Law firms are always on the lookout for new business. With increased competition, you ought to develop strategies that give you an upper hand over your competitors. As a lawyer, your main objective should be to offer the best services to your clients and attract more. Your reputation is what will bring business to your doors.
Efficiency is very critical to the success of any legal firm. What if efficiency? Efficiency can be described as the energy put into a task in relation to its usefulness. At a law firm, it can mean innovation, profitability, client satisfaction or the general health of the company. Improving efficiency should comprise improving processes and increasing profitability. Below are ways to improve efficiency and results at your law firm.
1. Know when to Grow
Lawyers understand that just a small part of the day is used practicing law. A good part of the day, particularly for small legal firms, is spent managing the daily business operations. It is important to find out when these tasks take too much of your time and energy. That’s the only way you will be able to know what is hindering you from offering the best services to your clients.
The best way to do this is to learn how to track the amount of time spent engaging in business practices. If you notice that non-billable business management duties are starting to encroach upon billable hours, then consider scaling or hiring more staff. Hiring an extra attorney may sound obvious but you should also think of employing more support staff.
2. Hire a Marketing Specialist
Efficiency goes beyond minimizing the time spent on tasks. It should also entail a plan to increase profitability. A marketing expert will increase efficiency and results in two ways: By cutting down the time you spend on marketing activities. This means you will dedicate more time to billable hours. The second way is to attract new prospective clients.
You need to understand that you are a lawyer and not a marketer. Trying to juggle the two is likely to work against you. A qualified and experienced marketer can help build your social media presence as well as create conventional forms of marketing like billboards and postcards.
Finding a marketing specialist should not be a big issue. You can use platforms like LinkedIn or just hire a freelance specialist. But you should ensure that the person you hire has both legal and marketing skills.
3. Use Technology to Conduct In-depth Research
For you to conduct your cases in a professional and effective manner, you must carry out thorough research. This will not only help you present strong cases in court but also build a reputation among your clients. For example, you can hire a company to help you use legal case search tools to scan real-world data, detect legal violations and deliver justice. You need to invest in the latest technology to conduct proper research on different cases brought by your clients.
4. Set Clear Goals and Remain Focused
Working without goals is another way of preparing for failure. Vague goals beget vague results. If you are keen on improving results at your legal firm business, then you ought to set SMART goals.
SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Specific goals not only make you and your team focused and accountable but also give you tangible targets to track your results and progress. It is good to set both short-term and long-term goals early enough and keep everyone on the same page.
5. Track Key Metrics
It is not good to assume that your efforts are paying off. You must have a way of tracking and measuring results. For instance, if you are using different marketing techniques to promote your legal business, it would be a good idea to track and find out which of these techniques is bringing in more customers.
This will help you to abandon strategies that are not working and invest more in those that are generating more business. Besides, monitoring key performance indicators (KPI) related to law firm performance offers accountability and data that can be used to make concrete decisions.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, there are many ways you can improve the results of your legal firm business. The above-mentioned tips are just some of the tips you can apply.