Make More Rain : policies/ procedures, productivity

Unencrypted Emails Between Attorneys and Clients May Not Be Privileged

Admin — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:00:00 GMT

The days of unencrypted email communications being protected under the attorney/client privilege may be numbered. The latest evidence of this comes from New York, where Judge Charles W. Ramos ruled last fall that emails from a doctor to his lawyer sent via a hospital's business email server weren't privileged after they were discovered by the hospital (source: Wall Street Journal Law Blog).

Judge Ramos rejected the privilege largely because, he found, the plaintiff didn’t have any real expectation that the messages were private. The hospital had a policy of prohibiting email for personal purposes, and that policy was disclosed to employees.

This is another shot across the bow to law firms. When courts have waived the privilege in situations like the above, it has been due to a lack of expectation of privacy. There have been similar cases in the past (Kaufman v. SunGard Invest. Sys., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28149 (D.N.J. 2006)), In the bankruptcy proceeding In re Asia Global Crossing, Ltd., 324 B.R. 503 (Bankr. D.N.Y. 2005), the Southern District of New York held that email between an attorney and client left on the corporate email system waived the privilege. The court held found that the following four factors should be taken into consideration in that analysis:

(1) does the corporation maintain a policy banning personal or other objectionable use,

(2) does the company monitor the use of the employee's computer or e-mail,

(3) do third parties have a right of access to the computer or emails, and

(4) did the corporation notify the employee, or was the employee aware, of the use and monitoring policies?

What if the client was communicating to the attorney with encrypted email? Does that offer the client an “expectation of privacy?”

In order for a client to invoke the protections of the attorney client privilege, four elements are required:

the client is seeking legal advice;
from a professional in his capacity as an attorney;
the communication relates to the legal advice; and
the confidential communication is between the client and the attorney.

In Nat'l Econ. Research Assocs. v. Evans, 21 Mass. L. Rep. 337 (Mass. Super. Ct. 2006), the Massachusetts Superior Court held that when the employer did not specify in its manual that it could monitor email and the employee took “reasonable” steps to protect the emails (the court considered deleting the emails and running a disk de-fragmentation program sufficient), then the privilege isn’t waived. Ernest Sasso, on his firm site, wrote a comprehensive article regarding email and client confidentiality which supports the argument that encrypted email would make arguments for waiver of privilege moot. To my knowledge, the issue of encrypted mail being challenged to waive privilege has still not been litigated (please correct me if I am wrong).

If you are communicating via email to clients regarding your case, stop it now. Or, take evasive action. Use encryption in all communications with clients expected to contain privileged information. In my opinion, you have a stronger argument for an expectation of privacy even with minimal encryption (read: ease of use and implementation) than with none at all. Plus, the cost of software (for the client end) can be billed to the client as an up-front expense if the client desires to communicate via email.

The above is just a cursory look at the law to alert you to the potential danger of communicating with clients via unencrypted email. Logon to Lexis.com to research the above in more detail. And to avoid being the next victim, encrypt now.

Some encryption providers:

The above isn’t even close to comprehensive. Have your IT staff research solutions that will work with your firm.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center:

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RVs, Bananas and Recession-Proofing the Law Firm

Admin — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:00:52 GMT

It seems every year there are those who get in front of the press and claim that there is a looming recession that is about to envelop the country and if there is no action, the depths of it will surpass our worst fears.

This year is no exception. December retail sales were down 4%, unemployment is up to 5%, and, of course, RV sales are plummeting. Yes, according to several articles, the reduction of RV sales is an accurate forecaster of recession. I am sure Federal Reserver Chairman Ben Bernanke is keeping close tabs on this key indicator.

Larry Bodine doesn't just think we are headed for economic recession - he claims that we are already there. His reasons do not include RV sales:

Housing starts are down 24% from a year ago. The median sales price of existing single-family homes has been falling all year, according to the National Association of Realtors. A person's home is the largest single asset and the source of a sense of prosperity for most Americans.
The value of the dollar is near an all-time low [ ]. The dollar is worth the same as the Canadian Loonie currency.
The price of oil spiked at $100 per barrel on January 2 and has settled at an exorbitant $92 per barrel.
The US trade deficit widened sharply by 9.3% in November to a larger-than-expected $63.1 billion. The trade deficit has widened to its highest level in more than a year.
The "credit crunch" means that investment capital is difficult to obtain. Banks and investors become wary of lending funds to corporations, thereby driving up the price of debt products for borrowers. Citigroup, the nation's biggest bank, announced a stunning $10 billion fourth-quarter loss. The Kuwait Investment Authority -- a foreign country -- is expected to bail out Merrill Lynch with a $4 billion investment.
The cost of the war in Iraq over the past five years is now approaching a cumulative $500 billion, or about $100 billion per year on average.

Bodine isn't the only one (not by a long shot) ringing in the new recession. Bruce MacEwen has two posts in a row (The Upcoming Banana? and A Contrarian Bounce?) dedicated to the apparently imminent recession.

In The Upcoming Banana?, MacEwen has his own figures to back up the sure "banana" that is happening:

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch have issued "recession warnings."

The Economist's somewhat impish "R-word index," which counts how many times in a quarter the word appears in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and which accurately forecast the 1980, 1991, and 2001 recessions, is nearing a new peak.

Sullivan & Cromwell Chairman H. Rodgin Cohen said "It is hard to be an optimist," [of the outlook for M&A activity in 2008]. "With the markets where they are, it is going to be a tough year. The markets hate uncertainty, and we are in an uncertain time."

Gold and oil are both at or near all-time (inflation-adjusted) highs.

The front page of just one day's Wall Street Journal lists the following facts:

American Express drops 10% in one day after announcing increased write offs and delinquencies; Capital One, Master Card, and Discover also drop;

Retailers ranging from McDonald's to Tiffany report disappointing same-store sales;

The stock market has started 2008 with its worst year-opening slide in over 30 years; and

A Barron's roundtable questions whether the 25-year bull market is running out of gas.

The American Lawyer's most recent survey of law firm leaders (last month) was appropriately headined "Fog Advisory"—the outlook is unclear.

