What's your approach to scoping? do you prefer a detailed narrow scope, or something broader? do you consider how you communicate this scope to the client? . In my experience, the development of a scope - and how this is communicated to clients - is an important...
In my last article I discussed why employed solicitors need to start building their own practice now. But understanding importance is the easy bit: making it happen is trickier Why? Well there are a number of reasons: lack of skills lack of principals time to develop and nurture...
It used to be a 'nice to have', but now it's pretty much essential: employed solicitors need to market! Everything that is happening and has happened in legal practice over the last ten years emphasises the extent to which employed solicitors need to start building their...
Clients resent paying for a Lexus when a cheap Toyota would have done the job. They resent paying for unnecessary value. Sometimes we need Qantas quality, but sometimes Jetstar is just fine. For solicitors, it shouldn't just be about the legal outcome, but about the service outcome - and that...
Do you have your law practice positioning sorted? Are you a big fish in a little pond, or a little fish in a big pond? And how's that all working out for you? With the massive growth of solicitors and law practices over the last decade, the market...
Offering fixed fees should not be seen as a cure-all for the silliness of under-pricing! After my last blog on low-balls and low costs estimates, I received a number of responses advocating the use of fixed fees. I'm a big fan of some fixed fees (proper...
For law practices, the issuing of low costs estimates has to be one of the biggest - and silliest - drains on profitability. Whether done deliberately, subconsciously or innocently it leads to internal write-offs, discounting, poor productivity, client frustration and stressful long hours for employed solicitors...
Do you offer a great client experience? Great - but so do most law practices: just ask them! Whilst cynicism continues to surround law practice claims of offering a superior client experience , the firms that have been more successful in using this in their promotional marketing (as...
Do you or any of your team work hard, and seem efficient - but still struggle to meet billable hour targets? Law practice productivity should be easy: you do the work, you record the time you took you, you bill the time. Easy Unfortunately, it's not that...
Do you encounter a lot of downward pressure on fees? As clients get more sophisticated and assertive, and as more areas of law are increasingly labelled as a commodity, practices are encountering more and more downward pressure on their fees. Solicitors need to fight back - but to...