At a time when the need to differentiate is more critical than ever, law firms by and large communicate the same anodyne messages and interchangeable attributes. New clients are likely to be from small technology firms or start-up companies. Teresa Matich is an experienced legal tech writer and editor. Start by deciding what type of information provides valuable insight into your business’s performance and what data is needed in order to give you that information. But those goals shouldnât be so ambitious that they canât be achieved. FindLaw, part of Thomson Reuters, is a leading provider of business development solutions for small law firms. She's the editor of the Clio Blog, and has written for publications such as GP Solo, Legal Technology Today, and Above the Law. Please confirm your Zip Code *An accurate Zip Code ensures your appointment is set with the correct local marketing consultant. Webcast follow-up Q & A: How solo firms can improve their marketing, Watch Caddyshack, Then Watch Your Law Firmâs Performance, What Not to Say When Marketing Your Law Firm. Here are a few questions to consider before looking at specific KPIs: When it comes to metrics you can measure, the possibilities are endless. As a lawyer, you’re an expert on the practice of law—but are you taking the time to track what’s important when it comes to guiding the success of your firm? With KPIs, you can track specifics over time, making it easier to predict results for what will work in the future. But if your goal is to reach 2,000 Twitter followers by June, you need a business justification for that. Settlements? iX JOhN STERLING is a founding partner of Sterling Strategies, LLC. Once you’ve established a system for monitoring your law firm KPIs, upkeep is relatively simple. Make the goal worth working for, but don’t set yourself up for failure. Identify what your goals are and how you're going to achieve them. Number of clients? Legal consumers have changed â has your firm’s approach? Here are some performance indicators to help you evaluate client satisfaction: An efficient law firm is a profitable law firm—yet productivity is a huge issue for most, with legal professionals billing an average of just 2.4 hours of an 8-hour day, according to the 2018 Legal Trend Report. ), Current run rate (projected annual revenue based on the past three months), Current anticipated annual costs (total amount of anticipated annual costs, including salaries, for a year, based on the last three month’s costs), Difference between your current run rate and current anticipated annual costs, Amount of accounts receivable (AR) outstanding, Amount of revenue per square foot of office space. Remember that not all KPIs are useful for your firm. Where is your law practice going? To create a law firm whose primary goal is to exceed customer’s expectations. Based on insights from the 2017 Legal Trends Report, this guide shows you how to apply them to your firm. to quickly access your firm’s key metrics—like how many billable hours your firm has captured, billed, and collected—all in one central dashboard. Whichever law firm KPIs you choose to use, it’s important to keep in mind that none of these metrics mean anything out of context. Objectives give more than direction. Law firm strategy helps firms discover their opportunities and threats, uncovering key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure progress and offer the best chance at success. First and foremost, there is something to the act of sitting down and taking an honest and realistic look at the intentions and goals you have for your firm. My next several posts will deal with such items. These criteria have been around since 1981 and are widely attributed to Peter Drucker’s management by objectives approach, in which businesses establish clearly defined and agreed-upon goals. Now that you have a few ideas for which KPIs you want to monitor at your firm, what do you need to do to actually use them to your advantage? While law firm KPIs are useful for measuring the overall success and growth of your firm, you might also want to track performance for individual members of your team—whether for yourself or for staff members. ... For example, an ecommerce firm that views late deliveries as damaging to the customer experience. Now that it’s clear why data-driven KPIs are critical to success, read on for our list of KPIs to measure, and manage, at your law firm (Note: for each KPI, set a predetermined time period, i.e., per previous month or year, in which to keep track). For example, a law firm that is just starting out can look towards merging with a bigger law firm that is well positioned and recognized in order to form strategic marketing alliance. You may have run across the SMART acronym before. By setting specific targets and then tracking and measuring key performance indicators, you can empower yourself to make more effective decisions on behalf of your law firm, clients, and staff. Get this free e-book from legal industry expert Mike Whelan, Jr. The letters stand for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. We surveyed over a thousand lawyers and legal clients - and reviewed case volumes from tens of thousands of law firms - to discover tips for adapting to COVID-19. R elevant. Do you know which attorney or which client is contributing to or reducing your profits? These individual performance KPIs could include metrics like: Of course, financials, profitability, and margins are central to the success or failure of your law firm—so pay special attention to the following KPIs: When looking at your law firm KPIs, you might want to consider looking beyond revenues and clients, and looking inwards to your firm culture. Itâs a smart move. Start with these 12 tips from Mary Juetten and Sam Glover to make your legal practice more efficient. The purpose of each initiative and activity. Sally Schmidt is President of Schmidt Marketing, Inc., which offers marketing services to law firms.She was a founder and the first President of the Legal Marketing Association. If you want to use data to determine if you’ve performed well or not, you need to first identify what you’re trying to achieve. Is it revenue? To increase the