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How Do Practice Leaders Get Their Jobs Done and Still Have a Practice? The Emerging Role of Practice Management Professionals
January 2006
A common issue for practice leaders in firms that have implemented practice management in recent years is how time consuming the job is or can be and how they will maintain their personal practice. There are several keys to this -- some we will cover in a future article and many which are covered in my second book, The Practice Group Leader’s Handbook for Success (published August 2005), but one development that is affecting this is the growing use of professional managers who assist department chairs, practice group leaders, industry and client team leaders (all called practice leaders in this article). This role has now become commonplace in many large firms. We conduct a roundtable of “practice management professionals” (the term we have coined for these roles which have various titles depending on the firm and their exact functions) which meets twice a year, usually at the offices of one of the member firms, to discuss issues they are dealing with in their roles such as business planning, profitability analyses or others.
These professionals assist practice leaders in overseeing a significant part of the day-to-day management of the department, practice group, industry or client team. A growing number of large firms (at least 30 of the AmLaw 200 if not many more) have formalized this relationship and assigned professionals to assist on a full-time basis, supervising the “non-legal” aspects of practice management by providing specific assistance to major departments, practice groups and industry or client teams. In smaller or mid-sized firms, these roles are firm-wide and the titles include National Practice Administrator, Director of Practice Management, Managing Director of Practices or Manager of Practice Area Support. In these firm-wide roles, the practice management professional acts as a liaison between the professionals in all the relevant firm departments (finance, human resources, marketing, technology) and the practices.
In many larger firms (especially firms over 500 lawyers), practice management professionals are assigned at the department level to assist the department chair and all the practice leaders in that department (i.e., heads of practice groups or industry teams). The highest level professionals in this role are often called Department or Division Operating Officers or Department Business Managers or have a “director” title but are considered “C-level” roles (i.e., equivalent to the Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Financial Officer, etc.). In other firms, such professionals are assigned directly to smaller practice groups and have titles such as the Trial Practice Administrator, Director of Trust and Tax Operations, Corporate Support Attorney, and the like. In the largest firms, they have assigned high-level professionals to each of their large departments or groups (as described above) and used a shared pool of resources to assist smaller groups.
The individuals currently in these roles in law firms have previous experience ranging from the military to executive director roles in smaller firms (i.e., firms the size of the departments they are now managing) to backgrounds in the industries or practices they are supporting (such as a background in the health care industry to support a Health Care Practice Group). Some of these professionals are lawyers who are not engaged in the active practice of law while others have backgrounds in business, finance, psychology, human resources, organizational development, marketing or related fields and graduate degrees like MBAs and PhDs. Certain firms have a strong preference for persons who were at least trained or practiced as lawyers occupying these positions while some firms prefer individuals who have more of a business background. Most of the senior professionals in these roles have graduate degrees in relevant areas mentioned above or law degrees. Many of these roles are filled by high level professionals who are experienced business managers and are treated in their firms like partners and colleagues in running the business unit. We are currently conducting a survey of the backgrounds of the professionals in these roles and will soon have more detailed information.
The roles of the practice management professionals vary from firm to firm but can include the following:
- Involvement with the development of the group business plan and monitoring of its implementation;
- Analysis of the group’s market (competitors, clients, possible laterals, trends, etc.);
- Involvement with marketing initiatives and cross-selling activities, including participation in responses to Requests for Proposals (or RFPs);
- Oversight of the management and supervision of all non-attorney staff in the practice groups and departments (where applicable);
- Participation in the evaluation of partners and associates for compensation and the setting of billing rates;
- Financial analysis and management, ranging from reviewing extensive financial reports and helping the practice leader to digest and analyze the information to developing and using client and matter profitability data;
- Workload management including involvement with intake and the assignment of lawyers and other professionals to matters;
- Supervision of the professional development (training, career planning, etc.) of lawyers and others in the department or group;
- Development of practice specific training programs and professional development processes; and,
- Interviewing and evaluation of possible lateral candidates, including a due diligence and review of their client base for conflicts and profitability issues.
Obviously, no individual could effectively handle all of these roles by him or herself -- at least not for groups of a significant size -- so most firms have prioritized the activities that their practice management professionals focus on and for which ones they merely act as a liaison with other firm functions such as finance or marketing. In some large firms, each large department has a practice management professional (such as a department business manager) along with a dedicated marketing and/or business development director also assigned to the department. This is increasingly common with departments of 300 or more lawyers which need the dedicated professional management much like if they were a separate law firm that would have at least that much dedicated professional staff.
In some firms using practice management professionals, they have actually measured the amount of time of their department chairs and practice group leaders “saved” since they adopted these professional roles. In at least one firm, they calculated that the first year they had department level professionals; the role saved the department chair about 600 hours of otherwise non-billable time. Not only do these roles save lawyer time, more importantly, these professionals are trained to deal with many management areas that most partners in law firms have never had training in. As a result, they can do many roles better than a lawyer can. As important, having a professional whose full-time job it is to help manage (versus a lawyer trying to manage or lead on top of a full-time legal practice) enables the practice leader to focus on the aspects of the job that typically only a partner can do -- coaching a partner on their performance, mentoring a younger lawyer, etc. These roles are growing in firms because they fill a valuable niche and can enable a firm to make much more progress with their practices.
In summary, law firms are beginning to recognize that having individuals who have a full-time job and appropriate business background to help manage the practices can significantly enhance the success of their practice groups and enable practice leaders to use their time on the parts of the role most critical for a partner to handle and not on those areas for which they are least suited.
About the Author
Susan Raridon Lambreth is a consultant with Hildebrandt International who concentrates on practice management issues and heads the Hildebrandt Institute Practice Group Leader Training Workshops. She can be contacted at 800-223-0937, ext 220.