Law firm structure: The key to high practice standards

By Thomas Berman, Principal, Berman & Associates

Regardless of the firm’s structure, as it grows and develops, management must have the authority to manage.

This means that individuals in various positions must be given the wherewithal to instruct other partners, as well as associates. This is a difficult transition for many, but it provides for the necessary transparency, efficiency and economic success of the practice, which should be the ultimate goal.

The first step is to make some of the necessary '¨changes on a relatively informal footing. Many firms never '¨go beyond this point. Those that do, however, are the ones at which intelligent growth is at least a possibility.

Informally-developed sections/practice groups are fine to a point. But, by their very nature, they tend to exert less control over an individual lawyer’s practice than in a more formalised and defined environment.

A more formalised structure carries with it an implicit direction or plan for the future. It provides for a far more rigorous implementation of firm objectives, including a realised baseline of best practice theory. A less formalised structure exists merely to attempt to accomplish certain internal requirements which, by its very definition, it really cannot accomplish.

A formalised structure will define critical elements to growth, such as managerial requirements and realisation of the development of overall firm objectives, new case evaluation standards, conflicts determination, calendaring and so forth.
Most importantly, it assists in the development of '¨best practices. The very act of formalisation helps to '¨set out best practice standards because it provides a '¨base mark for case activity, case management and '¨practice methods.

Balancing roles and responsibilities

In a larger law firm context, individual or hands-on management is a very difficult proposition. The issues involved in managing a larger law firm are very complex '¨and the details often overlooked when everyone is '¨wrestling with the big picture.

Management is really dealing with a series of little pictures which, taken together, make up the larger whole. This suggests the great importance of this position in order for the firm to become more efficient and profitable and have more control over its fate.

In this context, the practice section heads handle the day-to-day case management responsibilities. Section heads function in much the same way as a managing principal might in a smaller firm. Indeed, in some firms, certain partners are already performing this kind of management and supervision using micro-management vehicles.

The very process of delineating the responsibilities of the position is a crucial step in the evolution of the section theory, because it forces a firm to view all of the lawyer-management roles in one larger picture: What do we want from the role? What should the responsibilities consist of? And, how does the role of the section manager compare '¨with the role of the managing partner, executive committee, CFO or COO?

For that reason, simply evaluating these various roles in this context is a highly significant activity and one which, in some cases, makes the firm take flight because of the clarification and simplification of those roles and their corresponding impact on the firm’s lawyers.

The position suggested here is to include working with other partners to facilitate casework: setting priorities, ensuring that cases are managed with the appropriate level of staffing (lawyer and non-lawyer); helping to weed out lawyers and staff whose contributions are not appropriate for the section; and, together with the managing partner and executive committee, creating reporting requirements and ensuring they are met, and setting budgets of time and expense for new casework.

For most firms, getting to this point of development will add to their security and survival, as well as place them in a far more competitive posture. Decisions are made much more efficiently. Planning takes on a far different and more significant meaning.

The firm sets standards of the practice which should '¨be more transparent and more effectual and, at the end of the day, most lawyers get what they really want, which is to be left alone to practise their craft and let others worry '¨about the details.

tberman@bermanassociates.net