By Elizabeth M. Miller bio
What’s the most important task you have to tackle today? Do you have so many you can’t decide which to address first?
In law firms, priorities change from day to day and even moment to moment. The truth of the matter is that there are often competing priorities. And unless there is an obvious crisis, it’s sometimes not that easy to decide which task is the priority.
Keep the client top of mind
For me, priority should always be given to anything that involves the clients. Of course, everything in the office is about the clients. Serving clients is why the law firm exists; without clients there is no law firm.
But what if the photocopier is broken, the firm’s out of coffee, your receptionist called in sick, your litigator settled a big file and wants a draft bill, and the website’s down? What should you address first?
What you’re juggling
When it comes to running a law firm, there are six primary areas most administrators oversee. These are:
- Human resources
- Accounting/finance (including billing)
- IT
- Client development/marketing
- Office services
- Facilities management
I’ve listed these primary areas of law firm administration in what I consider to be the order of priority. When there are competing priorities, I consider human resources and accounting to be the top two. Here’s why.
The work must get done
Human resource issues affect personnel and personnel are the means to an end of getting work done for clients, so clients are happy. Happy clients are paying clients and every firm needs paying clients to generate revenues because revenues sustain the practice.
The work must be paid for
The next priority is accounting, because the bottom line is that money matters.
Accounting involves client billing, collections, client trust funds, and management of the firm’s revenues.
It’s not enough to provide quality legal services to the client. Once the work is completed, the client needs to be filled. This means that all time entries must be made right away so that time is captured efficiently. Ensuring that time entry in a billing program is done right away is a priority.
Conclusion
In these days of law firms trying to do more with less, it is important for management to recognize the everyday priorities so that the reduced staff size can operate efficiently and cost-effectively. This is good for the client and good for the bottom line, which is good for the firm.
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