Is your law firm ready for growth?
Preparing your contingency fee law firm for expansion is a challenging endeavor, made even more complicated when you’re unsure where to focus your efforts and limited resources. Understanding how to position yourself for growth can help you proactively manage your resources to maximize your growth potential.
Use our insightful Growth Assessment Tool to understand what stage of growth you’re currently in and the next steps you should take to drive growth for your contingency fee law firm.
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Answer a few short questions
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Receive your analysis and recommendations
What are your spaces used for?
Business Structure & Core Functions
Business Structure & Core Functions
Business Structure & Core Functions
Business Structure & Core Functions
Financial Health and Growth Goals
Financial Health and Growth Goals
About Your Firm
About Your Firm
About Your Firm
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Why Do We Ask This?
- Yes, we have an internal marketing department (6+ people)
- Yes, we have a small internal marketing department (2-5 people)
- Yes, we have a one person marketing department
- No, our marketing function is fully outsourced and managed internally by an attorney/partner
- No, we do not have a marketing department
Question 2
Why Do We Ask This?
Question 3
Why Do We Ask This?
Question 4
Why Do We Ask This?
Question 5
Why Do We Ask This?
Question 6
Why Do We Ask This?
Choose all that apply.
Question 8
Why Do We Ask This?
Question 9
Why Do We Ask This?
Your results are almost ready!
Thank you for answering these questions to analyze your firm’s current operations and ascertain your growth stage.
Lastly, please provide your contact details to be emailed a copy of your results as well as relevant resources with valuable insights and advice on how you can drive focused growth for your contingency law firm.
Results
Based on your answers, your contingency fee law firm is a ‘Growth Starter’.
Based on your answers, your contingency fee law firm is a ‘Growth Improver’.
Based on your answers, your contingency fee law firm is a ‘Growth Leader’.
Based on your answers, your contingency fee law firm is a ‘Growth Optimizer’.
1. Growth Starter
- Early growth stage
- Focus: Increase revenue
2. Growth Improver
- Successfully litigated a number of cases
- Focus: expand business functions
3. Growth Leader
- Poised for exponential growth
- Focus: Pursue with ambition
4. Growth Optimizer
- Poised for exponential growth
- Focus: Diversify & expand nationwide
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Starter, your primary goal is to acquire cases, focusing on gaining revenue to finance your firm’s operations.
It’s likely that you won’t have the business functions larger law firms have such as marketing, finance, or IT departments. The lack of these functions will keep your overheads at a minimum, but as you expand operations, creating these functions will be a priority if you want to invest in expansion and growth.
As your revenue increases, opportunities will arise to invest in core business functions to support your ability to acquire and successfully manage your case inventory.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Starter, your primary goal is to acquire cases, focusing on gaining revenue to finance your firm’s operations.
As a Growth Starter, your primary goal is to acquire cases, focusing on gaining revenue to finance your firm’s operations.
It’s likely that you won’t have the business functions larger law firms have such as marketing, finance, or IT departments. The lack of these functions will keep your overheads at a minimum, but as you expand operations, creating these functions will be a priority if you want to invest in expansion and growth.
As your revenue increases, opportunities will arise to invest in core business functions to support your ability to acquire and successfully manage your case inventory.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Starter, your primary goal is to acquire cases, focusing on gaining revenue to finance your firm’s operations.
It’s likely that you won’t have the business functions larger law firms have such as marketing, finance, or IT departments. The lack of these functions will keep your overheads at a minimum, but as you expand operations, creating these functions will be a priority if you want to invest in expansion and growth.
As your revenue increases, opportunities will arise to invest in core business functions to support your ability to acquire and successfully manage your case inventory.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Starter, your primary goal is to acquire cases, focusing on gaining revenue to finance your firm’s operations.
It’s likely that you won’t have the business functions larger law firms have such as marketing, finance, or IT departments. The lack of these functions will keep your overheads at a minimum, but as you expand operations, creating these functions will be a priority if you want to invest in expansion and growth.
As your revenue increases, opportunities will arise to invest in core business functions to support your ability to acquire and successfully manage your case inventory.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Starter, your primary goal is to acquire cases, focusing on gaining revenue to finance your firm’s operations.
It’s likely that you won’t have the business functions larger law firms have such as marketing, finance, or IT departments. The lack of these functions will keep your overheads at a minimum, but as you expand operations, creating these functions will be a priority if you want to invest in expansion and growth.
As your revenue increases, opportunities will arise to invest in core business functions to support your ability to acquire and successfully manage your case inventory.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Starter, your primary goal is to acquire cases, focusing on gaining revenue to finance your firm’s operations.
It’s likely that you won’t have the business functions larger law firms have such as marketing, finance, or IT departments. The lack of these functions will keep your overheads at a minimum, but as you expand operations, creating these functions will be a priority if you want to invest in expansion and growth.
