The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

As the coronavirus pande mic continues to force business shutdowns and social distancing , some law firms will be forced to make hard choices about staffing and continued business operations.   But,  all law firms should now start looking at expenses, to see whether they can reduce their overhead – at least over the next quarter.   An easy place to start is with subscription services.  Lots of law firms maintain subscription services they don’t use, especially with respect to technology.  And, many law firms only use a small part of the  softwares  they have access to.    With law firms  now feeling the pressure to build   more virtual business  model s , there’s no time like the present to get  mor e lean .   And, that starts with streamlining your technology.  Determine, then, which software tools you’re  actually using , and to what extent  you’re using them .  Then, begin ...

Most lawyers view document automation as a time-saving device.  And, that's true: the efficiency wrought by document automation allows law firms to take on more work, and to make more money.  But, in the modern context, it may be that law firms are still underutilizing document automation.   As law firms seek to revise their payment structures in order to appeal to modern clients, some are opting to sell products, rather than (or more likely, in addition to), services.  Law firms have always sold personal services, which are high-touch, and costly.  But, modern consumers want cost certainty, in terms of total cost of representation -- and, some folks who want to access legal services want to manage that process themselves.  Traditionally, law firms had no way to reach, or capture revenue, from DIY clients.  With legal products, however, law firms can appeal to both DIY-focused and cost-sensitive legal consumers.  One obvious product law firms can sell are legal docume...

Efficient law firms return the most revenue, by a wide margin.  Yet, much of what law firms do cuts against efficiency: Attorneys tend to avoid modern technology.  Attorney like to do things themselves, and so they avoid effective delegation.  Attorneys want manual processes, which they feel they have more control over.   Of course, this is not the way to practice at the top of your law license: billing at your highest rates, or acquiring more work that you can  bill  at your highest rates.   Too often, lawyers are trying to pilot the plane, and hand out the pretzels.   While it’s true that delegation is a proven method for driving efficiency, law firms need not always delegate from managing attorneys to associate attorneys or staff.  Automation of rote tasks and processes is often more effective.  Consider the chain of events reflecting on law firm lead intake: scheduling, emails, contact forms, chat or text com...

The 2019 Clio Legal Trends Report (download link  here ) , which is a longitudinal study of law firm data across a variety of categories, including internal efficiencies and external relationships with clients.  It’s a fascinating read every year; and, that includes 2019.   The 2019 study focused on  what the functional difference between growing firms (law firms that grew revenue by over 100% across a 5-year period) and shrinking firms (law firms that lost over 50% of their revenue over a 5-year period)  was.  Perhaps surprisingly, the driver for revenue growth was not what you might expect.  It wasn’t pricing.  And, it wasn’t marketing spend.  It wasn’t attorney experience.  And, it wasn’t total case intake.  It was utilization rate.   If you’re not familiar with utilization rate, it  represents  amount of total hours you could bill in a day  versus what you actually bill .  For example...

You’ve heard the phrase often from busy lawyers, law firm owners particularly: ‘If only I could clone myself’.  It’s wishful thinking; but, it gets to the heart of the one barrier to law firm expansion that you can’t fake: In order to grow your business, to scale it . . . you  have to  hire.   Of course, that’s a hard thing to do, especially for solos, who’ve never had an employee before, or who have only used contractors previously.   Lawyers, even lawyers who have started their own businesses, tend to be highly risk-averse.  They crave safety, surety, over all else.  But, there’s not a whole lot of surety in expanding a business.  And, that’s mainly why it’s so difficult for attorneys to move forward on this score.   Since most law firms bill on an hourly basis, the only way to increase your revenue beyond a certain point is to increase the numbers of hours you can bill, and there are only two ways to do that: become more effi...

If you’re a lawyer, law firm software is everywhere.  Make one online search for the term, and  you’re  caught up in the vortex of SEO  -- you’ll be served law firm software advertisements wherever you go online, from now until the end of time .   I get how that can be annoying -- but, the point remains that law firms using the right software are more efficient, and make more money.  So, it’s all kind of like that little voice in your head that tells you not to have the cheesecake -- obnoxious, yet bitingly correct.   So, even as you know you should probably be upgrading your software stack, it’s tough to swim through all of the sales pitches, and to wade through the multitudes of options available to you.   Fortunately, I’m here, to deliver you the answer you crave, to the question that keeps coming  up : What software do I need to run my law firm?   A modern law firm should base its software  pr ogram o...