Freestyle™
$15,000
There are few opportunities for lawyers who hold management positions, or who aspire to serve in firm or practice management roles, to learn the fundamentals of running a business. I’m regularly invited to deliver an introductory business course to young associates. I also regularly collaborate with law firm CFOs to provide a “law firm finance for partners” course to senior associates on the fast track, or to newly-promoted partners. Some law firms even invest in mini-MBA courses, inviting me and advisors in other disciplines to participate in a series of webinars or in-person seminars on topics ranging from marketing, business development, finance, pricing, project management, process improvement, customer service, performance management, and strategic planning, among others. Interest and attendance in these programs varies from firm to firm, but one constant is that rarely does any lawyer serving on the executive or management committee bother to attend!
Ironically, the lawyers with the greatest potential to do great things with a bit more business training are often those already holding management positions. Freestyle™ is a half-day, fully interactive workshop designed for current managers and leaders eager to eliminate blind spots and improve their management acumen. The content is designed to equip your executive committee to understand the business, financial, and operational challenges facing your law firm in a fast-changing and often challenging legal market. Freestyle™ combines the most relevant elements of my Thrive Keynote™ with a facilitated discussion to help illustrate specific impacts of market changes to your firm. Where we go with it, which topics we emphasize, and in what depth, are a function of your needs, interests, challenges, and opportunities. With your projector, whiteboard, and executive team assembled, we will supply the insights, ideas, and integrated understanding of the law firm eco-system.
Most law schools provide little in the way of business and finance training, and few lawyers have the time to invest in a multi-year executive MBA program or even a weeklong residence at a business school (though we are thrilled with those who do). This workshop focuses on the most important fundamentals, and can incorporate topics like these:
How and why to precisely measure the drivers of your firm’s revenue and profit
How and why to measure and analyze matter profitability, timekeeper profitability, client profitability, office & practice group profitability, and what decisions this information should inform
How and why to allocate direct and indirect law firms costs according to standard accounting guidelines and typical law firm best practices
How to avoid time-wasting arguments about office size, consumption of resources, and headcount, and instead focus on what really matters to management: guiding partners to make wise decisions on pricing and staffing so they can deliver a high-quality work product profitably and efficiently
How and why to measure and analyze your firm’s clients’ buying trends to differentiate the service offerings facing commoditization and price pressure from the service offerings providing a demonstrable and sustainable pricing advantage, and what to do about it
How and why to untether your firm’s profits from the severe constraints self-imposed by hourly and cost-plus pricing and learn to price strategically to boost profits — often without adding headcount or raising rates
How and why to establish a rigorous and consistent approach across all practices and offices for partners to embrace and manage price negotiations, matter staffing, matter budgeting, billing processes, and client service standards
How and why to augment the partner compensation plan to better recognize and reward different skills and contributions — tangible and intangible, financial and non-financial — to put partners in the best position to succeed, and to better link what’s good for the partner with what’s good for the firm
How and why to improve your associate and lateral recruiting efforts by focusing on strategic priorities, incorporating market intelligence about supply and demand, assessing candidates’ skills and cultural fit, analyzing the viability of a lateral’s book of business, and how to truly differentiate your firm when you can’t or won’t compete in the inane game of salary wars
How and why to improve the integration of new arrivals by focusing on hidden causes of unrealized expectations — a culture that may not be optimized for collaboration, mentoring, or cross-selling; a training process reliant on partners and senior associates with no background in training, mentoring, curriculum design, or performance management, and whose communication and delegation skills require telepathy; and a work allocation process driven by partner preference and comfort rather than a rigorous adherence to a potocol of availabilty, capability, interest, and equity
How and why management should take the lead in all succession planning efforts, from identifying the senior partners’ timetables, selecting junior partner candidates, overseeing the multi-year transition for key clients, managing incentives, and resolving disputes
