The Measure of Success

Target Audience: Law Firm Professionals, Lawyers, Law Firm Associates, Paralegals, Law Firm Staff, Lawyers Offices, Human Resources, Firm Operations, Strategic Planners, Marketing Directors, Supervisors,

Managing Partners

You’ve gathered for a retreat to brainstorm ideas for your firm’s strategic plan. You’ve reached consensus on what the firm should look like in five years, creating goals in several areas such as profitability, client service and technology. But did you discuss how you would measure your firm’s progress?

Good strategic plans have goals that are measurable and include benchmarks against which you can assess progress. If one of your goals is to expand a new practice group, the first step is to make it measurable. How many clients do you want to add? How much more do you want to bill? Then you need to set the benchmarks, such as target dates for achieving certain results. For example, by when do you want to obtain five, 10 and 25 new clients? Or bill an additional $100,000, $500,000 and $1 million?

Next, you need to establish the steps necessary to meet your goals. The steps should be distinct, definable actions that are assigned to specific firm members. For instance, one way to grow a practice is to get more referrals from existing clients. And to get more referrals, you need to make sure your clients are satisfied.

So you might make the following assignment to your marketing director: “Mary Smith will conduct client interviews to ensure client satisfaction. She will accomplish this by conducting a survey via the Internet and contacting key clients for in-depth interviews. Mary will have survey results compiled and client interviews completed by year end.” During the same period, you could set a goal for each partner to take 10 clients out to lunch to tell them about the new practice and introduce them to the practice partner.

When benchmarks aren’t met, the supervisor or managing partner should ask why. Is the benchmark unrealistic? Have circumstances changed since the benchmark was set so that it’s no longer achievable? Or has the attorney or staff member responsible not been focused enough on the goal? Either the benchmarks — and perhaps the ultimate goal’s measure — or the responsible individual’s performance needs to change.

Your firm’s strategic plan is a road map for achieving its goals. Measuring your progress is as important as developing and implementing the plan.

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