And, of course, Cadwalader laid off 35 finance attorneys.

With the 300 points the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost Thursday, we may be doing more than just talking ourselves into a recession. Tensions are certainly high. Jim Blasingame from the Memphis Commercial Appeal, however, has a remedy: Don't participate in the recession. Some of his ideas include eliminating operational inefficiencies, cutting costs, converting non-performing assets to cash, and pay more attention to receivables.

MacEwen, in A Contrarian Bounce? has one idea contrary to the above: Don't cut costs - invest:

Rather than tightening their belts, the aggressive firms apparently sensed opportunity and chose to invest in [SG&A, R&D and advertising] in hopes of a longer-run payoff, whereas during flush times they focused on operational efficiencies. In other words—although they always invested more than their peers in R&D—their strategy was to sacrifice short-term profits in bad times for the sake of longer-term advantage: And to more than make up the sacrifice when good times returned.

Investing rather than cutting costs is consistent with what the LexisNexis Economic Survey shows. For firms who retain earnings, recessions become opportunities to exploit the weak economy to its own advantage. The market starves for investors during economic troughs and those who can afford to invest will find great opportunities to expand. Those who choose to devour all profits in good times will be the ones struggling to keep the doors open in bad times.

It is like the politically corrected story of a brother and sister who decided to open different restaurants on the same city block. Both sold roughly the same type of food and catered to the lunch crowd. The brother was very outgoing. He always remembered his customers, greeted them happily when they entered the restaurant, came to their table to mingle with his customers, and was so liked that the place was packed all the time. The sister, on the other hand, was a quiet woman who merely went about running the restaurant and most customers never saw her. The restaurant often was practically empty and you sometimes wondered how the place was still open.

The brother's business soon failed. Though great at bringing in customers, he was a poor manager. His employees stole from him, he gave away food, and he rarely ever looked at the books. On the other hand, the sister's business grew because she kept a ledger, measured what items sold and which didn't, changed the menu to highlight items that sold better, guarded her margins and saved her money.

There is a lesson in this for law firms. I have seen many firms who have neglected their finances because the volume of business kept constant cash flow and hid structural deficiencies in their model. Does your firm give away food? Do you have attorneys well liked by their clients but under producing from a financial standpoint? Do you want to be the brother or the sister?

Firms that plan and measure performance are in a much better position to aggressively attack recessions and benefit from them. Investing in the expansion of your business is a sign of a strong company. Cutting costs is a sign of a failing one.

Don't misunderstand: you don't want to spend away your margins. Make sure there is a link between your spending and increased revenue. But don't necessarily look to cost cutting when the economy is on the downturn. As MacEwen notes, "[i]s it "risky" to increase operating expenses during a downturn? So it would seem. But the real risk may be in following the herd."

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Law Firm Management ABC's: Manage Your Associates

Admin — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:00:20 GMT

Management is achieving objectives through others. It's a continuing process of receiving input, processing input, taking action, receiving feedback, and repeating the process. It requires KASH in a real-time environment. It is a cycle of planning, organizing, actuating and controlling.

Prior to 1828, the path to becoming an attorney required not only to obtain a degree, but to serve several years as an apprentice before being able to practice law. President Andrew Jackson changed these requirements to break up the elitist methods of choosing attorneys (only attorneys could choose who the apprentice would be, much like real estate appraisers of today). By the end of the 1800's, apprenticeship programs for attorneys were well in decline and after the introduction of the American Bar Association in 1878, a more standardized formal process to becoming an attorney was introduced (Source: Bar Examination: Further Readings). An unintended consequence of this action was to lessen the importance of mentorship to young attorneys-in-waiting.

Today, the only qualifications (not to lessen their importance) to becoming a lawyer is a good dose of book smarts, focus and an ability to not crack under stress. Law school does much to help you think like a lawyer, but does nothing to help you act like a lawyer. Mentorship helps associates to learn from seasoned attorneys how to act as well as how to best service clients.

Management ensures that the value of mentoring is set as habit, achieving professional objectives not only for the individual, but for the firm. Unfortunately for some firms, management is treated much like strategic plans: either you spend time developing a plan but don't stick to it or you don't do it at all.

Good management starts by receiving input. Actively solicit feedback from your associates. Karen Asner wrote an article for Law.Com (Law Firm Partners Find Out What Associates Really Think of Them) regarding establishing an "upward review process":

Upward reviews give associates the opportunity to evaluate and provide input on the management and leadership performance of partners with whom they regularly work on deals, cases, committees or pro bono matters.

Law firms aiming to create an outstanding working environment for their associates and attract prospective recruits should seriously consider implementing an upward review process.

It's a good bet that associates, if put in a non-threatening environment to speak frankly, would have some pointed views on their plight. Some may be warranted; some may not, but if you want to consistently increase partner income, knowing what associates are thinking can be invaluable, especially if you are considering them as future partners. You don't want to find out after the attorney leaves how disaffected he/she was towards the shareholders. Plus, in an ideal environment, the associates are bearing the brunt of most of the work - you want to make sure they are well incented to be proper representatives of the firm, inside and outside of the office.

Implementing an upward review process is only the start: next, you have to process the input. The management committee or equivalent must review the results and develop a plan of action that will address concerns and further the firm's objectives. Accountability must be delegated to every member of the firm. Clear and concise roles and goals need to be communicated.

Then you must take action. Talking about management and goals is a waste of time otherwise. Taking action means mentoring associates - not only as to how to practice law, but how to act. Mentoring is a way to reclaim the lost art of apprenticeship. Not only will it allow the partners to dictate how the associate acts, but it also creates a bond of acceptance within the firm that the associate is part of the team. That can only help in fostering trust, a central component in management.

Measurement improves results. Always measure the effectiveness of your plan by again receiving feedback. Keep the upward review process going - quarterly, semi-annually, annually, whatever time frame will maximize the effectiveness of the campaign (understanding the resource drain on the review process - you don't want to lose productivity as a result of processes established to improve productivity). My suggestion is semi-annual.

Measure and adjust, then repeat the process. Nothing is gained by doing something only once. Consistency is the name of the game if you want to affect the habits of others. Don't let up, don't get down, never give up. Over the long run, your efforts will be rewarded with a smooth running operation that will scale with your profits.

