PROCESS

MANAGEMENT
Managers and
Management
 Introduction
Organizations – collection of people who work
together and coordinate their actions to achieve a
wide variety of goals

Managers hold certain supervisory post in

organizations and use certain resources to achieve
certain goals

Who is a manager in a legal firm?

 What type of resources used by
manager?
Resources include people, skills, know-how and
experience, machinery, raw materials,
computers and IT, financial capital, and loyal
clients and employees
 Process
Management
 Process Management

The four essential managerial tasks of planning,

organizing, leading, and controlling which are
essential for legal office management
Four Functions of Management

1-7
PLANNING
 Planning in developing a law
firm
 Choosing organisational goals
 Next, determine the courses of action to achieve the
organisational goals

 Organisational goals are hard to accomplish without a plan

 strategic plans are there to help you succeed, and in their most
straightforward form, are a look at all the things your firm
could be doing, and narrows those down to the things your
firm is actually good at doing.
 Read article:
“How to Develop a Strategic Plan for Your
Small Firm or Solo Practice” by Adam M.
Ansari
August 09, 2017

Adam M. Ansari is a partner at Ansari & Shapiro, LLC in Chicago, Illinois.

•article originally appeared in the Winter 2016 issue of the Young Lawyers
Division Solo, Small Firm, and General Practice newsletter, volume 1, number
2. Reprinted with permission. 2016© by the American Bar Association.
 Strategic Management

• Strategic Management is the ongoing process of

aligning the organization with the environment so
that it can achieve its goals

• legal firms need to manage their unique set of

resources that sets them apart from their competitors
 Strategic planning in legal firms of
various sizes

• Larger law firms are keen in strategic planning,

incorporating new plans, and testing their viability
and application, albeit with the help of high-priced
consultants

• Can you do away with strategic planning?

• Is it’s a waste of time?
• it is non-billable work ??!!
 Smaller law firms concern..

• Are they willing to spend the time in developing a

strategic plan?

• Lawyers who have recently set out on their own fear

of creating a plan and missing each of the stated
goals, or worse yet, the concern of creating the wrong
plan and ultimately putting themselves out of
business.
 A brief guide to help new
practitioners get started on
their own strategic plans.
 1st Guide

1. Who Are You and What Are You Good

At?
•Decide your firm’s greatest strengths and
weaknesses

•As a newer small practice, you might have an

exaggerated sense of accomplishment or a
limited view of your potential abilities
 1st Guide (cont.)
1. Who Are You and What Are You Good
At?
•Be honest with yourself and your current legal
and non-legal skills.

•Do an internal audit and carefully review your

financials.

•Are your clientele based on your skill?

 2nd Guide
2. Clearly Define Your Mission and Goals

•Where is your firm heading to be in one to five years?

•Issue of Selectivity: Are you contented with your

current clients and whether they are the types of clients
you would like to have in five years

•Ultimately, the goal is to create a clear vision and then

craft benchmarks that works toward and support that
vision.
 3rd Guide

3. Define Your Expected Objectives

Be realistic about your benchmarks & measure
according to your finance

research your financial goals before you commit

yourself to a project too big to handle
 3rd Guide (cont.)

3. Define Your Expected Objectives

Many firms measure themselves by smaller metrics,

such as the number of newsletters contributed to,
articles published, seminars delivered, networking
events attended, and the number of new contacts and
referral sources gained.
 4th Guide

4. Hold Yourself and Your Team Accountable

•Accountability is sometimes the hardest part of a

strategic plan

• Accountability is even more difficult for solo

practitioners as it is entirely up to the individual to hold
him or herself accountable.
 5th Guide
5. Constantly Review Your Plan

There are inevitably going to be kinks in your plan. The key is to pinpoint what is
working and what is not working and adjust the steps and metrics to account for any
processes that are not working. At the beginning, reviewing the metrics you assigned
to specific benchmarks on a monthly basis is a good start. This allows you to identify
unrealistic benchmarks and less than ideal indicators early on. For example, if you set
the mark of obtaining four new clients per month for the first quarter and you obtain
two total, then this should help indicate that one of the steps in the process needs to be
re-evaluated. What steps did you formulate to acquire the clients? Maybe you set a
goal of two blog posts per week to help acquire new clients. Instead, maybe you
should set a goal of one blog post and one networking event per week. The most
important thing to remember while planning is that your strategic plan should not be
stagnant—it needs to be considered an ever evolving process that is going to need
constant evaluation and testing to be successful.
 5th Guide
Constantly Review Your Plan

•Identify what is working and what is not working

•Identify unrealistic benchmarks and less than ideal

indicators early on

•Your strategic plan should not be stagnant—it needs

constant evaluation and testing to be successful
 PlanningDiffi & Its Hurdles
PLANNING HURDLES

• Complex, difficult activity

• Strategy to adopt might not be practical
• Executed under
ambiguity

1-23
 Organising

To achieve organisational goals, a legal firm must

establish/create:

1. task among its workforce; and

2. Authority relationship
 PlanningDiffi & Its Hurdles
Organizing TASK

Task managers create a structure of working relationships that

allow staff to interact and cooperate to achieve
organizational goals

 grouping people into departments according to the kinds of

job-specific tasks they perform
(examples, litigation department, conveyancing
department, corporate department etc.)
1-25
 PlanningDiffi & Its Hurdles
Organising TASK

 Managers lay out lines of authority and responsibility

 Decide how to organize organizational resources

1-26
 Leading
Articulating a clear organizational vision for its
members to accomplish, so that employees understands
the part they play in achieving organizational goals

Leadership involves using power, personality, and

influence, persuasion, and communication skills

Outcome of leadership is highly motivated and

committed workforce
 Controlling
•Managers must evaluate whether organization has
achieved its goals and to take any corrective actions
needed to maintain or improve performance

•The outcome of the control process is the ability to

measure performance accurately and regulate
organizational efficiency and effectiveness
 Controlling
•Key Performance Index

Appraisal/evaluation by management/peers
 MARKET ANALYSIS
In your business plan, make sure you include:

•Who will use your service

•Where your market is located: local, regional, state, national or
international
•The state of the market: growing, declining, segmented
•Market influences such as seasonal price fluctuations or trends,
eg infrastructure development, housing development demand,
commercial construction, shipping etc
•The price range: based on your target market will it be high, low
or in the middle
 TUTORIAL EXERCISE 1
Assume that you and three of your fellow lawyer
colleagues of an established law firm intend to set up a
legal practice. All of you are experts in different areas
of practice of the law and are ready to build a team of
workforce to achieve your goals. Explain how you and
your fellow colleagues may make use of the four
essential managerial tasks of planning, organizing,
leading, and controlling in managing your new law
office.
 TUTORIAL EXERCISE 2
Prepare your firm’s profile. You may visit the websites
of legal firms as a guide in drafting your firm’s profile.
 TUTORIAL EXERCISE 3
Prepare your firm’s business plan.