Quantcast
Archive for Productivity

Toss out the Book and Innovate

By on December 16, 2012

You already know the famous saying, “do the same old thing, the same old way and get the same old results”. This is never truer than during challenging economic times. The market is full of businesses just like yours and the customer needs to make a choice. Your same old message, based upon your same old business plan may no longer resonate and you’ll be at risk of losing out to the businesses that innovate. Innovation is clearly a method of differentiation.

Every CEO and business leader will claim that their business innovates; they will cite a few new initiatives in their annual plan. However there can be a huge gap between plans, efforts and actual results. I won’t use companies like Microsoft, Google and Apple to prove that innovation works, they might be outliers, although you might be amazed what “outliers” have in common by reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book on the subject.

Let’s instead look at Blinds.com, it started as Laura’s Draperies with Jay Steinfeld trying to sell blinds and shades door to door, a really tough gig. He built his first web site in 1993 and by 1996 was selling products over the web as NoBrainerBlinds.com. In 2004 Jay changed the name to Blinds.com and the business was growing. A defining moment came in 2007 when Jay introduced a real innovation, on-line videos explaining how to properly measure a window and then install a blind. Blinds.com now has a complete library covering dozens of “how to” video’s that make buying and using their products risk-free.

I could go on and on with innovation stories, even law firms have examples of innovations. Some are offering Project Management services to help align efforts and results with their clients. Other are offering self-help like Goodwin Procter, a Boston-based firm providing startup entrepreneurs and venture capitalists with free documents and tips on best practices on a site called Founders Workbench. Can you imagine that, free advice and forms.

Here are 5 ideas to keep in mind when deciding on innovation projects.

  1.  Get Away. The best way to come up with innovative ideas is to completely get away from your normal daily grind. Find a place to just goof off, clear you head and turn off the cell phones and email. Set-up a creative environment that allows people’s minds to ask why and why not.
  2. Plan on Failure, and Fail Early. Everything we do in business is to avoid failure, but innovation can’t exist without at least a tolerance for failure. Businesses can accept pilot project that are innovative and then structure the roll-out to test for failed concepts. Nobody should feel threatened for a failed innovation.
  3. Alignment. The best innovations are where the business aligns their core capabilities with the customers’ needs. What are your core strengths, what value can you provide your customer? In the case above, Goodwin aligned their expertise in helping emerging companies grow with an entrepreneur’s desire for self-prepared  documents.
  4. Ask Why and Why Not. Question everything, look at the client experience. When I think of Heinz ketchup I think of the bottle being upside down, makes it much easier to use. I’m not sure they invented this concept but someone there must have had a eureka moment. Turn things upside-down and see what happens.
  5. Leadership and Change. Make sure that you have CEO driven projects, or at least find a Vice President of Change in your business to help provide the leadership necessary to make innovation in your business an on-going process, not just an annual event.

When starting out, look for small “hits”, you don’t need a home-run in your first at-bat. These will come as you build a culture and track record for innovative ideas.

 

 

Comments (0)
Categories: AFA - alternative fee arrangement, Best Practices, Legal Marketing, Management, Productivity

Cover Letters on Client Bills – No Way

By on September 23, 2012

Law firms are under pressure to increase profitability and at the same time deal with stagnant revenue and increased costs. Improvements in productivity appear to be easier than rate increases in keeping a firm healthy.

I read with some disbelief a recent recommendation suggesting that attorneys send a personalized cover letters consisting of a paragraph or two with their monthly billing statements. The overall concept seemed understandable; just explain to the clients what you’ve done.

The idea of sending a personalized cover letter with each bill does nothing more than slow up the billing process, cost the firm cash flow and may allow the attorney to think that he/she is actually communicating with the client. The fact is, anything important the attorney needs to communicate to the client probably can’t be put in a general cover letter that passes through the accounts payable department in any case. In an efficient mid-size or larger law firm we want the accounting department to get good, clean bills out to clients for payment as soon as possible. Delays don’t benefit anyone, including the client. Can you imagine a billing attorney, who might be billing a few hundred matters (or more) each month generating cover letters for matters where he/she possible didn’t even do any work? Remember, we are hopefully using our billing attorneys to better manage projects and push work down to the lowest practical and competent level.