Reward Attorneys for the Commoditization of Reproducible Work

Admin — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 08:04:35 GMT

A friend of mine practices in firm that specializes primarily in transactional work. Much of the work is billed flat fee but they still track their time so the firm can determine profitability. Recorded time is set against an attorney's budgeted hours for the year so that they are credited for their flat fee work. My friend lamented associates padding their worked hours for flat fee work so they make their budget numbers. In this case, padding hours doesn't affect clients since the fee is pre-set but it does affect reporting of profitability.

Aric Press, Editor-In-Chief of The American Lawyer, wrote in the December, 2007, In-House article that 2008 may well be the year when clients start to demand alternative fee arrangements:

One of the unintended consequences of electronic billing is that clients can now easily compute and compare the cost of tasks. Soon there may be other technological threats based on knowledge management that can convert once complex acts of lawyering into rather commoditized routines.

I have been pretty adamant in my defense of the billable hour. That doesn't mean that I am against alternative fee arrangements when the use of them will improve the efficiency of the firm and thus increase profits. Recording time, regardless of fee arrangement, is still a good idea. However, sometimes it just makes more sense to bill using fixed fees for certain tasks.

Why not take advantage of this and place an internal value on the task as well? You can do this by determining the time it takes to perform the task, then mark it up to the market price (perhaps based on the hourly rate times the time it should take to perform it). When a task is routine, standardization gives firms opportunities that can revolutionize a firm's business model. Not only will attorneys have a value based on their billable hour, but certain repetitive and reproducible tasks can be valued as well. Your firm will diversify its product offerings to clients, giving them more options for services and giving you more options to strengthen the client relationship. You could ostensibly set a price list for legal products - in effect competing with the emerging online forms market.

In the example of my friend's firm, creating a standard task that is reproducible and given a proper value reduces the inaccuracies in reporting due to "padding time" by associates trying to make their numbers. In the example of the firm whose client has already placed billing guidelines on a firm, this has the equal benefit of both providing cost certainty to the client and saving the attorney from repetitive time entry.

There is also the benefit to the general practice firm. The firm can market package transaction services at a set rate, and tack on billable hours beyond the scope of the repetitive (and priced) task. Sound a bit like value-billing?

How would this work? For transactional work, it would be as simple as setting a value upon a routine task, such as creating a will. For a simple will, attorneys will determine what the variables are, determine what it has cost in the past, agree upon an acceptable price based on market acceptance and variables, then price it.

In a litigation matter, it is no different. Many firms are already required to provide budgets based on tasks for the benefit of client cost allocation. Each task that the firm performs can be priced. Litigators can anticipate the course of the suit and determine a cost for the entire matter. There should be a value placed upon every legal task, whether it be writing a status letter, reviewing a file, etc. The price can take into consideration variance in time it takes for different attorneys to perform the task. That is up to the firm to decide.

By standardizing the value of certain tasks, it also opens another opportunity for building firm expertise: giving royalties to attorneys who create reproducible work product. Firms spend years building up forms. Forms are rarely created again - they are typically modified. Yet no one gets credit for creating the forms.

By giving an attorney a royalty for a form, you encourage expertise to be passed on to the rest of the firm. You can position attorneys who have a talent for researching and integrating current law into forms as work product creators and attorneys who are better at managing relationships and matters representing clients. Both have value. Both can be compensated based on the work they perform. Form writers would receive a percentage of the cost of the task as a royalty for a certain time period whenever their form is used. Just as you should place a time limit on origination credit, you should only provide royalties on forms for a certain time.

How can this be advantageous to the firm? Several ways:

It encourages information sharing within the firm.
It compensates those who provide value to others in the firm.
It can further a strategy of increasing leverage by giving credit to partners while reducing their billable hours.
It transfers the wealth of knowledge gained at the firm's expense back to the firm.
It can aid the strategy of succession planning by providing a route to semi-retirement while ensuring that the firm maintain its areas of specialization.
It allows partners to spend more time on what they excel in most: rainmakers focused on marketing efforts and strategic planning and grinders developing work product.
It gives firms an opportunity to give associates responsibilities that will benefit the firm as well as the associate.

Of course, with any change in policy, there are uncertainties that have to be addressed. For example, what if another attorney within the firm finds a problematic provision in the form and proposes to change a few clauses? What if the attorney proposes an entirely new form? Although in theory it would be a good thing to have several different forms from which to choose, logistically it may make more sense for your firm to settle on a preferred form from which attorneys may receive a royalty. That along with determination of the royalty percentage is sure to provide lively discussion in the partner meeting.

Whatever direction your firm goes when applying new policies, it should conform with a universal requirement of periodic measurement and adjustment.

Cotterman: In Defense of "Lockstep" Compensation System

Admin — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:00:18 GMT

Many, including myself, have for several reasons (in my case, personal experience), railed against lockstep compensation as a debilitating agent to per partner income and the ability to keep top attorneys. I have seen the internal griping, the uncomfortable situations, and the inevitable loss of talent because of the appearance of unfair distribution of compensation based on a lockstep system.

James Cotterman, however, in an January 3rd post, argues "[t]he success or failure of any compensation system is not simply inherent within the structure of the program." He defends the lockstep compensation system - with a caveat:

[A] pure lock-step program largely requires the firm to assess a senior associate’s ability to progress as a partner over the remainder of his/her career. Essentially you are making some thirty or more years of future compensation decisions at one time. Such an assessment requires much more careful attention to the qualities of being a partner. And such attention is rare.

Among the benefits of lockstep compensation plans:

1. It supports a single firm philosophy.
2. There is little internal competition.
3. Leadership has more time to lead without the annual compensation ritual.
4. Non-traditional roles and new postings are more easily undertaken.