As your revenue increases, opportunities will arise to invest in core business functions to support your ability to acquire and successfully manage your case inventory.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Starter, your primary goal is to acquire cases, focusing on gaining revenue to finance your firm’s operations.
It’s likely that you won’t have the business functions larger law firms have such as marketing, finance, or IT departments. The lack of these functions will keep your overheads at a minimum, but as you expand operations, creating these functions will be a priority if you want to invest in expansion and growth.
As your revenue increases, opportunities will arise to invest in core business functions to support your ability to acquire and successfully manage your case inventory.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Starter, your primary goal is to acquire cases, focusing on gaining revenue to finance your firm’s operations.
It’s likely that you won’t have the business functions larger law firms have such as marketing, finance, or IT departments. The lack of these functions will keep your overheads at a minimum, but as you expand operations, creating these functions will be a priority if you want to invest in expansion and growth.
As your revenue increases, opportunities will arise to invest in core business functions to support your ability to acquire and successfully manage your case inventory.
Next Steps
Build Your Case Inventory
A contingency fee law firm needs clients to consistently build revenue long term. Your focus should be to acquire as many new clients as possible and to start litigating cases and generating revenue.
Acquiring new cases can be done through digital marketing, referrals from other law firms, or taking on a partner who comes with in an existing inventory of cases. Each method has their pros and cons: determine which works for you or a balance of all the above that optimizes your limited resources.
Get Your Intake Process Up and Running
Case acquisition initiatives could be hampered if your intake process leaves potential clients feeling confused and uncared for.
Creating a nuanced and robust intake process is vital to successfully acquiring cases. Additionally, training your staff to successfully implement a standardized process that focusses on empathy and care, could assist greatly in producing a steady flow of cases.
It’s critical that a prospective client’s first point-of-contact with your firm is a positive experience.
Be Sensible With Overheads
Keep your overheads to a minimum until cases start to settle and you have a steady flow of income. This is the time to be frugal and build up the war chest for future case costs and operational expenses.
As your law firm grows its practice, spend capital on business initiatives that improve your operational efficiency and ability to acquire new cases.
Start Planning for Expansion of Core Business Functions
Your aim is to grow your law firm, and at some point, that means expanding its core business functions (IT, marketing and finance). It is much easier to grow a business with these supporting functions in place and a foundation of standardized business processes.
Although it can be difficult to understand the scope of the business functions you will need, having access to a trusted source of information is critical to future success. Educate yourself on best practices of larger law firms in terms of marketing, finance, IT, and client experience to attract prospective clients and efficiently manage their cases.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Improver, your primary goal is to expand your business, creating and improving the core business functions needed to thrive.
You’ve likely had some success with acquiring and litigating cases, and you’ll have some basic business functions in place. Developing these business functions will allow you to set your firm up for explosive business expansion.
As you build out your business processes, your practice will likely see improvements in client satisfaction which often leads to acquiring larger cases and more clients coming your way through word of mouth referrals and increased brand equity in your market.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Improver, your primary goal is to expand your business, creating and improving the core business functions needed to thrive.
You’ve likely had some success with acquiring and litigating cases, and you already have a finance and marketing department – two core business functions which are essential for growth. Further developing these existing business functions and establishing an IT department will allow you to run your business more efficiently and optimize the client experience and your litigation practice.
As you build out your business processes, your practice will likely see improvements in client satisfaction which can often lead to acquiring larger cases and more clients coming your way through word of mouth referrals and increased brand equity in your market.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Improver, your primary goal is to expand your business, creating and improving the core business functions needed to thrive.
You’ve likely had some success with acquiring and litigating cases, and you already have a finance and IT department – two core business functions that are essential for growth. Further developing these existing business functions and establishing a marketing department will allow you to build your brand and support your case acquisition initiatives.
As you build out your business processes, your practice will likely see improvements in client satisfaction which can often lead to acquiring larger cases and more clients coming your way through word of mouth referrals and increased brand equity in your market.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Improver, your primary goal is to expand your business, creating and improving the core business functions needed to thrive.
You’ve likely had some success with acquiring and litigating cases, and you already have an IT and marketing department – two core business functions which are essential for growth.
Further developing these existing business functions and establishing a finance department will allow you to better understand your cash flow and revenue cycles, giving you the peace of mind to take on cases with larger case costs, longer case durations but greater financial reward. The calculated risk of taking on these bigger cases will net you the reward of out-sized fees to reinvest in your firm for growth.
As you build out your business processes, your practice will likely see improvements in client satisfaction which can often lead to acquiring larger cases and more clients coming your way through word of mouth referrals and increased brand equity in your market.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Improver, your primary goal is to expand your business, creating and improving the core business functions needed to thrive.
