May 3, 2007  

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News & Views

FOUR MUST-HAVES FOR PRACTICE
GROUP PLANNING

Developed especially for this issue of ALA Currents and copyrighted by Altman Weil Inc. For more information, visit Altman Weil’s Web site.

By Marci M. Krufka
mmkrufka@altmanweil.com

More than ever, law firms consider practice groups the core operating units of the firm’s business. Law firm management has focused on improving leadership and management at the practice group level, practice group marketing, and most importantly, practice group business planning. Based on Altman Weil’s experience in working with law firms to develop and implement practice group business plans, we believe there are at least four must-haves for effective practice group planning.

1. Make sure your plan is fact-based.
Many times, practice groups develop their plans by getting together for a day in a conference room or off-site location, sit around a meeting table and develop their group’s strategies, having looked at nothing other than some standard reports generated by the firm’s time and billing system, and with some good intentions. To be truly effective, however, a practice group’s plan must be based on solid market research (external facts) and a candid analysis of the group’s performance (internal facts).

A practice group plan will likely include the group’s plan for growth. It may include:

• The types of clients the group will try to retain and attract, based on industry, type of client (size of company by revenues, etc.) or other criteria;
• Industries the group will target and the internal industry experience the group will build; and
• Areas of expertise the group will try to develop, both in terms of work and internal depth and breadth.

To ensure that your group’s growth strategies are successful, it is critical that the practice group have the appropriate market research to make effective decisions.

Planning Scenario 1
Your corporate group has handled several successful mergers and acquisitions in the telecommunications industry and would like to do more merger and acquisition work in that industry. Intuitively, this seems to be a good idea. Your market research, however, indicates that revenue growth in the telecommunications industry has remained flat over the past two years, that the trend is expected to continue, and that further consolidation in the industry is expected to slow in the next 18 to 24 months. If your group has this information, it will likely make an informed decision about the wisdom of an aggressive growth strategy in this area. If it does not, poor choices are likely to be made and group resources, in terms of both time and money, are likely to be used ineffectively.

Planning Scenario 2
Your litigation group has done some sophisticated coverage work in the environmental area, but it is only doing a percentage of all of the environmental coverage work its existing clients have. The group thus develops a strategy to increase its market share in this area by increasing its capabilities in environmental coverage and doing four seminars for existing clients on environmental coverage issues. Had the group done a survey of existing clients, it may have learned that four of the six major carriers it represents plan to stop writing these types of policies in the next two years, and the group likely would have decided not to pursue this strategy.

Internal facts are important to planning as well. Prior to developing your plan, the firm’s financial managers should develop an analysis of the practice group’s financial performance, including at a minimum, historical growth data (for at least three years) for teams or subspecialties, as well as information on profitability, productivity, and pricing.

Planning Scenario 3
Your intellectual property group has seen a 20 percent increase in revenues in patent prosecution work in the petrochemical industry. Naturally, this appears to be a growing area with a lot of promise, so the group decides to grow and aggressively promote this specialty. Clients, however, expect that this work be done on a fixed fee basis, and the market will only bear fixed fees within a certain range. Analysis of your financial data may have indicated that given the pricing restrictions set forth by clients, this work has much lower margins than the other patent prosecution work being done by the group, and the group may not have decided to pursue the strategy.

2. Solicit the input of your practice group members.
Practice group leaders almost always ask how to increase the likelihood that their group’s plan will actually be implemented. Be sure to get the input of the practice group’s members as part of the planning process. Gaining buy-in from the group means that the plan will be their plan, not the plan of the practice group leader or planning committee.

Your group may be too large for all of the members to participate in the planning meeting(s). You still can and should solicit their input, however, prior to developing your strategies and tactics. You can do this by conducting a brief, written or web-based survey of group members regarding important planning issues. The practice group leader may also interview key group members (who may not be a part of the planning group) and may interview all group members in a focus group format to understand the members’ thoughts and goals for the group.

Specifically, group members should be asked about:

• specific opportunities they have with existing and potential clients to acquire new work;
• potential threats to the group based upon changes in the law, the market or competitor moves;
• the group’s internal strengths and weaknesses;
• the existence of strong internal systems to support the practice – management, work allocation, matter staffing, service delivery, sharing of internal resources, professional development, and lawyer recruitment and training, to name a few;
• the group’s growth;
• the effectiveness of the group’s marketing strategies; and
• ideas for new marketing strategies the group can utilize.

3. Develop a straightforward, concise written plan.
Practice group plans need not be filled with lengthy vision or mission statements, lofty goals, or feel-good platitudes. They should also not be 20-plus page documents that are long on words but short on substance. Better to have a brief plan with strategies that will be implemented, than a white paper that will sit in a drawer, not referred to again until next year’s plan is due.

A practice group plan should be five to seven pages at the most. It should contain a concise statement of the group’s strategic intent, and specific action steps (about 10 to 20 items) that the group and its members will take to capitalize on existing opportunities, counter any threats, build on key strengths, and correct any weaknesses.