1. It supports a single firm philosophy.
I agree and disagree. It should support the single firm philosophy in that it treats all partners more or less the same. However, I don't assume a single-firm philosophy requires socialistic tendencies. In fact, such tendencies in a market system don't work well and can lead to a split up of the single firm. Also, the system in many ways requires trust within the firm that everyone will do their part. As David Maister has aptly noted, attorneys aren't big on trusting each other. In declaring that law firms are unmanageable professional entities, Maister wrote:

Recently, I was advising a firm on its compensation system. They didn’t like my recommendations. Finally, one of the partners said, “David, all your recommendations are based on the assumption that we trust each other and trust our executive or compensation committees. We don’t. Give us a system that doesn’t require us to trust each other!”

2. There is little internal competition.
Little internal competition should help foster trust and teamwork. Experience tells me that little internal competition fosters laziness. Distrust is a problem but competition is not. Measurement improves performance. However, if you don't care that you are being measured, then you won't excel. Incentives to reach goals fosters competition and that isn't a bad thing. If you incent properly (ie factor "firm citizenship" into your compensation system), teamwork will be rewarded.

3. Leadership has more time to lead without the annual compensation ritual.
There is no question that compensation discussions are a large source of discontent and delay in implementing strategic plans. If all partners agree to a compensation plan that is not going to change, that would be a great thing. Do I believe that is possible? Perhaps, if, as Cotterman notes, firms give more attention to the qualities of being a partner - ie, they are consensus-builders in the Henry Clay mold and can make "some thirty or more years of future compensation decisions at one time".

4. Non-traditional roles and new postings are more easily undertaken.
If compensation isn't affected, attorneys should be more willing to take on roles that otherwise would affect their ability to maintain their income.

Cotterman discusses two main arguments against lockstep compensation:

1. There is no accountability.
2. Stars are not specifically recognized monetarily (at least not instantly).

I made both of those arguments above in disagreeing in part to the arguments for lockstep compensation. Without measurement, there is no accountability. Without accountability, internal strife erupts and your star attorneys walk. So I don't disagree a bit to either argument.

Cotterman notes that some of the most prestigious and profitable firms in New York and the UK use lockstep compensation. This is proof enough that the system can work. However, I would argue (as he does) that a commitment to the mangement of the firm and a single-firm philosophy is critical to it success. The challenge for small and mid-size law firms is to create an environment that fosters teamwork and manageability. For the lockstep compensation to work, firms need their own Henry Clay who can effectively communicate the philosophy that supports the system and the consensus-building qualities to bring others to agreement.

That said, even Clay couldn't ultimately prevent the Civil War. I'm still against lockstep compensation. However, for those who want a guide on how to make it work (as it certainly can work, I am just not a proponent of it), read his article here.

Reflections on the 2007 ALM Billing Rates & Practices Survey

Admin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:00:58 GMT

"Is the billable hour dead, as many like to proclaim (whether wistfully or presciently?)" So starts the Executive Summary for the 2007 ALM Billing Rates & Practices Survey. The relentless assault against the hapless billable hour continues. Here is yet another blog post arguing against hourly billing. Yet if you look at billing rates, they continue to increase. The 2007 ALM Billing Rates & Practices confirms this, but also drills down into respondent's use of alternative fee arrangements.

According to the ALM survey, the average billing rate nationally is $240. This is in line with the 2007 Law Firm Economic Survey from LexisNexis, where nationally, attorney rates were at $249 (broken down: equity partner rates were at $263 and non-equity partners billed at $235 on average). In the ALM survey, "[a]ll but a small percentage were the leader, managing partner, shareholder or owner of their firm", so I didn't include the firm effective rate that includes associate and paralegal rates in calculating the $249 (for those of you thumbing through the LexisNexis survey). Only 8% of the ALM respondents were associates, so it may very well be that average rates were lowered to $240 in the ALM survey by the associates (who in the LexisNexis survey billed at $175 per hour).

The survey is heavily weighted to small firms, with about a third of respondents being solo practitioners and 58% from "small firms" defined as between 2 and 39 attorneys. Why ALM decided to include mid-sized firms (Juris defines mid-size to include firms with attorneys with over 10 attorneys) in the small firm category, I don't know, but it might be due to a small amount of respondents in that 11-39 range.

As further comparison, the average national billing rate for equity and non-equity partners in the 2007 Altman Weil survey was $315. The National Law Journal Billing Survey partner average was $427. Both the Altman Weil and NLJ surveys target larger firms.

One of the observations of the survey was that size of the law firm matters and the above figures certainly indicate this. However, in the LexisNexis survey, the observation was different: it isn't the size that matters, but "that law firms that outperform with regard to per-partner income do so because they excel in performance on the key law firm profit drivers." The ALM Billing survey doesn't profile the firms for per-partner income and thus only looks at part of the picture.

In the chart above, each quartile was ranked for the following key profit drivers: productivity (billable hours), leverage, billing realization, effective rate, and operating margin. The highest performing firms ranked the lowest in all of the indicators.

Size, on the other hand, didn't make as much of a difference. For example, the per partner income of the top performing firms with 25 or more attorneys in the LexisNexis survey was $609,548. Income per partner for firms with 11 to 24 in the top quartile was $548,557 and with 10 or fewer attorneys, $512,896. However, the difference between quartile 1 and 2 across all sizes is substantial: $325,986, $322,876, and $294,871 respectively. While there is less than $100,000 that separates the smallest surveyed firms from the largest ones, there is nearly $300,000 difference between quartile 1 and 2 across firms of all sizes.

Which brings us back to the ALM Billing & Practices Survey. 88% of respondents to the 2007 ALM Billing Rates & Practices Survey reported that they offer "alternatives" to the billable hour and it made up an average of 37% of their revenues. That is a pretty substantial number. Given that the survey is made up of smaller firms, you may be tempted to conclude that smaller firms are moving away from the billable hour in order to compete better with larger firms.

That may well be the case, but it is just as likely that some small firms that continue to not operate like a business could be getting caught up in a trend that in the long run will drop their profits even lower while the solo practitioners next door is making half a million. If you don't measure performance, you won't know.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center:

877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.

What's Wrong With Billing By The Hour?

Admin — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Many in the legal industry are often found complaining of the reliance on the "billable hour" (see here, here, here, here, and even the venerable Scott Turow gets in on it here). Value-based billing and other fixed-fee type arrangements are offered as a better guide.