You’ve likely had some success with acquiring and litigating cases, and you already have a marketing department which is starting to attract clients and acquire cases at a regular cadence. Even though this has worked so far, as you grow, you’ll need to consider establishing your finance or IT departments in-house to better understand the health of your business and improve your ability to handle many cases simultaneously.
As you build out your business processes, your practice will likely see improvements in client satisfaction which can often lead to acquiring larger cases and more clients coming your way through word of mouth referrals and increased brand equity in your market.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Improver, your primary goal is to expand your business, creating and improving the core business functions needed to thrive.
You’ve likely had some success with acquiring and litigating cases, and you already have a finance department, which is essential for understanding your cash flow and revenue cycle.
Your marketing and IT functions are either handled by external contractors or you’ve mostly been relying on word-of-mouth referrals. Even though this has worked so far, as you grow, you’ll need to consider establishing and growing these departments in-house so that they can focus solely on supporting the operational efficiencies of your practice and building your case inventory and brand equity.
As you build out your business processes, your practice will likely see improvements in client satisfaction which can often lead to acquiring larger cases and more clients coming your way through word of mouth referrals and increased brand equity in your market.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Improver, your primary goal is to expand your business, creating and improving the core business functions needed to thrive.
You’ve likely had some success with acquiring and litigating cases, and you already have an IT department in place to support your case management system and IT infrastructure.
Even though this has worked so far, as you grow, you’ll need to consider establishing and growing your finance and marketing departments in-house.
As you build out your business processes, your practice will likely see improvements in client satisfaction which can often lead to acquiring larger cases and more clients coming your way through word of mouth referrals and increased brand equity in your market.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Improver, your primary goal is to expand your business, creating and improving the core business functions needed to thrive.
You’ve likely had some success acquiring and litigating cases, which is establishing your reputation as a winner in the courtroom. Your core business functions are minimal. This will increasingly become an inhibitor for growth until you can establish finance, marketing, and IT departments in-house.
As you build out your business processes, your practice will likely see improvements in client satisfaction which can often lead to acquiring larger cases and more clients coming your way through word of mouth referrals and increased brand equity in your market.
Next Steps
Build a Reliable Cadence of Case Acquisitions
As your law firm’s case inventories continue to expand over time, building a repeatable case acquisition process and will be a key determinant to long term growth.
If you are confident that you’ll have enough cases to keep the revenue flowing, reinvestment into your business operations can be made with confidence.
Reinvest in the Business
Perhaps, by this point in your law firm’s journey, you’ve collected a few big settlements and potentially accrued a sizeable war chest of capital. Responsibly reinvesting back into your business early-on could help your firm achieve your aspirational growth goals.
Investing in core business functions is necessary to sustain growth at this stage. While the temptation to only invest in the litigation side of your firm could be strong, growing your marketing, finance, IT, and administrative functions is key to generating and nurturing the cases needed for consistent growth and future expansion.
Establish a Marketing Department
Of the three core business functions (finance, IT, and marketing), marketing is most directly related to growth.
An internal marketing department can be a great help in a law firm’s path towards acquiring cases using digital marketing technologies. Marketing departments often need to use temporary staff who can provide creative or copywriting services to ensure that the law firm’s brand is communicated consistently. Often law firms will also need to onboard an external marketing agency who often offer creative services along with digital marketing execution capabilities.
The internal marketing team are the custodians of the law firm’s brand and are conduits between the brand values that the managing partners have for the law firm and the outside world. Many successful contingency fee law firms will engage with the local community philanthropic efforts and charities that provide the law firm with great local exposure and helps with internal morale and brand equity. These efforts are often coordinated by the internal marketing team.
Additionally, they are often in charge of the intake process. The marketing function is often task with the responsibility of acquiring the law firm’s prospective clients through digital marketing activities and because of this they have a vested interest in the effectiveness of intakes and the process of which intakes are process, filtered and passed on to litigation staff.
Consider establishing an in-house marketing department to start driving these growth opportunities or take on an agency partner to help you build a strategy towards long-term case acquisition strategies and brand building.
Establish an IT Department
Of the three core business functions (finance, IT, and marketing), IT is most directly related to operational efficiencies which leads towards sustainable growth.
Neglecting to build your IT department will eventually create a strain on your entire practice, leave your systems ill-equipped to handle the increased workload and affect your staff’s operational efficiency.
Finding skilled IT specialists that can help support your litigation practice could improve operational efficiencies which can positively impact your ability to manage cases and the client relationships optimizing your legal teams time and labor.
Establish a Finance Department
Of the three core business functions (finance, marketing, and IT), a finance department is key to the overall financial health of your law firm.
Continuing to operate without a finance department can place a heavy strain on the ability for a law firm to forecast revenue and growth. The key task of the finance department is to put in place budgetary processes, financial and case inventory forecasting to provide your law firm the confidence needed to invest in growth-based initiatives and/or improving the operations of the firm.
Consider appointing a finance resource to help establish a finance department as these resources will be key to achieving the transparency needed for financial stability and growth.
