Women in Law Leadership Academy promotes strategic planning for law firms

"Formal strategic planning provides a focus and a structure to use to discuss the future of your business with your partners, create a plan for growth or continued success and provide management for employees," wrote Megan Glasheen, managing member of Reno & Cavanaugh, in a paper released in coordination with "Strategic Planning: Defining, Setting and Achieving Goals," a continuing legal education program offered at the Women in Law Leadership Academy in Chicago in late March. The program was sponsored by the Commission on Women in the Profession, the Section of Litigation, the Young Lawyers Division and the ABA Center for Continuing Legal Education.

There are several strategic planning models, said Glasheen, among them: a SWOT Analysis, in which a firm's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are analyzed; a gap analysis approach, in which a firm "articulate(s) the difference between where it is as an organization at the initiation of the planning process and where it wants to be in the future"; and continuous decision-oriented planning, in which the analysis is based upon looking at issues in small chunks and making decisions rather than writing a complex, detailed plan about the office or issue as a whole. The action taken happens on a regular basis in order to prevent the staleness that is sometimes criticized in other strategic planning methods.

The analysis and planning should occur not only at the top level of management, Glasheen said, although there needs to be a commitment at that level for a plan to work. In addition to partners, associates, paralegals and other staff should all be involved. A written manual about perceived notions relating to work habits, client service and work product is encouraged.

Written materials that accompanied the various programs at the academy, including the session on strategic planning, are available through links on the program agenda.

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