Practice Management Takes Hold in Smaller and Mid-Size Firms

Managing partners in many firms have relegated the practice of law to individual partners and have been reluctant to impose their judgments on how individual client matters were being performed. This results from the belief that lawyer management should not have to follow-up on partners responsible for performing client work or for managing substantive practice areas.

It has been this author's experience that practice management and firm management interact most closely when firm revenue and the net profit available to partners declines. When partners begin to feel the economic pinch in their pockets, there is a greater tendency to view practice areas and individual attorneys as profit centers. As such, lawyer management needs to review all of the factors contributing to profitability and to address the following questions:

• How profitable are our practice areas?
• Should the firm continue to practice in these areas or redirect its efforts to other areas?
• Can certain partners and associates be re-assigned to other more profitable practice areas? If so, what training will be required to bring these attorneys up to speed in these areas? If not, what should be done with these attorneys?
• Should certain partners be assigned accountability for managing particular practice areas?
• What should be the role, responsibility and level of accountability of the heads of practice areas?

An increasing number of smaller and mid-size law offices have introduced and implemented practice management activities to insure partner coordination, control and accountability over fields of law, areas of practice and client matters.