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Financial Education Through Software

By Fernando Schreiner
January 31, 2014

Clients should always be a lawyer's first priority. While in the midst of juggling multiple cases, supervising other attorneys and the required reporting that comes along with the practice of law, it's a challenge for many lawyers to find the time to understand the financial side of their practices. At Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP, a 150-year-old global law firm with over 1,000 lawyers and another 1,000 staff, financial education has become a priority. When our lawyers became better equipped to understand the economics of their practices, our firm was able to sustain growth and increase efficiency as well as improve client service across the board.

Our Challenge

Our journey to improve financial education at Orrick began in 2010 when we brought in our current Chief Financial Officer (CFO), who had 30 years of non-law firm business experience and created detailed P&Ls for our practice groups and divisions. In late 2011, after my arrival at Orrick, we realized the technology we were leveraging needed a facelift. With 23 global locations, we were processing massive amounts of data from lawyers, project managers and staff in multiple countries that sit across a variety of industry areas. Our team of financial managers and analysts spent about 70% to 80% of their time trying to just access this data, 20% to 30% on reporting, and very little to no time on data analysis.

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