“Resources to Determine When and How to Grow Your Firm”

This is part of my series where I try to help anonymous strangers on Reddit (as u/AgileAtty). You can find the original post here.

Consider that in this incredibly challenging job market, you might be better off trying to rent capacity in parts of your practice (through outsourcing) than you’ll be by trying to buy capacity in your legal delivery team (through hiring).

The Functional Org Chart

I suggest you start by making yourself an org chart, but make it a chart of roles that currently exist within your firm WITHOUT putting names of people on it (at least at first).

It should start at the top with “CEO” and have leaders for all of your core departments (functions) reporting to that CEO. The two you probably spend the most time are the “Director of Acquisition” (marketing, sales, intake) and “Director of Delivery” (getting the actual legal work out the door). You’ll also want director roles for Finance, Technology, Facilities, and People & Culture. That’s six departments.

Then, starting with Delivery, add the more granular functions that take place within that department: Client/Case Strategy Manager, Project Manager, Document Creation Manager, Quality Assurance Manager, Delivery Coordinator (e.g. document filing), Chief Negotiator, etc. Again, no names for now, just roles or functions.

Next, build out a few of the more granular functions for the other departments. Stuff like Bookkeeping, Billing, Trust Accounting, and Accounts Payable for Finance; Space Management, Maintenance, Transportation, and Security for Facilities, and so on.

Then, once you’ve captured all of the roles that already exist within your firm, go back and pencil in the names of the people you currently have who occupy each role. For people who occupy more than one role–and I suspect you’ll be putting your name in a whole lot of places–you should also guesstimate how many hours/week (or what percentage of time in a month) that person spends in each role.

Now take a step back, realize that your personal capacity is finite, and figure out what are the roles where you can replace yourself. That might be shifting responsibilities to an existing team member, making a new hire (possibly, but not necessarily, in the delivery team), or with a 3rd party like an IT management service or a good bookkeeper. If there are others on your team wearing a lot of different hats, do the same for them.

By doing that, you’ll free up your personal capacity to focus it on the core revenue pipeline of your practice: Getting work > Delivering work > Getting paid. I think you’ll find that there are several opportunities to re-allocate your existing resources in ways that allow you to effectively capture, and deliver services for, more of the demand you’re seeing.

You should also start to see opportunities to re-think your assumptions about the work you do so that you can better utilize your existing capacity. For example, should you move your practice to more of a niche where you can charge higher rates? Should you productize some of your services to de-couple your revenues from your hours? There are plenty of ways to grow and scale that don’t involve adding staff.

Recommended Small Business Books

To answer your actual questions, here are a few books I recommend. All are about small business in general, not law firms (and that’s a good thing):

• Profit First
• Running Lean
• The E-Myth (start with the original, not the “for lawyers” version)
• Traction

Recommended Legal Ops Coaches

Finally, It sounds like you’re in a place where you’d benefit from a coach / consultant on law firm operations. That’s what I do for a living, but let me suggest a few of my competitors who I think are excellent:

• Melissa Shanahan, Velocity Work
• Ernie Svenson, Law Firm Autopilot
• Jarred Correa, Red Cave Legal

Hope that helps and good luck!