ability to serve public interest organizations each year. Will it bring in more revenue for your law firm? How efficiently are you resolving their cases? Measuring more than the traditional billable hour metrics can help your firm better understand its current and potential monetary situation. We well understand your intention Justice, it’s your first step We’re in your corner! Here are three examples of law firms that are using content marketing effectively. Law Firm Marketing Plan Must-Knows. October 13-16, 2020. Determine your firm’s actual strengths and weaknesses, then build goals around them. Determine how to measure key insights and monitor your long-term goals. One of the more daunting tasks (whether you are general counsel or not) is setting useful goals for the upcoming year. In that case, you need to define the metric. Venable LLP’s blogs and websites. Many law firms all over the United States are coming to the conclusion that the bigger the better for them. In doing so we were struck by how generically firms described themselves. Get FindLaw legal marketing tips right in your inbox and never miss a beat. So how do you establish goals that are aspirational but still achievable? Here are some law firm KPIs to consider when it comes to productivity: If you’re using Clio Manage, the Firm Dashboard captures and tracks your firm’s utilization, realization, and collection rates for you—putting these KPIs at your fingertips so you can quickly and regularly gain insights and track productivity for your firm. is a pneumonic device. Since 1999, we have helped over 18,000 attorneys create successful and sustainable law practices. A 40 percent increase in settlements, for instance, is a goal based on luck. Accountability If you haven’t identified what KPIs to track, it’s difficult to determine who or what is responsible for wins or losses at your firm—which in turn makes it difficult to replicate or avoid certain results. Advantages of Making a Legal Strategic Plan. Client Trust Ledger: A statement of activity that shows all of the transactions (beginning balance, deposits in, payments out, and ending balance) for each client. Hereâs an example of the SMART guidelines at work: âIncrease the volume of SSDI clients we retain by 7 percent in the first quarter of 2015 through targeted online advertising.â Itâs specific in terms of the goal, the number increase, and the timeframe. Your goals should consider the parts of your role that you enjoy the most – is it liaising with clients, preparing contracts , negotiating, advocacy, doing research? But what exactly are KPIs, and why are they important? To develop a client list that includes at least 20 companies, each with revenues of over $3 million. By identifying and tracking goals for performance indicators (for example, the KPI of monthly revenue), you can better assess how your firm is performing. Compliance to laws, regulations, standards and internal policies such as best practices. Businesses and law firms alike fail because they pay out more than they bring in. For example, if your practice is a car, KPIs are the instrument panel; fuel, ... Delving into KPIs for law firms is beyond the scope of this post, but for a good overview of how some larger firms develop and track KPIs, see this article from LPM a few years ago. Selecting and monitoring specific performance indicators creates a clean line of accountability at your firm. © 2008 - 2020 Themis Solutions Inc. (Clio) |. Make the goal worth working for, but donât set yourself up for failure. One way: Be SMART about it. Sally J. Schmidt. Find out which Clio events and CLE webinars are coming up next. The purpose of one law firm’s marketing endeavors are not necessarily the same as another’s. In the following guide, we’ll explore how using law firm KPIs impacts your law firm’s success, and how to pick the right KPIs for your practice’s unique situation. These goals are used to evaluate the performance of employees at the end of a performance period. For example, your target for the cost of client acquisition depends on the type of law and the return on investment per client. A 40 percent increase in settlements, for instance, is a goal based on luck. S.M.A.R.T. They offer a marketing framework around which you can build your law firm. Know-how […] KPIs give you the data and knowledge to answer critical questions, and they should be measurable, specific, and targeted to the unique goals of a business. That might be a practice area â a current one, or perhaps one youâd like to add. You can’t measure what you don’t track. Determine if there are any gaps between what you have and what you need. Timely. Determine your firmâs actual strengths and weaknesses, then build goals around them. Then, you can set aside a block of time for yourself to analyze the results, identify patterns (good and bad), and find opportunities for adjustment. She is a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and was one of the first inductees to LMA’s Hall of Fame. By planning, selecting, measuring, and analyzing law firm KPIs specific to your business, you’ll be better able to make data-driven decisions and informed changes to improve your practice. And when asked about his golf game,…, A medical degree is a lot like a law degree in that it comes with…. Or it may be more general growth. Essentially, you want to follow these six steps: Integrating KPIs into your business planning allows you to create a customized dashboard for monitoring and evolving the success of your law firm. As you consider that number, keep in mind that it should be something that is doable. It’s all well and good to know that you want to measure performance to assess your firm’s strengths, but—with seemingly endless areas to assess—how do you decide which specific KPIs are most valuable for your law firm? Here are a few marketing KPIs to consider: New clients are vital to the success of your law firm—but finding them is a complex process. ... Once you have your goals firm … An analysis of our client’s top competitors, for example, revealed a legal sea of sameness. Corporate law departments play a unique role in both the business and legal fields. Law firms and individual attorneys must engage in