The client billing process, in many firms is based on a slow, painful monthly schedule. Why … because it’s always been that way and adding a cover letter to the front of a bill is not a step in the right direction. The firm might be better off setting up a policy that says a billing attorney must call a client, on every final bill after a matter has closed or any bill over $xxxx dollars to explain it personally to the client.

In summary, cover letters on bills really don’t serve the intended purpose and only delay the firm’s cash flow.

Comments (0)
Categories: Best Practices, Financial Management, Law firm billing, Management, Productivity, The Legal Market

Lower Law Firm Expenses by DRIFT

By on September 18, 2012

I read with interest The Am Law Daily post discussing how law firms were dealing with rising expenses.  Law firms are looking for ways to improve profitability, especially during tough times. One sure way to lower costs is by “doing it right the first time” (DIRFT).

This philosophy is best understood through the work being done by Philip Crosby Associates. Crosby’s initial book (no longer in print) “Quality is Free” kicked off his process in 1970 during a time when US industry was trying to understand the management styles in Japan. People such as Edward Deming were explaining the differences in Japanese cultures and how they related to industry.  The Crosby quality process fits service organizations like law firms as much as it does a manufacturer. Let’s take a quick look at his concepts.

According to Crosby here are the Four Absolutes of Quality Management:

  1. Quality is defined as conformance to requirements, not as ‘goodness’ or ‘elegance’.
  2. The system for causing quality is prevention, not appraisal.
  3. The performance standard must be Zero Defects, not “that’s close enough”.
  4. The measurement of quality is the Price of Nonconformance, not indices.

In general, quality is the starting point based on specific requirements. Once the service is delivered it is too late to add quality. The standard is Zero Defects; the thought of AQL (acceptable quality levels) is completely unacceptable. A law firm that
delivered documents on time, 95% of the time has failed, attorneys that come close to hitting their requirements have failed.

So, what’s the benefit of adopting the Crosby quality program, quite simply, it is cost savings, client satisfaction and employee empowerment. If you don’t believe in the program you can take a quick self-test and try to measure the real price of non-conformance (PONC) within any business. The potential price of not “do it right the first time”.

For example:

  • Resending and reprocessing
  • Expediting, overnight shipments, overtime hours
  • Disruption to other schedules, rescheduling
  • Client complaints
  • Non-billable services
  • Missed filings, filing for extensions
  • A lost client, no new matters
  • A claim of misconduct, added insurance costs

Law firms can reduce their costs and improve profitability and client satisfaction all at the same time by “do it right the first time”. I can assure you that if you don’t do it right the first time, you do it right after the second, third, forth ….. time.

 

Comments (0)
Categories: Best Practices, Financial Management, Management, Productivity, The Legal Market

Microsoft is Looking Really Good

By on July 15, 2012

I attended the Microsoft annual Worldwide Partners Conference last week in Toronto and it was quite an experience. I’ve been to several of these in the past and I can tell you this WPC was special.

It’s easy to have a love-hate relationship with Microsoft and it’s easy to get frustrated at times dealing with them. However, in all fairness, it’s getting easy to “love” them, they are on the move in all the right direction.

In addition to general sessions, I was invited to attend a few invitation-only sessions. What I learned was amazing; here are a few of my observations:

1. In the last year Microsoft purchased Skype, Yammer and launched the Windows Store. Yammer finally brings a social network to Microsoft that will help meet the needs of even their largest corporate clients.

2. Steve Ballmer made it clear in his keynote speech that the upcoming (October 2012) release of Windows 8 will be a game changer for years to come. Tami Reller – VP & CFO of Windows personally demonstrated Windows 8 on a dozen different devices. She then took a 32GB USB stick that had here entire personal Windows 8 system, profile and documents, plugged it into a PC with Windows 7. The entire Air Canada arena saw the Windows 7 PC boot up Windows 8, load all of Tami’s settings and she accessed her documents in SkyDrive in moments.

