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The Metric System: How to Engender a Performance Culture in Your Law Firm

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The most successful law firms are not those who coast about, on a veritable lazy river of business development .   No, the law firms that grow aggressively do so because they have set goals in place – even so-called ‘ stretch goals ’ – to ramp up unusually effectively.     In those same law firms, performance is driven by data .   There are lots of efficiency metrics that can be established by law firm owners, across all categories of business .   Utilization rate is an effective way to measure how much productive work your staff can get done in any given day .   You can also look after how long it takes to move f r om one segment of a workflow to another, to get leaner.   The first step is to measure .   Figure out how well or poorly you’re performing inside of certain categories, in order to establish a baseline .   Once that baseline is available, you need to decide where you’d like it to be . ...
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Inside Job: Yes, It's Time to Start Checking Your Existing Software Tools Before You Buy New AI

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One of the more solid pieces of advice I’ve come up with over the course of my consulting practice has been to advise attorneys that they should never buy a new software, until they check whether one of their existing tools does not already include the feature.     This has saved countless law firm owner s from buying, for an example ripped from the headlines : an esignature product, when it was already included in their law practice management (LPM) software or customer relationship management (CRM) software subscription .   Literally, dozens of dollars saved .   Of course, now, as more and more primary software products begin to feature AI, this strategy takes on an elevated status:     Now, you’ve also got to check whether: (1) the AI feature you need is already included in a product you already have; and, (2) whether you need to pay more, to get access to it, in said product.  You see, sometimes your product subscription will include all...
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When the Bill Comes Due: Why Time Tracking Will Always Be Important

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It might be that artificial intelligence is finally what kills the billable hour , or at least maims it.     The billable hour is the seemingly immortal cockroach of the legal industry .   Apparently, lawyers & clients both hate it – but, here it still is: prevailing.     Though, cracks are beginning to appear in the facade .   Law firms adopting AI tools seem to be reconciled to the fact that massive efficiency will gut the model, to the point where attorneys can’t just ‘get more clients’ to make up the difference .   Faced with the prospect of losing revenue by becoming too efficient: value-based billing lurks as a viable alternative for law firms .   Meanwhile, law firm clients have always understood that hourly billing bred inefficiency – and, that they were the ones paying for it .   However, now they have a new club with which to pound after their complaints .   They know that you can ...
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