Establish IT and Marketing Departments
Although you already have a finance department and is likely helping your law firm achieve growth.
Of the three core business functions (finance, IT, and marketing), IT is most directly related to operational efficiencies which leads towards sustainable growth.
Neglecting to build your IT department will eventually create a strain on your entire practice, leave your systems ill-equipped to handle the increased workload and affect your staff’s operational efficiency.
Finding skilled IT specialists that can help support your litigation practice, could improve operational efficiencies which can positively impact your ability to manage cases and the client relationships optimizing your legal teams time and labor.
Of the three core business functions, marketing is most directly related to growth.
An internal marketing department can be a great help in a law firm’s path towards acquiring cases using digital marketing technologies. Marketing departments often need to use temporary staff who can provide creative or copywriting services to ensure that the law firm’s brand is communicated consistently. Often law firms will also need to onboard an external marketing agency who often offer creative services along with digital marketing execution capabilities.
The internal marketing team are the custodians of the law firm’s brand and are conduits between the brand values that the managing partners have for the law firm and the outside world. Many successful contingency fee law firms will engage with the local community philanthropic efforts and charities that provide the law firm with great local exposure and helps with internal morale and brand equity. These efforts are often coordinated by the internal marketing team.
Additionally, they are often in charge of the intake process. The marketing function is often task with the responsibility of acquiring the law firm’s prospective clients through digital marketing activities and because of this they have a vested interest in the effectiveness of intakes and the process of which intakes are process, filtered and passed on to litigation staff.
Consider establishing an in-house marketing department to start driving these growth opportunities or take on an agency partner to help you build a strategy towards long-term case acquisition strategies and brand building.
Establish Marketing and Finance Departments
Although you already have an IT department and is likely helping your law firm achieve growth.
Of the three core business functions (finance, IT, and marketing), marketing is most directly related to growth.
An internal marketing department can be a great help in a law firm’s path towards acquiring cases using digital marketing technologies. Marketing departments often need to use temporary staff who can provide creative or copywriting services to ensure that the law firm’s brand is communicated consistently. Often law firms will also need to onboard an external marketing agency who often offer creative services along with digital marketing execution capabilities.
The internal marketing team are the custodians of the law firm’s brand and are conduits between the brand values that the managing partners have for the law firm and the outside world. Many successful contingency fee law firms will engage with the local community philanthropic efforts and charities that provide the law firm with great local exposure and helps with internal morale and brand equity. These efforts are often coordinated by the internal marketing team.
Additionally, they are often in charge of the intake process. The marketing function is often task with the responsibility of acquiring the law firm’s prospective clients through digital marketing activities and because of this they have a vested interest in the effectiveness of intakes and the process of which intakes are process, filtered and passed on to litigation staff.
Consider establishing an in-house marketing department to start driving these growth opportunities or take on an agency partner to help you build a strategy towards long-term case acquisition strategies and brand building.
Of the three core business functions, a finance department is key to the overall financial health of your law firm.
Continuing to operate without a finance department can place a heavy strain on the ability for a law firm to forecast revenue and growth. The key task of the finance department is to put in place budgetary processes, financial and case inventory forecasting to provide your law firm the confidence needed to invest in growth based initiatives and/or improving the operations of the firm.
Consider appointing a finance resource to help establish a finance department as these resources will be key to achieving the transparency needed for financial stability and growth.
Establish IT and Finance Departments
Although you already have a marketing department and is likely helping your law firm achieve growth.
Of the three core business functions (finance, IT, and marketing), IT is most directly related to operational efficiencies which leads towards sustainable growth.
Neglecting to build your IT department will eventually create a strain on your entire practice, leave your systems ill-equipped to handle the increased workload and affect your staff’s operational efficiency.
Finding skilled IT specialists that can help support your litigation practice could improve operational efficiencies which can positively impact your ability to manage cases and the client relationships optimizing your legal teams time and labor.
Of the three core business functions, a finance department is key to the overall financial health of your law firm.
Continuing to operate without a finance department can place a heavy strain on the ability for a law firm to forecast revenue and growth. The key task of the finance department is to put in place budgetary processes, financial and case inventory forecasting to provide your law firm the confidence needed to invest in growth based initiatives and/or improving the operations of the firm.
Consider appointing a finance resource to help establish a finance department as these resources will be key to achieving the transparency needed for financial stability and growth.
Establish Your IT, Marketing and Finance Departments
Without establishing finance, marketing, and IT departments, law firm growth can be a significant challenge.
These core business functions not only increase the stability and health of your current business, but also work to attract new cases and clients.
Of the three core business functions (finance, IT, and marketing), IT is most directly related to operational efficiencies which leads towards sustainable growth.
Neglecting to build your IT department will eventually create a strain on your entire practice, leave your systems ill-equipped to handle the increased workload and affect your staff’s operational efficiency.