3. Windows 8 also includes the Metro interface that brings a rich touch environment to Windows. Metro won’t be practical for heavy data processing applications where a keyboard and mouse are tough to beat, however for presentations, executive inquiry and mobile it is fabulous. Applications that run on Windows 7 will run on Windows 8. We also learned that Windows 7 now accounts for 50% of all Windows installs worldwide. Microsoft knows that Windows 8 will take a while to roll-out to the level of even Windows 7, but they needed one platform that would scale across all platforms and devices, Servers, PC’s, tablets and phones.

4. Enterprise applications are starting to incorporate “gaming like” features into their user-interfaces making for an improved client experience. This along with Microsoft Kinect technology and multi-touch navigation will open up new worlds of productivity applications over time.

5. Microsoft Office 365, now running on Microsoft’s Azure cloud will also be a game changer. Enterprise customers are already adopting the model to keep one system running possibly forever without the normal “version upgrade” headaches. Microsoft sales reps worldwide now have a line item in their performance quotas that require the sales of both Office 365 and Windows 8, pressure to upgrade to these will be intense.

6. Speaking of Azure, Microsoft’s cloud offering is immediately on par or even superior to both Amazon’s and Google’s cloud offering. You’ll see more vendors offering highly affordable solutions on Azure. Vendors just can’t run private clouds at the cost Microsoft is selling Azure for. Whether you use Azure for just disaster recovery, or run apps from it, it is one of the most technically superior clouds available today, and somewhat a best kept secret.

7. At Aderant we have already moved our Deadlines.com business to Azure and more announcements will be coming shortly. Stop by ILTA and see more products running on Azure.

8. Last but no least on my list is the explosive growth of Microsoft Dynamics, including CRM. Aderant was recognized as a top 5% of all worldwide Microsoft partners by being named to the Dynamics President’s Club. Aderant CRM4Legal is built on this technically superior platform and is now starting to take market share. By the way, Microsoft Dynamics CRM is also available on Azure at an affordable per user/monthly fee.

9. Microsoft Office 15 is still on target to ship before the end of 2012 and will have Windows 8 Metro screens in addition to the ribbon tool bars we are now learning to use.

In summary Microsoft is in a definite “love” phase and the next 12 months looks quite exciting.

Comments (0)
Categories: Productivity, Technology, The Legal Market

Survey – Wide Disparity in Billing Efficiency Causes Cash Flow Issues

By on May 28, 2012

In a previous post I revealed the details on a study I conducted to see how successfully firms were able to get attorneys to get their time in from the prior month. The results were not bad, 74% reported they had attorney time posted no later than the 2nd business day of the month.

Now we’ll really separate the firms with a new survey that reveals how quickly firms can get edited pre-bills back from attorneys and bills out to clients.

 Question #1:
From the time you give attorneys pre-bills hope long before they are due back in business days?

  • 33% 1 – 3 Business days
  • 33% 4 – 7 Business days
  • 20% 8 – 14 Business days
  • 14% 15 Business days or longer

Note: One firm reported that the “billing assistants” bill all month long and there is no requirements; the busiest billing day is the last day of the month.

 Question #2:
When in an average month when are you done billing and the bills are sent, emailed or e-billed in business days?

  • 13% 1 – 4 Business days
  • 40% 5 – 10 Business days
  • 13% 11 – 15 Business days
  • 34% 16 Business days or longer

Note: Many firms reported that their billing routinely stretches into the next month and they are sending bills at the same time they are doing pre-bills for the next month.

 Here are some quotes:
Worst: “We are very rarely completely done with the bills prior to the pre-bills out for the following month.”
Best: “We give the Attorneys 24hrs to respond back with changes or corrections. The morning following the 24hr review period the invoices are created, stuffed and mailed out within 4-5 hrs.

Conclusions: There is a wide disparity between law firms regarding how efficiently they manage the billing process. My review showed it had little to do with size of firm, number of branch offices or type of law they practiced. For example, the “Best” firm above has over 200 timekeepers and many offices. They however are highly disciplined,
automated and structured. The law firms cash flow is directly related to getting bills in the hands of clients in the shortest period of time. There are ways to improve the billing process. You might want to review my 10 part series
on improving the billing process starting here.