That begs the question: What has the billable hour ever done to deserve such lament? The answer, in part, may be due to attorney discipline. Again and again I work with attorneys who consider recording their time as an administrative chore, something to be done by others if at all possible. With this attitude, attorneys are likely backtracking to remember what work they did and inevitably are either billing too much or too little. No amount of discussion or proof by the numbers will convince the attorney who is unwilling to record their time as work is being performed.

Attorneys tell me about their clients wanting cost certainty, client questioning the time it takes to perform a task, and clients feeling overcharged for work. This leads many to discount their time through markdowns or taking a percentage or some subjective dollar amount off the bill. This tells me that the client has trust issues with the attorney (or the attorney is worried about it) and the attorney is making it worse by discounting (tacitly acknowledging the client's suspicions).

On the other hand, I know of attorneys who don't have this problem at all. They never write time down, they never discount, and they never have a client question their bills. The client trusts that what they are being billed is the actual work that the attorneys performed. What are they doing differently? Are they value-billing? No. They enter time as work is performed. They use timers. And they are disciplined. Here is the process:

A client calls. A time entry is opened. A timer starts. As the attorney talks, he/she writes in the narrative. If the call requires a letter or other task, the attorney does it, then comes back to the entry and types it in. Once finished, they stop the timer and mark the entry to be billed. Done.

What happens if another client calls? You pause the timer; open a new one. If you want to go back, you pause the second entry and go back to the first. You can do this on a piece of paper and a standard kitchen timer, but why would you want to do that? That only delays the billing of the work and duplicates the process of time entry. Utilize the technology that is out there to help you manage your practice. Do it yourself. Make sure your system has an easy way to access timers within a time entry and can manage multiple timers.

Working in this way can be learned. The difference between the attorneys above is that one looks at the matter first, then the time entry. The second attorney looks at the time entry first, then the matter. By wrapping the tasks you perform inside of a time entry and utilizing timers, you won't over charge and you won't need to discount your time. Better, you won't need to reconstruct your time entries later, wasting billable time and invariably leaving billable work unrecorded (and unbillable).

If you want to stop billing by the hour, that is fine. But I don't think that is the problem for clients. I think it is a matter of trust. Don't allow your relationship with your client to get this way - utilize timers and don't bill any more than the time you work in a matter. And record your time as you work!

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center:

877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.

Concentration Pays Off For Law Firms

Admin — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Now that he is retired, Tom Collins is working on improving his golf game. Rather that working on all aspects of the sport at the same time he is concentrating on his short game starting with chip shots. With the importance of concentration of his mind he sent me the following post.

Time passes remarkably fast and any business, including a law firm, has momentum all its own. In other words, things are happing to fill available time. So if you want to accomplish something new or better, pick just a few things to concentrate on. Pick a lot of things and you are likely to accomplish none of them

For example, don’t plan to cross-sell everything; plan to cross-sell one thing to one category of clients. Now decide how you are going to cross-sell that one thing to that one category of clients.

What is your value proposition—lowest price, proven track record, political contacts, higher responsiveness (quality service), advanced technology, delivering cost predictability, etc?

How are we going to win the business? What key strategy or tactic is likely to produce the best result—one-on-one attorney visits, a team approach, group selling sessions, recommendations by third party, etc.?

What marketing materials or tools do you need to support the strategy?

What is the goal? Who is going to make it happen? What do they have to do to make it happen? What are the milestones for those involved? How are you going to measure results and communicate them? How are those involved going to be held accountable for their milestones and individual goals?

You can repeat the above process two to three (or even five) more times depending on the size and organization of your law firm, but concentrating your resources is the key to success. Keep in mind the Rule of the Fewest. The Rule of the Fewest is an important business concept. It arises out of the understanding that resources are always limited. “Things” not only represent a direct allocation of resources, they also indirectly impact unassigned resources. In business, concentration means the fewest of everything at any point in time—customers, products, distribution channels, transactions, etc. Concentration is “Management Candy” at work, doing the Main (fewest) things with the Minimum (fewest) necessary resources to achieve the objective.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center: 877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.

Marketing Tip for Law Firm Managing Partners: Require Non-Billable Hours

Admin — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:03:00 GMT

Last week I wrote about some responses to the 2007 Remsen Group Managing Partner Survey (part of the Juris 2007 Law Firm Economic Survey by LexisNexis (the Survey)) related to managing partners' strategic perceptions of profitability. I wrote about two of the strategies: increasing fees and cutting costs. However, 25% of managing partners felt marketing and business development was their firm's best way to achieve higher profitability, second only to increasing fees. That is a substantial number, especially since those same respondents reported that only 3% considered marketing and business development when determining partner compensation. It appears there is a disconnect here. If you believe that marketing and business development is an effective strategy to achieve higher profitability, it is in your firm's best interest to provide a financial incentive to increase marketing and business development activities. So, how would you compensate for marketing activities? Utilize your accounting system to record non-billable work that is targeted to specific marketing activities. Some Juris clients create specific codes representing marketing activities and require a certain amount of time be allocated to these activities each month. Just as the firm budgets for billable hours, they budget for marketing hours. And your compensation formula, to the extent you use them (63% of those surveyed were using either a strict or mostly formula-driven compensation system), should include non-billable business development and marketing hours. Only 4% of those surveyed placed considerable weight to non-billable hours in their compensation formula. Requiring non-billable time as part of your compensation formula is an incentive to focus on marketing activities. It doesn't, per se, achieve higher profitability. Marketing efforts must also be targeted and measured, just like any other performance metric. However, it is a lot easier to determine whether your business is being generated by word-of-mouth or by marketing efforts if you are tracking the hours you spend marketing and have a paper trail of activity that leads to new business. Michelle Golden has a great post on developing a marketing plan here - she even includes a downloadable sample marketing plan spreadsheet. John Remsen also has a good article on marketing plans here. Look here, here, and of course here for other ideas on how to integrate marketing into your practice.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by JurisÂ®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center:

877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.

The ABA Journal Blawg 100

Admin — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:34:44 GMT

I would like your vote.

