Report Card: What Do the Numbers Say About Your Law Firm?

Lawyers make ad hoc decisions about business management, all the time.  But, those decisions are often wrong – because they’re built on false assumptions about how the business works.  Attorneys often overestimate how much money they make, and underestimate how much money they pay out, in terms of case expenses and overhead.  That leads to a lot of disappointment, as you might imagine. 



But, there is a pathway to make better decisions about how to run a law firm – and, as it turns out, the data’s right there in front of you.  Most law firms are using case management software or accounting software, which is where law firm financial data is arrayed.  The majority of attorneys capture that information for tax and billing purposes only; but, they don’t use it for anything else.  But, each of those systems include custom reports and useful dashboards, that can provide you insight into the financial health of your law firm.  Want to know how much you have racked up in accounts receivable – you can get that number down to the second decimal point?  How fast are you working – check your utilization rate?  What’s your collection rate? – if it's too low, you can then look at ways to collect more money, faster. 

 

If you want to get a head start on accessing data, and making better decisions about managing your practice, based on that data – it’s at your fingertips.  Start by checking in on the template reports that your software tools offer, and then stop making choices like your hair’s on fire, and get more circumspect about your business management. 

 

. . . 

 

Want to discover more about your own practice, using data?  We can help. 

Through a unique partnership between the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar and Jared Correia’s Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, Maine attorneys have access to experienced law practice management consultants at a special discounted rate. 

To get started, visit Red Cave’s landing page for Maine attorneys, and start running your law practice like a business.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Buried Treasure: What Software Features Are You Missing?

Image
What’s been great lately, is that lawyers are increasing their reliance on technology .  That means that law firms are adding efficiency, and revenue.     This is fantastic , absolutely .  But, there’s still more work to do.     That’s because lawyers may be overpaying for technolog y; and, it’s largely because they’re buying new stuff without looking harder at what they already have.   In fact , there are lots of instances where attorneys will purchase a new product without assessing whether they have that tool already included as a feature in another technology platform .  This often happens with productivity software and law practice management software .  The former can include tools like video conferencing and internal chat as product features (meaning you don’t have to pay any more money to use them); and, the latter can include tools like e signature and epayment as product features .  In some cases, and depending on a user’s subscription level, there may limitatio
Read more

Thinking Outside the Inbox: Email Tips

Image
Email drives business; yet, it also drives most of us crazy.     If this is the year you want to take control of your email, here are some steps you can take:     -Consider using a non-email program for in-office communications, like Slack .  This will mean that your inbox can become ‘ mission-critical ’ , where you receive only messages from clients and colleagues, while you r staff and associate messages filter to another media .  Slack is free.   -Use ‘ rules ’ to push less important email out of si ght .  Set up email rules that will filter advertisements to a subfolder, that you can look at when you’re ready, so that those message don’t invade your inbox .  Gmail, for example, has a built-in ‘Promotions’ inbox .  You can also utilize your junk email filter to better manage unwanted messages.     -Use a law practice management software, that will integrate with your productivity software, to archive your emails .  That way. you won’t have to save everything in a bursting
Read more

The Nice and Naughty List: How to Pick New Software

Image
Selecting new law firm software can be a daunting prospect .  There are so many options, that attorneys are often waylaid by a paralysis of analysis, and then don’t end up making any positive changes at all .  This is why a lot of law firms end up relying on old and obsolete technologies, rather than updating to modern tools .  Once again, inertia becomes the single worst enemy of law firms.   But, when lawyers do end up selecting specific softwares , they often do so in a hasty manner, just to ensure the painful process end s quickly .  In that case, the selected software is often not a good fit for the law firm, so that attorneys and staff end up wasting time building inefficient workarounds, that dress up the problem, and make the software just a little more palatable for the law firm ’ s use case.     Neither option is particularly compelling.     And, the truth of the matter is that the process of selecti ng the right software for a law firm is not an easy one , and it takes
Read more