral problem immediately. Manage such problems in real time. Don’t wait for the annual performance review and don’t treat serious problem as a “self-improvement” effort. Tell him how you feel about the performance or behavioral issue, the consequences for failure to resolve the issue, your timeline for resolving the issue, and the follow-up schedule that you will be using to follow-up and monitor the issue. If he must resolve the performance or behavioral issue in order to keep his job tell him so. He may need this level of confrontation in order to give him the strength to be able to deal with his issues.

Being a wimp does not help you or him. Tell him like it is and conduct a heart-to-heart discussion. You will be glad you did.

I would set a timeline for his performance improvement – say 60 or 90 days with weekly coaching follow-up meetings. Document these meetings. If he does not meet your expectations by the timeline you should terminate his employment and look for a replacement.

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

Nov 22, 2016


Law Firm Billable Hours – Attorneys Not Meeting Expectations

Question:

I am a partner with a fourteen attorney business litigation defense firm in Los Angeles. I am the member on our three member executive committee that is responsible for financial oversight. This year we put in place an 1800 annual (150 hours per month) billable hour expectation for associate attorneys. No one has ever reached 150 hours. Are our expectations unrealistic? What is our problem? I would appreciate your thoughts.

Response:

I do not think that a 1800 annual billable hour expectation is unrealistic. Litigation defense firms typically have an expectation of 1800 to 2000 annual billable hours. Many litigation defense firms that I am currently working with have a 2000 billable hour expectation with many attorneys working 2200 billable hours.

Typical causes for an attorney not meeting expectations are:

  1. Not working or putting in enough hours.
  2. Not enough work.
  3. Poor time management habits.
  4. Poor timekeeping habits.

I suggest that you meet with each associate and discuss each of these possible causes.

Since this seems to be an across the board problem I suspect that the firm may not have enough work to support these billable hour expectations. Many of our clients are having this problem. They are hiring more attorneys that they actually need, have overcapacity, and simply don’t have the work to support billable hour expectations.

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

 

Apr 12, 2016


Law Firm Client Satisfaction – Exceeding Client Expectations

Question:

I am owner of a four attorney firm in Amarillo, Texas. We represent both individual and institutional clients. Recently, we have had numerous complaints from clients advising us that our services took longer than expected and fees were also higher than expected. I would appreciate your thoughts?

Response:

Based upon client satisfaction surveys (telephone interviews) that we do for law firms we find that one of the biggest problems is that the attorneys are doing a poor job of managing client expectations. Your clients get frustrated when you promise one thing (timeline or fees) and the result is very different – especially when the work takes longer than promised or the fees are higher. Even though you don't structure it as a promise your clients take it that way. The key is to under promise and over deliver. I suspect that upon the initial client meeting you are under estimating the timeline and low balling the fee range. Reduce the promise – increase the - timeline and fee range and then shoot to deliver under that range. This will do wonders for improving the client relationship.

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Aug 11, 2015


Law Firm Administrator – Performance and Expectations

Question:

I am the managing partner in an 8 attorney general practice firm in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A year and a half ago we hired our first legal administrator to run all business aspects of our practice. We decided that we wanted more than an office manager – we wanted an administrator to serve in the capacity of a COO. We hired an experienced administrator at a good salary, developed a well-conceived job description, and the work began. My partners and I are frustrated. We have to follow-up on projects and task assignments, do not see the leadership that we had hoped for, and have concerns that our administrator may not be up to the tasks. We just realized that we have not have a performance review since he started. I would appreciate your suggestions.

Response:

Sounds like you did a good job clarifying the role and initially laying out your expectations. However, you cannot stop there. You have not conducted a performance review and I suspect that he has received little feedback regarding his performance. During the first year feedback needs to be ongoing with a mini review every ninety days and ongoing coaching and follow-up. You need to conduct a review with him ASAP, layout expectations and compare to actual performance, discuss gaps, and reach an agreement as to a plan with milestones and dates to resolve performance gaps. They you will have a better picture as to whether your administrator was the right hire or not.

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

 

Jul 08, 2014


Law Firm Partnership – Client Origination Expectations for New Associate Attorney

Question:

I am the sole owner of a four attorney general practice firm in Rockford, Illinois. I am 58 and realize that in the next few years I will need to begin implementing a succession and exit strategy by probably bringing in a partner. Two of the associates have no interest in partnership. However, the newest associate hired, who had his own practice for several years, does have such an interest even though he was recently hired. He is off to a good start as far as his production. However, I believe that he must be able to originate and bring in client business as well. So far his energy and focus has been totally on performing legal work. I want to get him started on the right track in order that I can make him a partner in a few years. Please provide any thoughts that you may have.

Response:

I agree that in a practice such as yours that client origination is important. I suggest that you start by laying out and discussing with him your expectations. In other words what will it take for him to become a partner – production, quality of legal work, billings, client satisfaction, and origination of new client business? Be specific and set specific goals for him and your expectations for him but also your timeline for partnership consideration. I would suggest five years. Personally, I believe his client origination goal at the five year point should be between $300,000 and $500,000 or higher. Establish baby step goals for origination – say $50,000 after year one, $100,000 after year two, $200,000 after year three, $300,000 after year four, $400,000 after year five. This will require that you track origination fee dollars in your billing/accounting system. Specific guidelines and rules regarding the attribution of origination credit should be developed. In other words an attorney should not receive origination because a client calls as a result of the firm's brand, advertising, etc. and he is passed the call because he is the only attorney in the office to take the call.

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

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