The ABA has published a list of legal community related blogs that its editors have judged the best. Morepartnerincome is one of those 100 and is listed under the category of Lawyer’s Toolkit along with such greats as Adam Smith, Esq., Dennis Kennedy blog, Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog.

Now you can cast your vote! You can vote for all of your favorates without having to chose, for example, among such blogs as What about Clients, morepartnerincome or Adam Smith, Esq. You can vote for all of your favorite blogs that appear on the ABA list.

Why should you take the time to cast your vote? You frequent certain blogs because of their benefit to you and your law firm. What is remarkable is that the ideas, the how to’s, the check lists, the short cuts and the heads up have all been a free service. Casting your vote is fair turn around, a little payback or compensation. It is a way of saying thank you for the time you have taken, as a blogger, to share your experience and expertise.

Please cast your vote for morepartnerincome and the other blogs that are contributing to your success and/or the success for your law firm.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center:

877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.

Law Firms With Strategic Plans More Profitable

Admin — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 14:00:00 GMT

74% of respondents to the 2007 Remsen Group Managing Partner Survey (part of the 2007 Juris Law Firm Economic Survey from LexisNexis) stated their firm did not have a strategic plan. 89% of those that did believed that a strategic plan had either some connection or a strong connection to improving profitability.

So managing partners understand that planning helps to improve profitability. Why is it that more firms don't have strategic plans?

Ed Wesemann with Kerma Partners has an answer. In an article published by The Law Marketing Portal (can also be read at the Kerma Partners website after free registration), Wesemann gives 10 "inescapable truths about law firms' approach to strategic planning that make the process harder and less rewarding than it should be":

1. Law firms often have trouble agreeing on their core business objectives.

2. Strategic planning is not a democratic process.

3. Mission statements are a waste of energy and enthusiasm.

4. Strategies and tactics are confused.

5. Planning involves precluding options.

6. Too much planning effort is spent worrying about compensation.

7. The obvious is often overlooked.

8. No one is accountable for implementing the plan.

9. Plans are too aggressive.

10. Objectives are not measurable.

1. Law firms often have trouble agreeing on their core business objectives.

The problem of agreement on core business objectives found its way into a MPIE (Managing Partner Idea Exchange) breakout session in the Midwest Managing Partner Forum held in October. A partner wanted to increase the profitability of the firm but also wanted a better work/life balance. Failure to reconcile the two left the partner indecisive on how to proceed on objectives for her firm. Wesemann simplifies the objective: "[i]n any business the primary objective is to increase shareholder value." How you define value will determine what objectives you set.

2. Strategic planning is not a democratic process.

Strategic planning is about vision. Vision requires leadership. Leadership is a function of management. In the business world, a small group of leaders gain input from others, make a decision, then ask others how they should implement the process. With law firms, it is the opposite: the leaders want to work as a democracy, all want to have a say in the decision, and afterward assign a single person to be responsible for implementing the process. Assigning accountability to one individual defeats the purpose - the entire firm must be accountable for the implementation of the plan once adopted.

3. Mission statements are a waste of energy and enthusiasm.

Wesemann argues that firms spend too many hours trying to create a concise mission statement that ends up sapping the energy of the participants and turning the process into a "meaningless exercise". Wesemann suggests picking 5 or 6 statements that represent the core values of the firm. Look here for a good article on writing a mission statement by Joel Rose.

4. Strategies and tactics are confused.

Wesemann found that attorneys want to skip discussions of strategy and go straight to tactics. Strategy dictates direction. Tactics are the types of activities needed to achieve the objectives (look here for a higher level discussion of strategy and tactics). He suggests that attorneys clarify the strategy before embarking on tact.

5. Planning involves precluding options.

Planning involves precluding options, which are counter-intuitive to how attorneys think. Attorneys are taught to maintain options and they tend to bring this mindset into strategic planning discussions. Wesemann argues that each option requires resources and the more options maintained lessens the probability of successful implementation.

6. Too much planning effort is spent worrying about compensation.

Compensation discussions end up derailing strategic plans. Wesemann's suggestion? Focus on increasing the size of the pie, not what portion a person gets. James Cotterman wrote a nice article for Altman Weil's Report to Legal Management examining compensation that can be read here.

7. The obvious is often overlooked.

Firms tend to neglect the basics while focusing on the sexier issues (read: compensation discussions). Issues such as providing good service, having good work habits, charging appropriate fees, etc., should be appraised to see where the firm's strengths and weaknesses lie.

8. No one is accountable for implementing the plan.

Law firms are the best at "voluntary requirements". Wesemann argues that the success of strategic plans rely upon accountability by everyone, which means no opting out if you disagree.

9. Plans are too aggressive.

When firms finally get around to planning, they over-reach and set overly aggressive goals inevitably leading to failure. Keep the goals in line with available resources.

10. Objectives are not measurable.

One of the constant mantras of this blog is that measurement improves performance. Law firms must define what their objectives are and measure their progress towards their goal. Make sure your accounting system has the ability to measure performance in real-time via dashboards with drill-down reporting. Creating the strategic plan is only the beginning. Success of your strategic plan requires benchmarking and continuous measurement so that if your financial objectives are not being achieved, you can adjust your tactics - and stay on track with your strategy.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center:

877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com

Behind Every Successful Law Firm is a Storyteller

Admin — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 19:13:35 GMT

We call them plans, brochures, beauty contests, sales pitches, ads, web sites, blogs, presentations, speeches, court appearances, briefs, letters, etc. They are stories! The greats in every field and every endeavor are great storytellers. Stories sell products, move the populace, rally the troops, win games, sway juries and accomplish shared business goals.

When recruiting, you are telling a compelling story, one that helps the candidate visualize becoming a part of your law firm team. When you talk to a prospective client, winning their business will depend on the story you tell. It is the story you tell that wins or loses your client’s case. Your business plan will only succeed if it is a story that unifies your organization behind shared ambitions in pursuit of a common goal.

Peter Guber is a successful executive and a storyteller par excellence. He also produced such movies as Rain Man, Batman and The Color Purple. He understands the power of story and what it takes for a story to move and captivate people. Writing for the December 2007 edition of the Harvard Business Review, he shares the “Four Truths of the Storyteller”--“The stories that move and captivate people are those that are true to the teller, the audience, the moment and the mission.”

