All businesses dream of scaling up, and a law firm is no different. The problem? While most lawyers are great with ad-hoc decision making under high-risk situations, managing a law firm takes skills that go above and beyond the knowledge of law and its interpretation. In this article, we discuss the steps that can help any small law firm achieve sustained growth.
For any organisation, but more so for a law firm, your people will always be your biggest resource. Often, one of the biggest mistakes all business owners make is trying to manage everything by themselves, or waiting for too long to hire. Hiring the right members for your team and organizing your team efficiently will enable you to concentrate on the growth and management of your law firm. It is important to find people whose goals in terms of personal and professional growth align with those of your firm, and trust them with their responsibilities. Invest in training your team so as to improve productivity across all departments. Outsourcing for certain selected skills is also a great way to have access to qualified professionals without having them on your regular payrolls. What happens when one of your biggest clients needs a specialist in bankruptcy law? Instead of hiring a full time specialist, collaborating with a lawyer having experience with bankruptcy matters would work out to be more viable and cost effective.
If the right team is the backbone of any organisation, then the right tools are
possibly its limbs. Do not shy away from investing into technology, licensed
software and even hardware if it will add to the efficiency of your operations.
Today, there exist robust tools to automate every single aspect of a legal
practice, may it be the management of contract lifecycle, small law firm
account management, CRM, or even law firm management software.
Improvising and working without pre-determined procedures might work
for a firm with 2-3 lawyers, but the minute your firm starts to grow, this lack
of standardisation will create issues on a daily basis. Standardising your
processes creates uniformity amongst the different functions performed
by your employees, ensuring that everyone has the same point of reference.
Like all businesses, the success of your law firm is dependent on client satisfaction. Unlike a few decades ago, when an attorney’s word
was considered final on any given issue, clients today have access to multiple sources of information and knowledge, from alternate
legal service providers to chatbots. They rightfully demand transparency and knowledge, and firms must deliver.
There exist countless firms practicing law in the market; what makes you special? Your law firm needs to have a clear identity that you can market successfully, one that has great recall value. Here are some steps that you can take to increase your presence:
What is the first thing that every potential client does? Google. An informative and attractive website makes it easier for clients to find you and connect with you online. A good law firm website should be easy to navigate, clearly mention all your practice areas and services, and build a unique, strong brand for your firm. Here are examples of some effective law-firm websites.
Having a content-rich blog page containing active backlinks is one of the best ways to route traffic to your website. In today’s day and age, where there is an abundance of information on every topic, show your legal expertise in the form of informative blog posts and podcasts.
LinkedIn, Facebook and even Twitter are great platforms for networking, where a strategically placed post can help you bring in your next client.
While having a good website is important, it is equally important that your website is discoverable. Search Engine Optimisation and advertising through Google Adwords is a great way to ensure that prospective clie
While every organisation aims to scale up, expansion brings its own set of risks and potential issues:
Due to the inherent nature of the information that they deal in, the threat to law firms because of data and security breaches is exponentially higher as compared to any other organisations. As they expand, firms need to invest in multiple security mechanisms, ranging from firewalls and high level data encryptions, to iron-clad confidentiality contracts in order to secure their data.
What happens if a freak fire ends up destroying 80% of a firm’s resources? Firms must switch to cloud storage in order to protect all their data, while also investing in robust insurance policies for office spaces.
In a highly competitive world, one of the biggest problems faced by law firms is hiring the right personnel, and ensuring that they stay with the firm.
Scaling up is a function of investing into the right resources at the right time. People, procedures, the right tools and practices – each
factor plays an equally important role.