Systems for Law Firm Growth: Even When You’re Busy, Ready, Set, Scale

In “Ready, Set, Scale,” Karen and David Skinner help you prepare for the law firm growth you want. Download the complete guide.

When your firm experiences a burst of growth, you probably think to yourself, “Finally! This is the moment I’ve been waiting for.” But that excitement quickly turns to frustration when you discover that your current systems can’t handle any more work.

Instead of enjoying new opportunities and greater success, here’s what actually happens:

• You work long hours to get all that new work done.
• But because you’re tired, your efficiency drops.
• Which means you can’t deliver on time, despite your best efforts.
• Then your clients get frustrated by slow responses and unexpected delays.
• So you just put your head down and work harder. (It’s a vicious cycle, right?)
• And on top of it all, you’re too busy to develop new business. When the work is done and you finally look up, you have no new files coming in.

Sound familiar? We call this the feast or famine cycle.

To end the cycle, balance your workload and ensure you don’t burn out, you need systems designed to support growth and help you grow a law firm effectively.

1. Setting the Foundation for Success

Defining Your Unique Value Proposition

A Unique Value Proposition (UVP) sets your law firm apart in the crowded legal industry. It’s a clear statement that highlights the unique benefits and features of your services, making it easier to attract potential clients and establish a strong brand identity.

To define your UVP, start by identifying your target market and ideal client demographics. Understand who your potential clients are and what they need. Next, research your competitors to pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses. This will help you determine what makes your law firm unique. Is it your expertise, your approach to practicing law, or perhaps your exceptional client satisfaction rates?

Once you have this information, craft a clear and concise statement that summarizes your UVP. For example: “Our law firm provides personalized and compassionate legal services to individuals and families in need. Our team of experienced attorneys is dedicated to delivering exceptional results and building long-term relationships with our clients.”

By clearly defining your UVP, you can effectively communicate what makes your law firm special, helping you attract and retain clients in a competitive market.

Establishing Clear Goals

Setting clear, strategic goals is important for driving your law firm’s growth and ensuring long-term success. Goals provide direction and a roadmap for your team, aligning everyone’s efforts towards common objectives.

Start by conducting a SWOT analysis to identify your law firm’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This analysis will give you a comprehensive understanding of where your firm stands and what areas need improvement. Next, define your law firm’s mission and vision statements. These statements should reflect your firm’s core values and long-term aspirations.

With this foundation, set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals. For instance, a SMART goal could be: “Increase the number of new clients by 20% within the next 6 months by implementing a targeted marketing campaign and improving our law firm’s online presence.”

Communicate these goals to all team members to so everyone is on the same page and working towards the same objectives. Regularly review and adjust your goals as needed to stay on track and adapt to any changes in the legal industry.

2. Ready, Set, Scale: How to Set Up the Systems You Need for Law Firm Growth

Welcome to the first in our series on how to set up systems for growth.

Establishing Clear Goals

Setting clear and achievable goals is important for any business, including law firms. By defining a unique value proposition and establishing clear objectives, you can create a roadmap for success. This involves understanding your market, identifying your target audience, and setting measurable milestones. Strategic planning and market analysis are essential components that can significantly influence a law firm’s growth.

What do we mean by systems?

You may be thinking legal tech, but systems are so much more than technology. For our purposes, systems are optimized combinations of people, process and technology that allow you to accomplish tasks in your practice efficiently and effectively.

In this series, we’ll cover what you need to prepare your practice for the growth you want, starting with this article on how systems fuel growth and why you need to invest time creating them — even when you’re busy. Effective systems also enable you to delegate tasks, ensuring that senior employees can manage responsibilities and focus on more complex legal work.

Creating an Organizational Chart

An organizational chart is a vital tool for any growing law firm. It visually represents your firm’s structure and hierarchy, clarifying roles and responsibilities and ensuring everyone knows who to report to and who is responsible for specific tasks.

To create an organizational chart, start by identifying the different departments and teams within your law firm. Determine the roles and responsibilities of each team member, from senior attorneys to legal assistants. Create a visual representation of this structure, showing the relationships and reporting lines between different roles.