4. Include deadlines and utilize tactics to hold group members accountable.
In addition to gaining buy-in through soliciting feedback from group members, Practice Group Leaders can improve the likelihood of implementation by setting deadlines for the execution of each specific strategy and tactic in the plan. Instead of a tactic that reads, “The Pharmaceutical/Medical Device Team will write articles for publication this year,” your tactic should say, “Partners A and B, with the assistance of associates C and D, will write two articles for publication in Corporate Counsel magazine, one by March 31, 2007, and one by September 30, 2007.”

Finally, Practice Group Leaders often complain about the available means for holding lawyers accountable, other than their input into the setting of lawyer compensation (which, unfortunately, not all practice group leaders have). One method we have found to be effective is to make regular practice group meetings essentially “practice group plan implementation” meetings. In other words, your plan should serve as the basis for the agenda for most, if not all, of your regular practice group meetings.

These meetings are a perfect opportunity to remind group members of the practice group’s overall strategic intent. They should also be used to review the plan tactics as to the status of their implementation. Using the example above, during the April 2007 meeting, the Practice Group Leader would inquire, “Pharmaceutical/Medical Device Team: you were to have an article published in Corporate Counsel by March 31, 2007. Was that accomplished? If no, why not, and when can we expect that it will?” Simple as it sounds, in many practice groups, this is not a regular practice. In addition to increasing accountability, it also serves to make regular practice group meetings more meaningful – addressing a complaint we hear from many practice group members. Of course, other actions will be required to hold people accountable. They may include coaching or counseling by the practice group leader and involvement by firm management, if necessary.

Implementing Success
Effective practice group planning is one of today’s most important tools for law firm management. Including these four “must haves” in your group’s planning process will ensure that your plan and its implementation are a success.

Management Innovations

HOW TO KEEP THOSE IDEAS COMING

Employee engagement, also known as “ego involvement,” comes down to getting employees excited about the work they’re doing and its contribution to the company. That way, everybody wins. Work is more fulfilling for employees, and the company gets the best part of its workers’ brains and creative juices deployed on its projects. But engagement is a two-way street. If managers ask for employees’ passion and brains, they have to actually make use of them. Unfortunately, not every idea is worth pursuing, but it’s important to keep asking for input and to keep incorporating it whenever it makes sense. When employees’ well-intentioned ideas aren’t exactly on target, it’s important to say so and tell them why. But there are ways to soften the blow and keep those ideas coming, says HR consultant Liz Ryan. For example, ask questions. Find out the team member’s thinking behind their brainstorm. “Your opinion about what sounds like a hare-brained solution may change when you hear what prompted it,” said Ryan. Keep employees feeling heard and engaged, and they’re more likely to hit closer to the mark next time. But if you summarily reject their ideas, you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs and turned their engagement switch to “off.” And that won’t benefit the employees, you, or the company.

Business Week,
February 5, 2007

GETTING ‘SERIOS’ ABOUT E-MAIL OVERLOAD

Because Serios is a currency – a scarce resource – people get a limited amount. You must spend the currency wisely to make sure you have enough for future messages. And while the system, strictly speaking, is enterprise software, it was directly inspired by the virtual economies of online games like World of Warcraft.

CNet News.com,
February 28, 2007

Building Buy-In

SELLING IDEAS – TO YOURSELF
By Paul Trout

Though our memories may be diluted, they are rarely fully erased. The mind has a way of returning you to the past through experiencing odd things in the present. But we also have “future memories,” which Dr. Andy Conway, Professor of Psychology at Princeton University, describes as memory for future events or intentions. These intentions manifest themselves within you as dreams, wishes, goals, and fears. Future memory becomes present when an experience around this dream, goal, fear or nightmare takes place in real life.

The problem is all of those future memories – or ideas – just sit in your head. They can drive you to succeed, to not fail, or sometimes, just crazy. It’s the overload of prospective, unfulfilled memory, whether personal or professional, that weighs down thoughts and spirits. Without either making your intention real (doing something about it) or letting it go, the piling up of unexecuted ambitions can and will drive most administrators crazy.

To help you identify those thoughts you intend to embrace or let go, I’ve developed a methodology that will free up more capacity and energy to pursue things in life and in your firm that will yield greater levels of satisfaction and happiness. This methodology consists of five states of thought that exist while we are in the mode of “selling ourselves” on an idea. They are:

Sailing

• You’ve decided to execute on an idea and are ‘sailing’ ahead.
• Example: You’ve decided to spend money on redesigning your firm’s Web site and have hired a partner to help with its design.

Railing

• You’re undecided about an idea, as you’ve never done it before and are unsure of the outcome. You are ‘railing’ against yourself.
• Example: You’ve never designed a Web site and are unsure how to find a reputable vendor.