How and why to establish effective governance by clearly defining which decisions are reserved for partners; defining the span of control delegated to management, to committees, to practice or office leads, and to individual partners; how to balance transparency and communication with the need for business velocity and fiscal controls; how to measure the performance of firm managers, including whether to compensate for management roles; how to identify and groom future managers; and how to manage the transition of partners into and out of management roles
How and why to identify and hire capable business professionals to lead each business function, how to set expectations and measure performance, learning when to oversee and when to micromanage,
How to develop, implement, and oversee a strategic plan at the firm and practice level, including how to link operating budgets and incremental investments to specific strategic outcomes, and how to ensure operational alignment by saying no, or authorizing business professionals to say no, to tactics and expenditures inconsistent with strategic priorities
How to manage and and oversee an operating budget, including the importance and utility of a balance sheet and an income statement; understanding the role of, and relationships between, hours, rates, billings, collections, revenue, profit margin, profit dollars, and cash flow; understanding the critical difference between a cost and an investment; understanding the role of financial levers such as lines of credit and capital calls; how to analyze an investment opportunity, both in isolation and relative to alternative opportunities; how to make an informed build vs. buy decision; how to oversee managers who manage budgets, including establishing consistent protocols for budget changes; how to oversee an ancillary business; and how to oversee (or participate in) the annual allocation of partner compensation
How to establish a vision and lead change, including establishing new strategic priorities or sunsetting old ones; capturing key stakeholder input prior to announcing or implementing change; communicating effectively and regularly; how to manage course correction; and how to celebrate successes
Despite the breadth of topics enumerated above, this is only scratching the surface of the skills and competencies expected in a senior manager or leader of a complex enterprise like a modern law firm. Depite advanced degrees and decades of experience, even many business leaders struggle in one or more of these areas, and few have enjoyed uninterrupted success through competitive headwinds and the inevitable disruption of adverse business cycles. So it’s unreasonable to expect lawyers with minimal business training to be business experts the moment they’re elected to a role in firm or practice management. Plus, while many law firms operate in a similar fashion, the particular combination of challenges and opportunities present in your firm are unique and there is no one-size-fits-all training program to position you for success.
The Freestyle™ workshop is designed to address your particular needs. We cover what you want to cover. We incorporate concepts and examples relevant to your practice mix, your client base, your financial position, and your firm’s demographics. This is a truly unique discussion tailored to each firm that brings me in. You will walk away with answers you need to be most effective in your role.
By the way, I’m often asked, “Why do you call it Freestyle and not mini MBA for ECs?” The name Freestyle emerged when I found discussions with executive and management committees scheduled for one topic were often derailed by questions about ancillary topics. Some of these diversions were critical to the success of the instant issue. Others were unrelated but important questions, posed by managers who saw me as a helpful resource, and who wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to pick my brain in a safe space, i.e., none of them would ask these questions in the presence of other partners, let alone associates or business staff.
We’d like to incorporate profitability into our comp plan, but we can’t agree how to measure profit. In fact, it’s a toxic subject in our firm. How do other firms do it?
We’ve always kept a tight rein on costs, but we’re seeing a pattern where others spend while we don’t. It can’t be coincidence that everyone else is growing faster than we are. How do we learn when to say yes? How do we sell higher overhead to the shareholders?
You blew me away when you said we may be overpaying our high-rate partners because their rates are far lower than the firms they compete with, even though their rates are higher than others in our firm. You also said using rate realization as a performance metric is meaningless if we’re billing clients the wrong rate. How do we know the right rate?
We have several senior partners with big books retiring in the next few years. Our hands-off approach hasn’t worked because we’ve lost junior partners who aren’t willing to wait. When we got more involved, a senior partner left and took his big client with him, less than a year before his mandatory retirement. What did you mean by “Succession can be funded as a firmwide investment?”
I’ve found these unscheduled and free form business discussions — with no script, no agenda, no pre-reading or preparation by any attendee, no boring slides, just a flip chart and a few sharpies, and an open Q&A on whatever topics we could fit in during our time together — so intellectually invigorating that I decided to offer it proactively. If I can help you, whether in an unscripted freestyle format or a laser-focused discussion of a specific topic, let’s talk.