soul searching occasionally to articulate objectives and goals. Or are you doing intellectual property work that can be repeated over the years? Legal departments do not always lend themselves to… The idea is to set goals that push you (and your colleagues) to grow. SMART goal setting, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based, is an effective process for setting and achieving your business goals. If growth is your ambition, you need to make a plan to achieve it. While they exist to provide legal advice to internal clients and to protect the legal interests of the company, they must also constantly consider financial issues as well, such as cost control. Donât rely on hoping and wishing. UNDERSTAND LEGAL CONCEPTS AND THEIR PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS. Most desire to grow their businesses â add clients, boost their revenues, perhaps take on a new partner, paralegal or assistant. The first step in establishing your KPIs is looking at the data you already have available in your firm’s practice management system. Marketing budget ratio (the ratio of the total marketing spend to the total fees billed), Marketing cost per client (the ratio of the total marketing spent to the number of clients billed), The number of new clients by source (referral, website, review site, etc. 26 Examples of Quality Goals posted by John Spacey, November 10, 2018. A key differentiator between successful and unsuccessful firms is setting goals, writing […] Ty Webb didn't measure himself against anything, really. If you want to do things right, then your goals should follow the SMART formula, which means they should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time specific. Instead: How many clients do you want to add? Law Firm Slogans Let me fight for you We will take you through each step till the end. Trying to measure every performance indicator available is overwhelming, needlessly time-consuming, and counterproductive. Donât simply say, âI want to grow my firm.â You need to clearly specify the aspect of your firm you want to grow. Don’t rely on hoping and wishing. It refers to a set of five criteria for establishing business goals. It was originally introduced by George Doran in a 1981 issue of Management Review. This post was last updated on November 16, 2020. Being data-driven doesn’t need to be overwhelming. They can choose to operate as a transactional (corporate) law firm or specialize in litigation. The beginning of any calendar year is always busy with key administrative tasks for an in-house legal department. Make an inventory of the data being collected. When developing your law firm marketing plan, start with Why. Marketing strategies vary between law firms. Firm Goals and Objectives: Goals are destinations—where you want your firm to be. Schedule a coaching session with our legal marketing experts and receive a gourmet coffee gift card absolutely free! Presented as an easy-to-understand visual dashboard, the Firm Dashboard makes it simple to view, track, and benchmark key performance indicators, then make data-driven decisions for your firm based on those key metrics. What is the lifetime value of every client? Practical real world examples highlight how the strategic planning process has worked in . Today I’m going to give you a sample law firm business plan, but before we do that, let’s take a quick look at why we even go about putting one together in the first place. Law firm KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, can help. A 1 percent year-over-year growth might be mathematically real, but itâs statistically irrelevant. Not many attorneys wish their careers to simply plod along. Every firm has to set their own targets before choosing KPIs to measure, because they are unique to your practice. Pulling it all together can be challenging, but it’s worth it if you can learn how to implement SMART goals (S=specific, M=measurable, A=achievable, R=relevant, and T=time-bound). The law firm marketing consultants at The Rainmaker Institute specialize in helping small to medium-sized law firms generate more clients and increase revenue fast. Just great advice. Nowadays, you hear every entrepreneur and investor saying “KPI”—so much that you might think of “KPI” as merely a buzzword. The reason for this is that the larger tech firms usually will go with one of the larger law firms in town because a large firm can offer them a wide range of services and do all … The very first time I heard of the role of CINO at a law firm … In this post you will find 40 Best Law Firm Slogans and Best Taglines. Photo Credits. Have questions? Once you’ve completed and analyzed these KPIs, take corrective action and then repeat this monthly. To be able to offer each year some legal services at … Venable LLP, an AmLaw 100 firm based in Washington DC, operates a portfolio of legal blogs and websites through which it delivers insights on a number of legal topics. Here’s everything you need to know to start tracking NPS at your law firm. If you haven’t identified what KPIs to track, it’s difficult to determine who or what is responsible for wins or losses at your firm—which in turn makes it difficult to replicate or avoid certain results. Are you doing criminal defense work where you hope that the client is only with you once? With this in mind—before you look at which firm-specific KPIs you want to measure—you should first think about your practice’s unique overall goals, and how your firm measures success. Instead of inspiring you, impossible goals can actually discourage you. 1. Applying the SMART grid to your goals will help you to create more specific, achievable targets for your business, and to measure your progress toward them. And thatâs where setting up clear business goals is essential. We’ve also assembled a vast list of potential law firm KPIs to manage—so you’ll have plenty of ideas to bring back to your firm. The goal is typically along the lines of “build a healthy practice,” “get more clients” (as if they may be “gotten”), “generate more visibility for myself and my firm,” and so on. For them attain their goals firm has to set goals that push you ( your... 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