The storyteller has to be the authentic thing or, as Guber puts it, “their tongue, feet, and wallet must move in the same direction.” The effective storyteller knows his or her own deepest values (what I call core beliefs) and reveals them in his story with honesty and candor. As the leader of Juris, I never tired of the opportunity to explain what the original nine members of the Juris team did when we got together that first time to agree on what we wanted Juris to become. We agreed that we wanted to be those nice people from Juris. We wanted to be known for doing what we said we would do. We wanted to be a company that liked its customers and was liked by its customers. I love to explain how we came to realize that we weren’t in the computer business or even the software business. Our business was about increasing the income and wealth of law firm owner—partners. Understanding the business issues of a law firm became everyone’s mission. Regardless of their role in Juris, each member of the team gained an expert understanding of law firm performance metrics. Each knew what drove financial performance and each understood the friction points that lower partner wealth. These things are all part of the Juris story. They are the Juris brand. Without a story, you have no brand!

Guber notes that there is an implicit contract between the storyteller and his or her audience. One aspect of that contract is that the teller has to tailor the story to the expectations of those listening. That same story of that first company-wide planning meeting of the Juris team can be told different ways as the interest of and implication to the listeners are considered in its telling. What does the story mean to the listener? There are different inferences to be drawn by the prospect employee, a potential business partner, or the prospect we want to add as a client. The storyteller shapes the story to emphasize and enhance its value for the audience. It is the same story, but the audience changes and the storyteller has an obligation to make the audience a part of the story by shaping how it is told—to deliver its best value as seen through their eyes and as heard through their ears. Tailoring the story considering their interest and concerns makes the story true to that audience.

Compelling stories are true to the moment. They are told to prove a point, to overcome an objective, to defuse a situation, to resolve a conflict, to clarify, to rally, to frighten and even to threaten. The artful storyteller shapes the story to fit the moment. I’ve told the first meeting story many times. It is the same story, but every time it is told differently—to fit the moment. The moment can come in the middle of a heated discussion, before an audience of 300 managing partners, or during a dinner conversation with a client. The moment is different and the storyteller fits the story to the moment.

The story must be worth telling--from the point of view of the person being told. It must have value to the listener. To put it in Guber’s words, “A great storyteller is devoted to a cause beyond self. That mission is embodied in his stories, which capture and express values that he believes in and wants others to adopt as their own. Thus, the story itself must offer a value proposition that is worthy of its audience.”

What is most important here is to understand that they are not just plans, brochures, beauty contests, sales pitches, ads, web sites, blogs, presentations, speeches, court appearances, briefs, letters, etc. They are stories! How well those things serve you depend on how good you are as a storyteller. It is an art to be practiced.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center:

877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.

Surveyed Law Firms Report Growth Strategies

Admin — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 20:04:16 GMT

Altman Weil’s Michael C. Ross wrote, “Many successful businesses have learned that the first place to look for achievable top-line sales growth is to their existing customers. They understand that because they already have relationships with these customers, there is a greater likelihood of generating additional sales with them and the cost of doing so will be less, compared to obtaining new customers. These lessons especially apply to law firms and their clients.” Ross isn’t the only Altman Weil spokesman to beat this drum. Charles Maddock, an Altman Weil principal, has said, “It is nine times more difficult to get a new client or new practice than to retain or grow your existing business."

Given the shared insight of experts like those above, it is striking that growth from existing clients is so undervalued as a growth strategy by midrange law firms. In the most recent Juris Law Firm Economic Survey, only 5.8 percent of responding midrange law firms reported existing client growth as a specific strategy for expanding law firm revenues. Similarly, only 13.5 percent of firms have a specific strategy for new client acquisition through marketing programs.

If new client sales and expansion of services to existing clients are not key strategies, what are the top growth strategies? Lateral partner hires came in as the top strategy among surveyed firms! Starting a new practice area comes in at number two. The anecdotal evidence certainly supports the survey findings. Participate in a partner retreat or a law firm planning session and both lateral hires and practice area additions are usually the first thing voiced by participants in the opportunities portion of SWOT exercises.

New revenue from a lateral partner addition seldom trickles down to increase the income of the firm’s existing partners. Laterals tend to increase the pie but not the size of the individual slices. Laterals frequently produce disappointing results and can be highly disruptive to the culture of an established law firm. When firms were asked to indicate their most successful source of new hires, laterals with five or more years in practice rank at the bottom while new graduates come out on top.

The addition of new practice areas can be a meaningful strategy for firms faced with changing market conditions or where needed to support new emerging needs of existing clients in response to changes in laws, regulations or industry conditions. On the other hand, growth through diversity of practice runs counter to the advice of leading consultants and business experts. Their advice is to define your market and your service scope narrowly and then dominate that market for your service segment.

Lateral hires and new practice areas may appear to be the easy way to grow your law firm, but there is far greater reward in doing it the old-fashioned way.

Hang on to your existing clients
- Grow with your clients
- Grow by expanding the value of your services to those clients
- Grow by showing your client where you can add value through legal services for which no need previously existed
- Grow by expanding your services to fill new emerging needs of your client
- Grow by expanding your targeted share of a client’s business
Expand your clients through deliberate marketing and “sales” efforts
- Clearly and narrowly define your market and identify your prospects
- Understand your prospects’ needs and their issues
- Understand your firm’s value proposition
- Tout it through marketing
- Make contact, talk client talk vs. legal talk, build relationships, communicate value and ask for the business

The current addition of Law Firm Economic Survey from LexisNexis is provided to participating law firms without charge. Others may purchase the 80-page report for $495.00 by calling 877.377.3740. Additional copies for the same law firm are $50.00 each.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center:

877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.

Law Firm Partners Link Profitability to Rate Increases/ Cost Cutting

Admin — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:06:12 GMT

One of the interesting questions posed in the Remsen Group Managing Partner Survey (part of the Juris 2007 Law Firm Economic Survey by LexisNexis (the Survey)) related to managing partners' strategic perceptions of profitability. When asked "What strategy has your firm found to be most effective in its efforts to achieve higher profitability?", 26% of the managing partners responded that increasing fees was their firm's most effective strategy. Coming in second was marketing and business development (25%), then cost cutting/ expense reduction ( 18%), improved efficiency (14%), higher billable hour requirements and divesting of low profit work (both under 10%).