Flailing

• You’re undecided about an idea because you made a decision in the past that might not be working out the way you expected, so you are ‘flailing’ in trying to understand what to do.
• Example: You’ve hired a partner to design a Web site, but the design is not what you wanted. Firing him/her would make you look bad because you spent political capital to get others to give you budget to redesign the Web site.

Failing

• You’re undecided about an idea, because you made a decision in the past that did not work out well but are considering revisiting the ‘failing’ idea one more time by doing it differently.
• Example: The last vendor you hired to design a Web site was a disaster and cost the company lost time, productivity, and money. But you really need a redesign because a competing law firm has just launched a very successful site.

Bailing

• You’ve decided to NOT move forward, and are ‘bailing’ on the idea.
• Example: You’re not redesigning the Web site this year, for multiple reasons including lack of money, desire, or need. You’ve let it go.

The goal of the methodology is moving away from Railing, Flailing, and Failing, and moving toward Sailing and Bailing – either accepting the idea or rejecting it. The way to do that is by listening to yourselves (no, that wasn’t a typo). As I see it, there are two “selves” within. They are:

• Inner Seller, the voice in your head that loves to sell you on the possibility of sundry ideas and doing lots of things. Some ideas make sense, some are outlandish.
• Inner Buyer, the voice in your head that often prevents you from pursuing bad or risky ideas. The problem: the fear of failure is usually very high.

The Inner Buyer doesn’t buy much from the Inner seller. But when it does, there is alignment between the two selves. Either the buyer buys what the seller has to offer (Sailing) or the buyer says there is NO way that she will buy what the seller has to offer (Bailing).

But how do you find yourself transitioning to these states? By listing questions the Inner Buyer has for the Inner Seller and answering them yourself. On the highway to freeing up more capacity and energy to pursue satisfying things in life, speeding is allowed (and encouraged), but stopping never is.

Paul Trout is a Partner with Akina – a firm that helps clients improve their sales, marketing, and leadership effectiveness. This column is an excerpt from a book he is writing on Building Buy-In. He encourages readers to submit case studies, learnings, or questions about Building Buy-In, which may become part of the book and appear in a future column. Contact him via e-mail or by phone at (312) 224-8028.

Peer Points

ALA Management Solutions^SM is a free service provided as an ALA membership benefit. The professionals who staff this help desk explore resources and share information about hot law-office management topics like the one addressed here. If you have a question, call ALA Management Solutions^SM at (847) 267-1252 or e-mail infocentral@alanet.org.

INITIATING DIVERSITY PROGRAMS IN LAW FIRMS

I would like to develop a diversity program in my firm. Which resources can help me initiate this?

ALA’s Diversity Task Force developed the Diversity Toolkit designed to be used as a guide to assist in implementing and maintaining diversity initiatives in legal organizations. As each organization is unique, different techniques will work in different contexts and environments. The Toolkit is designed to allow users to select which resources best fit their organizations.

Also, be sure to visit the new Diversity section of the ALA Bookstore. Books include Building on the Promise of Diversity: How We Can Move to the Next Level in Our Workplaces, Our Communities, and Our Society and Valuing Diversity: Law Firms and Leadership in the 21^st Century.

Depending on whether you need to address diversity in your legal staff or your support staff, we have a few different suggested resources for you to try.

Addressing Diversity Among Attorneys
The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) has good information to offer. If you visit its Web site and review the Bookstore area, you’ll see both books and videos on the subject. You’ll also find summaries of its research on “Presence of Women and Attorneys of Color Continues to Rise at Large Law Firms”. See also “Presence of Women and Attorneys of Color in Large Law Firms Continues to Rise Slowly.”

The Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) offers a set of “best practices” for firms interested in developing their own diversity programs. See the document “Creating Pathways to Diversity: An Overview.” MCCA also has an article “Recruiting and Retaining Attorneys of Color.”

The American Bar Association is another excellent source. Click on the Lawyer Resources on the home page, then on Diversity. See, for example, Raising the Bar: Diversity and Retention in the Legal Profession.

The Bar Association of San Francisco has a plethora of material on diversity, including a Manual of Model Policies and Programs to Achieve Equality of Opportunity in the Legal Profession. Information on obtaining this publication, and on other programs and materials, can be found at its Web site.

You’ll also find the site of the American Institute for Managing Diversity helpful.

Addressing Diversity Among Staff
Workforce Online is a good resource. The easiest way to find its material is to search for the word “diversity” – everything you’ll want to review will be in the first few results screens. It has articles outlining diversity initiatives in various organizations that may be helpful in getting your own firm’s program up and running. Many of the materials require free registration, but they are well worth the moment of time.

Law.com published “How to Increase Diversity at Law Firms in Four Steps.”

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has a segment of its Web site devoted to diversity issues, which includes articles, a Workplace Diversity Toolkit, publications, Internet links, and more. Some of the information is restricted to SHRM members, but some is available to the nonmember.

Special Note: ALA members have free access to the ALA Reference Desk. Send any question on legal management here. Staff will conduct personal research on each question.

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