 

Comments (0)
Categories: Best Practices, Financial Management, Law firm billing, Management, Productivity, Uncategorized

How to be a Happy Customer

By on May 28, 2012

It was interesting to read Monica’s Bay’s post from LegalTech West Coast, she recited a survey from 2010 showing that 77% of prospects regard customer service as their primary reason for choosing a vendor. I have no doubt that’s what buyers believe, how it is determined pre-sale is a little difficult to determine. All vendors have a list of happy clients, just ask them.

I’d like to talk about how to be a happy customer, one that probably also gets “good service” from their vendors. In my 30+ years in dealing with law firm technology, many times I could just spot a customer who was never going to get “good service” from any vendor. Why is that, let’s see what’s wrong.

Here is what I observed:

  1. Poor homework and missed expectations. Some firms just need a new system, their current one is old and a new one will surely handle their needs. They are unable to clearly articulate their exact needs, business problems, workflow, attorney needs etc. Therefore all the products they see look better than what they have.
    Since there is little in the way of differentiation, they choose the least expensive one. Of course, 6 months to a year later they are unhappy and the vendor is at fault. Lesson: Do your homework, don’t make a selection until you have identified your exact needs and assured yourself that the vendor can fulfill all known requirements. Demand to see the keystroke process to handle your requirements. It’s real easy to say yes, my product allows the user to change attorney fee allocations on a cash receipt, however when you go through the process you see that it’s not at all what you have in mind. Want to be happy, make sure your expectations are in-line with the product.
  2. Take responsibility and ownership. The moment you implement a new system, it’s “your” system. Take ownership of the product, get properly trained, no short-cuts. Unfortunately when firms go live on complex systems the immediate priority is to get the basics accomplished, this is completely nderstandable.
    However, 3-6 months later many firms are using the new system like their old system, meaning they are not taking advantage of the process re-engineering that might have justified the new purchase in the first place. I’ve been in countless meetings with clients where client #1 will say, how come the system can’t do “X”, and client #2 says, oh yes it can, we’ve been doing it for years. Lesson: Get trained, and stay trained. Talk to other users, use a User’s Group forum to find ways to improve your processes and solve problems. Go to conferences; hire the vendor or a consultant to examine your best practices. Remember it’s now Your system.
  3. It’s still all about people. Why do some people call the same help desk with similar questions and come away with completely different experiences? Many times it about just good old fashion people skills. I’ve experienced customers who have never had a nice thing to say on the phone, never said thank you and are ill prepared to even describe the issue they are calling about. Then you wonder why they don’t get “good service” from their vendor. Lesson: Form a good relationship with the help desk and management of the vendor, be polite and demanding at the same time. Do your best to explain the issue you are calling about, ask for a resolution timeframe. Some problems are minutes to fix, others aren’t even fixable anytime soon (hopefully the non-fixable ones have graceful work-rounds).

Many times happy customers what to be happy customers and know how to become happy customers. I can assure you that most vendors who are time-tested will do everything they can do to help YOU become a happy customer.

 

Comments (0)
Categories: Best Practices, Financial Management, Law firm billing, Management, Productivity

It Wasn’t About AFA’s

By on May 6, 2012

I recently hosted a, standing-room only client discussion at Aderant’s Momentum on AFA’s. The funny thing was that the discussion turned out to be not about AFA’s (Alternative Fee Arrangements) but about Project Management and Profitability Modeling. Sure, most of the firms in attendance were already providing their clients with AFA’s, one large UK firm even indicated that about 50% of their litigation was now fixed-fee work.

What firms wanted to hear about was how they could better manage projects and use matter planning tools to predict profitability. Many of the firms that contributed to the discussion were already rolling out matter planning tools, almost like “job costing” tools to their attorneys. One can note that some industries like construction have used job costing tools for years to bid on and then manage ever-more complex projects. Law firms can learn from these experiences while using similar tools.