For example, your organizational chart might look like this:

• Managing Partner- Senior Attorneys
• Junior Attorneys
• Legal Assistants
• Administrative Assistants
• Marketing Department- Social Media Manager
• Content Writer

Regularly review and update your organizational chart to ensure it remains accurate and effective as your law firm grows. This clarity will help streamline communication and improve efficiency within your team.

Hiring for Growth

Hiring the right people is important for a law firm’s growth and success. As your firm expands, you need to ensure you have the right talent to support your growth strategy.

Start by identifying the skills and qualifications required for the role you need to fill. Determine the type of candidate you are looking for, whether it’s an experienced attorney, a junior attorney, or a legal assistant. Develop a detailed job description and job posting that accurately reflects the role and your law firm’s culture.

Utilize a variety of recruitment strategies to attract potential candidates. This could include posting on job boards, leveraging social media, and seeking referrals from your network. Ensure that your hiring process is fair, efficient, and effective, allowing you to identify and onboard the best talent for your growing law firm.

For example, a job posting might read: “Experienced Attorney Wanted for Growing Law Firm. Our law firm is seeking an experienced attorney to join our team. The ideal candidate will have a strong track record of success, excellent communication skills, and a passion for delivering exceptional client service. If you are a motivated and dedicated attorney looking for a new challenge, please submit your application today.”

By hiring strategically, you can build a team that supports your law firm’s growth and helps you achieve your business development goals.

Systems for Law Firm Growth … Even When You’re Busy

You can’t scale your law firm business without systems, but when you’re working all hours, you may feel like it’s not worth investing time to create those systems. But it is, and here’s why.

A well-defined business development strategy is crucial for forming a comprehensive marketing plan and client acquisition approach.

Systems Save Time: Delegate Tasks Effectively

If you don’t have a system or process for something you do more than once, you’re wasting time and leaving money on the table.

Without a system, tasks take longer than they should. You may not remember exactly how you did it last time, so you waste time trying to remember or you make a mistake and have to start over. You may try to delegate it to others, but without a process to follow, it takes too long to explain what to do. People interrupt you with questions or return low-quality work, so you spend time correcting it. All of that is time, energy and effort you could put to better use (like business development, higher-value work or just going home earlier).

Systems Increase Efficiency

Efficiency is having the right people doing the right work the right way with the right tools.

Systems empower you and your team to complete work faster and make fewer mistakes because work is standardized and everyone knows exactly what to do next. Systems also make delegation possible. How? Because a good system includes clear standard operating procedures, or SOPs, that provide people with everything they need to complete a task correctly on their own, without interrupting you with questions or returning low-quality work. Additionally, a comprehensive law firm’s marketing strategy can drive growth and attract potential clients.

Systems Allow You to Grow and Scale: A Business Development Strategy

Systems make growth possible.

Many lawyers spend less than half of each day on billable work. The rest is spent mired in unbillable administrative work. When you experience that growth spurt you’ve been working toward, having systems in place that streamline the administrative tasks will ensure you’ve got more time for the new billable work coming in. In a growing law practice, structured management systems are important to adapt to the and stay competitive. And when you’re ready to expand your team, having clear processes and SOPs for your business tasks and your legal work will ensure you can quickly onboard and train new team members, so you’ll be able to effectively delegate legal and business tasks.

All of this will free you up to do more of the high-value work and still have time to develop new business. You’ll finally be able to break free of the feast or famine cycle.

But back to the elephant in the room: You’re already overworked, and creating systems takes time. Is the investment going to be worth it?

The short answer is yes.

Here’s a great table that comes from XKCD.com that sets out how much time you can invest, across five years, on improving your process:

When you’re busy, the key is to start small. As James Clear says in “Atomic Habits,” aim to make your practice just 1% better every day. A successful law firm employs a comprehensive approach to business development, which includes proactive client acquisition and marketing strategies.

Image © iStockPhoto.co

Karen Dunn Skinner and David Skinner* help lawyers and legal professionals build more efficient, productive and profitable practices. They’re the co-founders of Gimbal Lean Practice Management Advisors and lawyers with over 20 years’ experience each in Canada and Europe. Together, they’re the exclusive Global Advisors on Legal Process Improvement to the International Institute of Legal Project Management. They write and speak regularly, facilitate legal process improvement projects across North America, and have taught Gimbal’s LeanLegal® approach to thousands of legal professionals.*