Though it isn't surprising that firms list rate as the top strategy to achieve higher profitability, most firms only increase rates at or just above the pace of inflation. According to the Survey, standard billing rates increased an average of 5% to 7% between 2005 and 2006. Adjusted for inflation (currently around 3.5%) this increases rates by 1.5% to 3.5% before other costs of doing business are calculated into the rate (such as the continual decline in client willingness to pay for costs such as online research). Increasing rates in such a way may achieve higher profitability but at 1.5%-3.5% is it the most effective strategy?

What is more surprising and at odds with other Survey findings are the respondents that claimed that cost cutting/ expense reduction was their most effective strategy to achieve higher profitability. Survey numbers do not show any correlation to increased partner income and low expenses. In fact, according to the Survey, the firms with the highest per-partner draws spent the most - but also had the highest margins.

Most Survey respondents gave low priority to improved efficiency, divesting of low profit work and (surprisingly) increasing billable hour requirements. Yet survey numbers from both 2005 and 2006 consistently show that those firms who had the highest partner income performed well across all five of the key performance metrics (rate, utilization, realization, operating margin and leverage).

The New York Lawyer posted on December 4th that some firms have been cutting staff in a bid to lower operating costs. Said Southern California legal recruiter Larry Watanabe, "They want to retain rainmakers, and to do that, you have to maintain a meaningful level of profitability." So they must. However, again, based on this year's Survey, the firms in the 1st Quartile (representing the highest per partner income) also had the highest operating expenses. If you are cutting costs to maintain profitability, then the firm isn't growing and this is no achievement. This may indicate that for those 18% of firms who used cost cutting as a strategy to increase profits, times aren't so good.

What factors are more likely to achieve higher profitability?

• Better efficiency in workflow – lower the days to bill and days to collect fees;
• Discontinue “lock-step” compensation increases to the extent your firm uses this to compete;
• Adopt and adhere to a written, achievable strategic plan;
• Measure your key performance metrics:
o Effective rate upon collection of fees;
o Realization both at billing and collection;
o Productivity (billable hours or equivalent);
o Operating Margin;
o Leverage – either by headcount or billable hours;
• Market to your strengths – don’t be afraid to ask for business.

What strategy has your firm found to be most effective in its efforts to achieve higher profitability?

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center:

877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com .

Irony, Incent and the Case for Contemporaneous Timekeeping by Attorneys

Admin — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:06:22 GMT

Speaking of irony, one of the most timeless of topics revolves around time. Time and expertise are all an attorney has to sell, whether it be in current expertise (litigating a matter) or in transferring it into a workable and reusable template (transactional forms). Valuation of that expertise is determined by the time it takes to perform a task. The fact that some attorneys consider timekeeping anathema further feeds fodder to irony.

You can’t accurately place a value on a task without recording the time it takes to do it. You can't accurately place a value of an hour's work without recording the time you spend working.

For law firms of any size, discussing the importance of recording billable work timely can quickly become circular. For example, some attorneys use the excuse that recording time costs them money since it takes time away from them doing billable work. Of course, not recording time leaves billable work unrecorded and thus unbillable, which costs them money.

For those firms who have defied the gravitational pull of lazy timekeeping, the issue then becomes execution – how do you provide incentives for compliance? Do you implement punitive or rewarding incentives?

David Lat at Above The Law, in a post in August, posted a memo from a large firm who took the punitive route, punishing lawyers who don’t enter time daily. The relevant portion of the memo read:

Notification of non-compliance will be given to the Office of Attorney Development as well as to the leader of the delinquent timekeeper’s department or practice group. Failure to comply will impact the performance evaluation of a timekeeper and, in repeated cases, will result in a timekeeper no longer being eligible for direct deposit of his or her compensation.

One can envision an attorney first reading the above thinking back to the days in law school, all the promise, all the glory and excitement for being a champion of that which binds our civilization. Then, as he/she focuses on the memo again, the “self actualization” moment: I am a rat in a cage.

Punitive measures for non-compliance appear more like a tax in my opinion. You are taxing the timekeeper for not following your guidelines. If this method works and doesn’t affect the long-term retention of talent, then it is a good idea. However, in the above example, the firm is trading one administrative headache for another. Recording your work timely helps administration by having less to perform to get bills out - the time is in, now bill it. However, if the attorney doesn't record time within the allocated grace period, then not only does the administration get stuck with getting the attorney to record their billable work but they also get the hassle of manually processing the attorney's paycheck! The admin can't win!

There are other ways to encourage compliance. Rewarding contemporaneous timekeeping is like providing a tax cut – you give something back to timekeepers for doing what they should be doing anyway.

For example, a Juris client gives timekeepers cash if they get their time in before deadline. They spend tens of thousands of dollars a year compensating eager timekeepers yet their margins are higher than before the policy was implemented. They are making money by spending money targeted to achieve a positive result.

Another gives out candy – and reports that it works well. Some post numbers to a board or send out daily/weekly emails, ranking those timekeepers based on productivity (you don’t have to show numbers; the ranking alone is enough to expose the weak). If you don’t record your time, your number is lower regardless of how much work has been performed. Using this method, though, is based on an assumption of competitiveness. It isn’t uncommon for the chronic problem attorneys to show little care for their plight.

Any incentive must be accompanied by mentoring for those who struggle to make their numbers. Gimmics may be effective at improving the performance of those who are coachable, but the goal is to keep the cash flowing inward. You can either be punitive up front or on the back end but regardless you need to know when to show a timekeeper the door. A timekeeper that can't or won't help the firm stay profitable is a drain on resources and must be marginalized to lessen the affect it has on the producers. Otherwise you risk losing the talent that help make the firm profitable.

There are many ways to get attorneys to record time as work is performed. Set up benchmarks and measure against them to see if your methods are working. If not, change them. Management isn’t a one-time check of the pulse. It requires constant measurement and adjustment.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center: 877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com