Here are the key takeaways from this session:

  1. AFA’s are just a pricing model for services
  2. AFA’s require a commitment to project management, most importantly resource management
  3. Matter planning tools allow the firm to use past matters to help predict both the process and staffing levels for future projects.
  4. Managing attorney resources most often involves moving work down to the lowest practical levels within the team.
  5. Partners on the team who are doing associate level work will cause problems.
  6. Project Management will allow the team, and possibly the client to see actual dollars worked vs. budgeted. However, the key
    component normally difficult to determine is, estimate to complete.
  7. An AFA fixed fee should also mean “fixed scope” of work.
  8. Most participants indicated that in litigation, Most AFA fixed fee work was all done pre-trial. Once the case went to court, firms
    operated on a traditional hourly basis.
  9. AFA’s can be used as either loss-leaders, or marginally profitable, as a way of getting more profitable trial work.

Comments (0)
Categories: AFA - alternative fee arrangement, Best Practices, Financial Management, Law firm billing, Productivity

Memo to Partners …. Is Your Firm on “Speed”!

By on March 25, 2012

Everything we put our hands on today is built for speed, our iPhones, iPads, PC’s, notebooks, cars, TV’s … you name it. You can transfer money on-line, make purchases, look up an address on your GPS and so forth at the speed of light. Today’s technology provides speed, yesterday’s technology did not. The industrial revolution transformed society at the time due to speed, the ability to get things done faster and better. This post is about speed, not the drug, but the future of how law firms will internally function.

HOWEVER, when it comes to the internal processes with a law firm, we have anything but speed! Most internal processes are booth rooted back in the dark ages and designed by a committee. Why? Well, in most firms speed doesn’t seem to be very important. For example, try and quickly open a new file, most firms are still proud of their new matter memo that was designed of course by committee. Nothing speedy about it, enter the information into a Word document and email it to someone on the list. They’ll re-key it into a system. Conflict searching has incredible speed, the search engine is being referenced here, not the overall process which is highly inefficient.

Need to process a check request, get a day off work, get a new employee started, find a pleadings file folder, the next motion date, do or look for almost anything, it is REALLY SLOW. Why is everything else in our lives “on speed” except our firm?

Law firms need to completely rethink their processes, talk to your trusty vendors, ask them about speed. How can we speed up everything we do? Most vendors will be able to give you examples of other firms that are “on speed”, they have found much faster ways to do almost everything.

Why is speed important? It’s a basic business principle; especially known to law firms … time is money. Doing everything faster will get more done and make or save money. That’s what technology has done within our society. The next generation of software being introduced into your firm must help the firm get “on speed”.

 

Comments (0)
Categories: Best Practices, Financial Management, Management, Practice Management, Productivity, Technology

It Far Easier to Keep than Lose Good People

By on March 17, 2012

In my last posting I identified how to hire the right people and who you might want to be aware of. In this post we’ll discuss keeping good people. Some law firms just seem to suffer from continual turnover of the staff, others appear to be training grounds for other firms or corporate legal departments.

One fact of business …. it is immensely cheaper to keep good people than to find good or better replacements. First we’ll take a look at the top 5 reasons why people might leave in the first place.

Top 5 reasons why employees leave.

 1. Higher Pay. Surveys consistently show that the overall #1 reasons employees leave is compensation. It is interesting to note that many times this is a result of “pay compression”. This compression exists when there appears to be very little difference in pay between top, mid and bottom performers. You know the scenario, everyone gets an automatic 4% raise and there are little in terms of substantive evaluation. The job only appears to be worth a tight salary range. Add all sorts of benefits into this discussion of total compensation.
2. Below Market. This is very similar to the one above but looks a little different to the employee. In this case the employee has access to surveys that show they are paid well below market rates. Many times you don’t need a survey, just find out what newly hired employees in the same firm are being paid for the same job. Not surprisingly, the employee finds out that their 7 years of loyalty and excellent appraisals pays much less than risky new hires.
3. Over or Under Managed. In this case it’s either they are being micro-managed and there is little room for growth, or they have little communication and directing from a manager. It’s no mystery that employees actually like to be properly managed and crave for leadership.
4. Overall Communication. Communication or the lack of, is one of the key reasons employees feel dissatisfied with their job. How well am I doing? I have no idea because no one tells me. All employees from top to bottom like to know both how they are performing and how the overall business is doing. Why, it’s matter of safety to them. It builds trust when these things are communicated.
5. The Environment. What is the workplace like, is the employee comfortable, is it professional? Is there too much drama, employee in-fighting and low moral? If so I can guarantee you’ll lose good people quickly.