Finding skilled IT specialists that can help support your litigation practice could improve operational efficiencies which can positively impact your ability to manage cases and the client relationships optimizing your legal teams time and labor.
Of the three core business functions, marketing is most directly related to growth.
An internal marketing department can be a great help in a law firm’s path towards acquiring cases using digital marketing technologies. Marketing departments often need to use temporary staff who can provide creative or copywriting services to ensure that the law firm’s brand is communicated consistently. Often law firms will also need to onboard an external marketing agency who often offer creative services along with digital marketing execution capabilities.
The internal marketing team are the custodians of the law firm’s brand and are conduits between the brand values that the managing partners have for the law firm and the outside world. Many successful contingency fee law firms will engage with the local community philanthropic efforts and charities that provide the law firm with great local exposure and helps with internal morale and brand equity. These efforts are often coordinated by the internal marketing team.
Additionally, they are often in charge of the intake process. The marketing function is often task with the responsibility of acquiring the law firm’s prospective clients through digital marketing activities and because of this they have a vested interest in the effectiveness of intakes and the process of which intakes are process, filtered and passed on to litigation staff.
Consider establishing an in-house marketing department to start driving these growth opportunities or take on an agency partner to help you build a strategy towards long-term case acquisition strategies and brand building.
Of the three core business functions, a finance department is key to the overall financial health of your law firm.
Continuing to operate without a finance department can place a heavy strain on the ability for a law firm to forecast revenue and growth. The key task of the finance department is to put in place budgetary processes, financial and case inventory forecasting to provide your law firm the confidence needed to invest in growth based initiatives and/or improving the operations of the firm.
Consider appointing a finance resource to help establish a finance department as these resources will be key to achieving the transparency needed for financial stability and growth.
Consider ‘Singles and Doubles’ Practice Areas for Consistent Income
Retaining and winning a big case could be the catalyst that sets your firm safely on the road to success, but only chasing the high value cases is the most common point of failure for many start-up firms.
Consider coupling your mass tort cases and class actions with short-duration cases to give yourself a steady stream of revenue for day-to-day operations. That way, when the higher value cases come your way, you will have the capital necessary to finance its successful litigation.
Assign Your Best Cases to Your Best Resources
As you continue to acquire new cases, it’s important that you effectively assign your cases to the best resources to achieve maximum revenue.
Some lawyers will be great at litigating large cases which likely have longer case durations but yield greater results, and other lawyers are more ‘singles and doubles’ litigators providing regular and consistent revenue.
Figure out who’s who and assign cases accordingly to keep a steady balance between a constant stream of revenue with the occasional injection of out-sized fees.
Keep Track of Case Costs
At this stage of growth, keeping track of your case costs becomes vital; especially if you’re still self-financed. Case costs can easily grow into the millions, and paying for case costs using firm revenue is not only tax inefficient but also an approach that many modern law firms are steering away from.
This is when we advise that you consider if case cost financing is right for your firm to provide an immediate injection of capital for growth based initiatives and provides you with the flexibility to choose the cases to finance or not. Depending on your state’s ethics opinion your firm could also pass on the interest expense of financing to the end client (should you choose to) pending the adequate retainer language has been added to your client contracts.
To check your state’s ethics opinion and/or receive retainer language that could be applicable to your practice please book a consultation below.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Leader, you’ve built a law firm with a strong, robust foundation and great potential for continued growth at pace. You have all your core business functions in place and the firm has staff devoted to the business of law, not just litigating cases.
It’s also likely that there’s still plenty to improve upon in terms of business operations; whether that’s appointing a designated CFO/COO or improving the efficiency of your marketing and finance processes. Additionally, balancing case costs for your case inventory could become a daunting challenge, especially if your law firm is self-financed.
Pursuing larger and more lucrative cases will allow you to push the boundaries of what your law firm can achieve and unlock even greater growth potential.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Leader, you’ve built a law firm with a strong, robust foundation and great potential for further growth. Your finance department is working hard to keep your funds flowing and your marketing department is likely generating cases assisting with the long term longevity of your firm.
It’s also likely that there’s still plenty for you to learn in terms of perfecting these business functions. However, it is important to establish an IT department to handle the increasing stress on your case management system and optimize the efficiency of your practice.
Pursuing larger and more lucrative cases will allow you to push the boundaries of what your law firm can achieve and unlock even greater growth potential.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Leader, you’ve built a law firm with a strong, robust foundation and great potential for further growth.
Your finance department is working hard to keep your firms financial health in check , and your IT department is supporting your litigation practice and case management systems to allow you be operationally efficient.
It’s also likely that there’s still plenty for you to learn in terms of perfecting these core business functions. However, it is urgently important to establish a marketing department to generate intakes to ensure your case inventory is constantly supplemented with new cases to sustain the future growth of your firm.
