Improving Law Firm Performance

Anytime is a good time to evaluate the condition of your law firm and determine goals you want to achieve, but early in a new year usually makes the most sense. One way to achieve your goals is to establish good processes for your law firm. Here are a few ways to improve your law firm’s performance.

Organization

Getting organized and staying organized provides a good starting point for everything else. Schedule time to go through things that have been on your desk or to-do list for a while.

• Do you have any open matters that can be closed?
• Do any of your clients have outstanding balances?

Tie up these loose ends so you will have fewer things hanging over your head that could cause you stress.

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Processes

Creating and implementing processes can help you and your staff members move through your firm’s workload more efficiently. Consider establishing procedures for repetitive tasks such as:

• Client intake
• Scheduling
• Billing
• Client follow-ups

Having clear processes will help your team make better use of their time and make training new staff members easier. Talking with your staff members as a group, as well as one-on-one, should give you a good picture of how things are working.

Financial Performance

Set aside some time to evaluate the areas in which your firm is making or losing money. You can ask yourself finance-related questions such as these:

• Have the costs of doing business increased? (e.g., court filing fees, subscriptions to services, contractor fees, insurance premiums, taxes, rent or mortgage payments, and postage and shipping rates)
• Are we paying for anything we don’t need?
• Are we charging our clients enough for our services?
• Can we offer additional services that will generate more income?
• Are we offering our attorneys and staff members competitive compensation packages?

Figure out how you can save money and how you can bring in some extra funds.

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Talent Management

Having the right people in the right roles is crucial to having a well-functioning law firm. Figure out your staff members’ strengths and weaknesses as well as their likes and dislikes. Structure your firm to leverage your staff members’ skills to achieve the best results. Knowing the areas your team excels in and which areas need bolstering will help you hire new talent to fill the gaps.

Client-Centered Approach

Take some time to mentally walk through the path your clients take when working with your firm. Look for bottlenecks for opportunities for improvement. Areas to examine include:

• Client in-take process
• Scheduling process
• Client interactions with attorneys and staff members
• Cybersecurity measures
• Billing and payment process
• Client follow-ups

Consider asking clients to take a survey about their experience with your firm. Use the results from the survey to improve their experience.

Online Presence

The biggest part of your firm’s online presence is its website. Your firm’s website should be welcoming and informative. It should inform potential clients about the services you provide and how you help your clients with their legal needs. Your website can also be the place where clients and potential clients schedule meetings, communicate with you and your staff, upload and download documents, and pay their invoices.

Your firm’s online presence goes beyond its website. Being consistently active on social media and having high ratings and positive reviews will help boost your firm’s presence and reputation.

Many attorneys either try to handle their online marketing themselves or ask a staff member to do it. This usually results in the marketing tasks getting put to the side and neglected. It’s better to hire a law firm-focused marketing agency, such as Law As a Business (LAB), to help your firm with marketing initiatives.

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