Ways to keep good people

 1. Actually it’s quite easy, just deal with the top 5 reasons why they might leave.
2. Let’s tackle Higher Pay. Although employees might say this is the number one reason for leaving, it may not have started them looking in first place. Communicate to employee upfront and on a continual basis what the firm’s overall compensation plan is for the position being discussed. Can the firm provide a growth path for excellent performers?
3. Many employees will sacrifice pay for other items they feel are valuable to them. For example, the security of a long term job, with a company that “treats them well”. This tends to be the case for small or mid-size firms who just can’t match the compensation for big city, big firms. There are many non-compensation factors that keep good people on-board.
4. Give employees “real jobs”, those that have responsibilities, the ability to be recognized publically for a job well done. Provide the best management you can, don’t knowingly let a poor manager cost you people.
5. Have fun, employees want jobs that are fun. I know it sounds corny and you run a professional law firm that is just too prestigious to allow “fun”. You are wrong. Every firm can find ways to allow their employees to become engaged in fun activities and functions. Conduct a contest, had out simple goofy awards, those types of things. Kool-aid at lunch contests. Just ask some of your more outgoing employees what might be fun and let them run with it.
6. Never top communicating. It’s just amazing that all business people believe they are good communicators, that communication is essential and that employees what consistent communications. Then they just don’t do it, they are just too busy to consistently communicate. How constant firm meetings, allow both attorneys and staff to talk about accomplishments. Invite staff to annual meetings dedicated to them. Constantly tell them what is going on, good news and bad news. They are much better off hearing the good and bad from you than others who will get the details a little wrong.

Do you have some suggestions on how to keep good people, pass them aong and I’ll post them.

Comments (0)
Categories: Best Practices, Management, Productivity

How to Hire the Right People and People to Beware of!

By on March 4, 2012

All but the very largest law firms are like any other mid-size businesses; they can become very people-dependent
therefore small changes in staffing can have much larger effects on the business.

Here are some helpful tips on hiring the right people.

  1. Start with a comprehensive job description for the position. Also determine the career path and level of training you are willing to provide.
  2. Almost completely disregard a person’s references and resume, other than to put them in the generally qualified category for further evaluation. References provided by the applicant are going to give you nothing but the very best qualities and resumes are well known to puff a person’s real accomplishments.
  3. Before taking a lot of time with candidates, have them tested for various competencies, including analytical skills. Can the candidate solve problems, are they extroverts and you are looking for someone with communication skills?  Testing will quickly find personality traits that match your needs.
  4. Only hire the smartest people, assuming they have the basic skills to do the job. Make sure they have problem solving skills and can adapt to constant change.
  5. Provide the new hire with early hands-on training and a well-defined on-boarding process, this helps make sure you have the right candidate.

Beware of these People.

  1. Beware of people that have been doing the same exact job for a very long time. Why. Because it may have taken them a very long time to learn simple, basic tasks. Secondly, they may be unwilling or unable to accept constant changes. We all admire employee loyalty, just make sure this loyal candidate also passed through the 5 steps above.
  2. Beware of hiring “victims”, these are people who never take any responsibility for their own actions. Everything that ever happens in their department, office or business was someone else’s fault. They couldn’t do their job because of others, constantly. If in doubt,
    read the book called The Oz Principle.
  3. Beware of people who have inappropriate or strange postings on their Facebook, or LinkedIn site. I would use anything here to hire a candidate, but I would surely use it as a reason to disqualify a candidate.

If you follow these guidelines you might even find and keep a valuable employee. Next we’ll talk about how to keep valuable employees.

 

Comments (0)
Categories: Best Practices, Management, Productivity
Next Page »
Gallery
ist2_5516813-business-people-joining-their-hands ist2_11425109-business-woman-with-colleagues-at-the-back ist2_7730216-library-tables
Blogroll
Follow RainMaker