Pursuing larger and more lucrative cases will allow you to push the boundaries of what your law firm can achieve and unlock even greater growth potential.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Leader, you’ve built a law firm with a strong, robust foundation and great potential for further growth.
Your IT department is keeping your case management systems organized, and your marketing department generates intakes for your firm to continue to grow.
It’s also likely that there’s still plenty for you to learn in terms of perfecting these business functions. However, it is urgently important to establish a finance department to manage the strain of growing case costs, marketing expenditures, and other firm overheads.
Pursuing larger and more lucrative cases will allow you to push the boundaries of what your law firm can achieve and unlock even greater growth potential.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Leader, you’ve built a law firm with a strong, robust foundation and great potential for further growth.
Your existing marketing department is generating intakes and attracting cases, which in turn leads to consistent revenues.
It’s also likely that there’s still plenty for you to learn in terms of perfecting your core business functions. Establishing finance and IT departments will allow you to keep tabs on your cash flow position and efficiently handle the many cases coming your way.
Pursuing larger and more lucrative cases will allow you to push the boundaries of what your law firm can achieve and unlock even greater growth potential.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Leader, you’ve built a law firm with a strong, robust foundation and great potential for further growth.
Your finance department is working hard to keep your funds flowing, which is vital as your firm expands both laterally and geographically.
It’s also likely that there’s still plenty for you to learn in terms of perfecting your core business functions. Establishing a marketing and IT department will allow you to attract new leads while efficiently handling the rising number of cases.
Pursuing larger and more lucrative cases will allow you to push the boundaries of what your law firm can achieve and unlock even greater growth potential.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Leader, you’ve built a law firm with a strong, robust foundation and great potential for further growth.
With an existing IT department, it’s likely that your case management system is operationally efficient, which helps ensure your client experience is on par with expectations and you are able to manage the case load of your litigation teams trying your cases.
It’s also likely that there’s still plenty for you to learn in terms of perfecting your core business functions. Establishing a marketing and finance department will allow you to attract new cases and to efficiently manage your cash flow and position your firm for sustainable growth.
Pursuing larger and more lucrative cases will allow you to push the boundaries of what your law firm can achieve and unlock even greater growth potential.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Leader, you’ve built a law firm with a strong, robust foundation and great potential for further growth. You have a strong case inventory and likely have the staff and experience to handle more.
However, your core business functions are minimal whereas your core litigation staff numbers are high. This will increasingly become an inhibitor for growth until you establish finance, marketing, and IT departments in-house.
Pursuing larger and more lucrative cases will allow you to push the boundaries of what your law firm can achieve and unlock even greater growth potential.
Next Steps
Establish a Marketing Department
Of the three core business functions (finance, IT, and marketing), marketing is most directly related to growth.
An internal marketing department can be a great help in a law firm’s path towards acquiring cases using digital marketing technologies. Marketing departments often need to use temporary staff who can provide creative or copywriting services to ensure that the law firm’s brand is communicated consistently. Often law firms will also need to onboard an external marketing agency who often offer creative services along with digital marketing execution capabilities.
The internal marketing team are the custodians of the law firm’s brand and are conduits between the brand values that the managing partners have for the law firm and the outside world. Many successful contingency fee law firms will engage with the local community philanthropic efforts and charities that provide the law firm with great local exposure and helps with internal morale and brand equity. These efforts are often coordinated by the internal marketing team.
Additionally, they are often in charge of the intake process. The marketing function is often task with the responsibility of acquiring the law firm’s prospective clients through digital marketing activities and because of this they have a vested interest in the effectiveness of intakes and the process of which intakes are process, filtered and passed on to litigation staff.
Consider establishing an in-house marketing department to start driving these growth opportunities or take on an agency partner to help you build a strategy towards long-term case acquisition strategies and brand building.
Establish an IT Department
Of the three core business functions (finance, IT, and marketing), IT is most directly related to operational efficiencies which leads towards sustainable growth.
Neglecting to build your IT department will eventually create a strain on your entire practice, leave your systems ill-equipped to handle the increased workload and affect your staff’s operational efficiency.
Finding skilled IT specialists that can help support your litigation practice, could improve operational efficiencies which can positively impact your ability to manage cases and the client relationships optimizing your legal teams time and labor.
Establish a Finance Department
Of the three core business functions (finance, marketing, and IT), a finance department is key to the overall financial health of your law firm.
Continuing to operate without a finance department can place a heavy strain on the ability for a law firm to forecast revenue and growth. The key task of the finance department is to put in place budgetary processes, financial and case inventory forecasting to provide your law firm the confidence needed to invest in growth based initiatives and/or improving the operations of the firm.
Consider appointing a finance resource to help establish a finance department as these resources will be key to achieving the transparency needed for financial stability and growth.
Establish IT and Marketing Departments
Although you already have a finance department and is likely helping your law firm achieve growth.
