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KPIs as a Marketing Tool for Law Firms?

The Harris Cost Lawyers/Mahlab Recruitment survey of Corporate Counsel/Law Firm Relationships found that 51% of corporations use panel firms, but only 23% of Corporate lawyers had procedures in place to formally review the performance of their lawyers, even if a panel was used.

Formal KPIs provide a non-threatening environment in which a client can express their concerns and desires. It is an interesting marketing tool for a law firm to propose their own set of KPIs, if the client does not do so. This assists the client, but also sets the ground rules and parameters within which the parties are operating. Identifying appropriate KPIs will require identifying the client's expectations - which is the base starting point for delivering value to the client.

We all should know that we are fortunate if a client expresses dissatisfaction, because at least we then have the opportunity to remedy the situation. 95% of clients keep quite if they are unhappy and simply never come back, or worse still, we both lose the business and end up in a dispute over costs.

Formal KPIs help avoid this.

Colour your Arguments?

A really interesting post by Matt Homan on a different way to prepare presentations and other marketing materials. Using colours to breakdown the material into facts, humour and audience participation makes you look at the presentation in a different light.

Using it to present an argument in court might lighten court proceedings a little - although the use of blue (representing audience participation) perhaps should be discouraged in a court room!

Are you a McDonalds or an Ikea delegator?

How do you delegate? A McDonalds delegator specifies in precise detail what is to be done and how - but not leaving room for the delegatee to take a different (and perhaps better) approach. The delegatee learns little from the exercise. The delegation is micromanaged, and the delegator spends too much time on the task. Therefore the delegation is inefficient.

The Ikea delegator gives instructions which may appear to have been interpreted from another language, and when the delegatee receives the instructions, some key "bits and pieces" may be missing. The delegatee has a general idea of what the end picture should be be, but can spend a great deal of time getting to an imperfect result. Given the time involved, the cost of the delegation may be significantly greater if the task had been undertaken only by the delegator. Also, the end result may not be satisfactory and the delegator may spend more time correcting or redoing the task. Again, the delegation is inefficient.

Tips for Effective Delegation

Consider the appropriate person to delegate to.
Except in exceptional circumstances, no more than one level of staff should be involved in the delegation. Avoid the partner delegating to the senior associate who delegates to the 1st year solicitor who delegates to the summer clerk. This results in enormous duplication of effort which cannot be recovered from the client.

Explain how the task fits into the whole picture.
Giving a brief background to the matter puts the
task in context and helps the person being given the task understand what is required.

Explain fully what is required – outcomes and expectations.
If you have a picture in mind of what the outcome will be, explain that. If a research project for example, will the outcome be a 20 page treatise or a 1 page summary? If necessary give guidance on how to do the task, particularly if there is one way which will be significantly more efficient – but don’t micromanage. Set out any deadline, and give pointers to any relevant resources. Most importantly in terms of costs, explain the expected outcome in terms of length of time to be expended, (is this a 5 hour job or a 1 hour job?).

Ask the person being given the task if they understand what they are expected to do.
If necessary, get them to tell you in their own words. Emphasis that they should come back for further direction or with questions if they are not clear.

Give feedback on completion of the task.
This is the only way of ensuring continuing improvement and development.

Will Your Law Firm Service Company have to Repay Clients?

Thanks to Simon Lewis (http://www.sinch.com.au/seminfor) for referring me to the release from the Queensland Legal Services Commissioner regarding charges for outlays and disbursements. Any markup on these will now have to be disclosed to clients and the client's consent obtained. This ruling also applies to service companies. In that instance, the law firm will be required to disclose the interest in the service company or other entity which is charging marked up disbursements.

Not only that but firms will need to refund markups from 1 July 2004 to avoid prosecution. It will be interesting to see if the ruling is followed up in other states. Certainly, in Victoria, markups on disbursements will not be recoverable other than in accordance with specific provision in a Cost Agreement. Some years ago the Law Institute of Victoria alerted practitioners to the difficulties of charging file management and file opening charges. The full release is at http://www.lsc.qld.gov.au/policies/guidelines.pdf