Of the three core business functions (finance, IT, and marketing), IT is most directly related to operational efficiencies which leads towards sustainable growth.
Neglecting to build your IT department will eventually create a strain on your entire practice, leave your systems ill-equipped to handle the increased workload and affect your staff’s operational efficiency.
Finding skilled IT specialists that can help support your litigation practice, could improve operational efficiencies which can positively impact your ability to manage cases and the client relationships optimizing your legal teams time and labor.
Of the three core business functions, marketing is most directly related to growth.
An internal marketing department can be a great help in a law firm’s path towards acquiring cases using digital marketing technologies. Marketing departments often need to use temporary staff who can provide creative or copywriting services to ensure that the law firm’s brand is communicated consistently. Often law firms will also need to onboard an external marketing agency who often offer creative services along with digital marketing execution capabilities.
The internal marketing team are the custodians of the law firm’s brand and are conduits between the brand values that the managing partners have for the law firm and the outside world. Many successful contingency fee law firms will engage with the local community philanthropic efforts and charities that provide the law firm with great local exposure and helps with internal morale and brand equity. These efforts are often coordinated by the internal marketing team.
Additionally, they are often in charge of the intake process. The marketing function is often task with the responsibility of acquiring the law firm’s prospective clients through digital marketing activities and because of this they have a vested interest in the effectiveness of intakes and the process of which intakes are process, filtered and passed on to litigation staff.
Consider establishing an in-house marketing department to start driving these growth opportunities or take on an agency partner to help you build a strategy towards long-term case acquisition strategies and brand building.
Establish Marketing and Finance Departments
Although you already have an IT department and is likely helping your law firm achieve growth.
Of the three core business functions (finance, IT, and marketing), marketing is most directly related to growth.
An internal marketing department can be a great help in a law firm’s path towards acquiring cases using digital marketing technologies. Marketing departments often need to use temporary staff who can provide creative or copywriting services to ensure that the law firm’s brand is communicated consistently. Often law firms will also need to onboard an external marketing agency who often offer creative services along with digital marketing execution capabilities.
The internal marketing team are the custodians of the law firm’s brand and are conduits between the brand values that the managing partners have for the law firm and the outside world. Many successful contingency fee law firms will engage with the local community philanthropic efforts and charities that provide the law firm with great local exposure and helps with internal morale and brand equity. These efforts are often coordinated by the internal marketing team.
Additionally, they are often in charge of the intake process. The marketing function is often task with the responsibility of acquiring the law firm’s prospective clients through digital marketing activities and because of this they have a vested interest in the effectiveness of intakes and the process of which intakes are process, filtered and passed on to litigation staff.
Consider establishing an in-house marketing department to start driving these growth opportunities or take on an agency partner to help you build a strategy towards long-term case acquisition strategies and brand building.
Of the three core business functions, a finance department is key to the overall financial health of your law firm.
Continuing to operate without a finance department can place a heavy strain on the ability for a law firm to forecast revenue and growth. The key task of the finance department is to put in place budgetary processes, financial and case inventory forecasting to provide your law firm the confidence needed to invest in growth based initiatives and/or improving the operations of the firm.
Consider appointing a finance resource to help establish a finance department as these resources will be key to achieving the transparency needed for financial stability and growth.
Establish IT and Finance Departments
Although you already have a marketing department and is likely helping your law firm achieve growth.
Of the three core business functions (finance, IT, and marketing), IT is most directly related to operational efficiencies which leads towards sustainable growth.
Neglecting to build your IT department will eventually create a strain on your entire practice, leave your systems ill-equipped to handle the increased workload and affect your staff’s operational efficiency.
Finding skilled IT specialists that can help support your litigation practice could improve operational efficiencies which can positively impact your ability to manage cases and the client relationships optimizing your legal teams time and labor.
Of the three core business functions, a finance department is key to the overall financial health of your law firm.
Continuing to operate without a finance department can place a heavy strain on the ability for a law firm to forecast revenue and growth. The key task of the finance department is to put in place budgetary processes, financial and case inventory forecasting to provide your law firm the confidence needed to invest in growth based initiatives and/or improving the operations of the firm.
Consider appointing a finance resource to help establish a finance department as these resources will be key to achieving the transparency needed for financial stability and growth.
Establish IT, Marketing and Finance Departments
Without establishing finance, marketing, and IT departments, law firm growth can be a significant challenge.
These core business functions not only increase the stability and health of your current business, but also work to attract new cases and clients.
Of the three core business functions (finance, IT, and marketing), IT is most directly related to operational efficiencies which leads towards sustainable growth.
Neglecting to build your IT department will eventually create a strain on your entire practice, leave your systems ill-equipped to handle the increased workload and affect your staff’s operational efficiency.
Finding skilled IT specialists that can help support your litigation practice could improve operational efficiencies which can positively impact your ability to manage cases and the client relationships optimizing your legal teams time and labor.
Of the three core business functions (finance, IT, and marketing), marketing is most directly related to growth.
An internal marketing department can be a great help in a law firm’s path towards acquiring cases using digital marketing technologies. Marketing departments often need to use temporary staff who can provide creative or copywriting services to ensure that the law firm’s brand is communicated consistently. Often law firms will also need to onboard an external marketing agency who often offer creative services along with digital marketing execution capabilities.
The internal marketing team are the custodians of the law firm’s brand and are conduits between the brand values that the managing partners have for the law firm and the outside world. Many successful contingency fee law firms will engage with the local community philanthropic efforts and charities that provide the law firm with great local exposure and helps with internal morale and brand equity. These efforts are often coordinated by the internal marketing team.
Additionally, they are often in charge of the intake process. The marketing function is often task with the responsibility of acquiring the law firm’s prospective clients through digital marketing activities and because of this they have a vested interest in the effectiveness of intakes and the process of which intakes are process, filtered and passed on to litigation staff.
Consider establishing an in-house marketing department to start driving these growth opportunities or take on an agency partner to help you build a strategy towards long-term case acquisition strategies and brand building.
Of the three core business functions, a finance department is key to the overall financial health of your law firm.
Continuing to operate without a finance department can place a heavy strain on the ability for a law firm to forecast revenue and growth. The key task of the finance department is to put in place budgetary processes, financial and case inventory forecasting to provide your law firm the confidence needed to invest in growth based initiatives and/or improving the operations of the firm.
Consider appointing a finance resource to help establish a finance department as these resources will be key to achieving the transparency needed for financial stability and growth.
Grow by Acquisition
Depending on your firm’s cash position, a good strategy for growth is to acquire other law firms or introduce partners who bring with them a case inventory that diversifies you into new and profitable practice areas.
Acquisition of other partners or firms is a strategy that many law firms employ to add revenue to their bottom line. Opportunistic acquisitions are favored here where the incoming lawyer or law firm nicely aligns to the culture and vision of the acquiring law firm.
Having a strong cash position is a key element to good acquisitions and often financing case costs can provide the incremental boost to capital needed for the acquisition.
Consider High Value Cases and/or Mass Torts or Class Actions
If your law firm has a solid pipeline of cases, you can start to seek out the cases that yield the greatest financial results.
This often means entering practice areas that have greater revenue generation potential – like trucking litigation, medical malpractice, or mass torts and class actions.
The potential issue with this approach is these cases come with longer case durations and higher case costs. Balance the pursuit of such cases with a sizable cash position and steady cash flow from cases that have shorter case durations.
Additionally, you can consider case cost financing to potentially reduce the immediate financial burden while maximizing your ability to litigate against opponents with deep pockets.
Position Your Firm for Exponential Growth
The key for law firms in this category is to continue down the path of building a great business. This means continuing to invest in business functions that support the core legal business.
Doubling down investment in your existing core business functions will allow your law firm to enjoy economies of scale, especially if you choose to grow through acquiring smaller firms. Additionally, focused investment on nuanced areas of operations such as driving client reviews or improving client experience can give you the edge you need over your competitors.
At this stage, often one of the managing partners or original co-founders needs to stop being a litigator and become the businessperson to drive the organization toward sustainable growth. Making that switch can be a challenge – which is where business acumen and a strong financial partner can be especially helpful.
Implement Case Inventory Forecasting Processes
Once your law firm has entered this category of growth, careful attention needs to be paid to your financial systems, data and case inventory forecasting capabilities.
Even if you have a finance function in place, it is imperative that your firm can accurately value each case and forecast its projected fees as well as the duration it will take to resolve.
The nature of the industry is such that it’s possible to become a Growth Leader without any sort of financial forecasting in place, but the law firms that are poised for exponential growth have a great handle on case inventory forecasting which in turn provides great input into budgeting and subsequent spending on growth based initiatives.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Optimizer, you’ve reached the top tier of law firms nationwide. Reaching this stage of growth is extremely difficult due to the capital-intensive nature of contingency fee law practices and the complex interplay between case acquisition and case costs.
Your firm likely has a very wide range of practice areas and potentially even an entire division devoted to large-scale mass tort and class action cases against deep-pocketed corporations.
From here, growing laterally is just as vital as growing up. Expanding your reach geographically could allow you to gain more market share and brand recognition as you grow.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Optimizer, you’ve reached the top tier of law firms nationwide. Reaching this stage of growth is extremely difficult due to the capital-intensive nature of contingency fee law practices and the complex interplay between case acquisition and case costs.
Your firm likely has a very wide range of practice areas and potentially even an entire division devoted to large-scale mass tort and class action cases against deep-pocketed corporations.
From here, growing laterally is just as vital as growing up. Expanding your reach geographically could allow you to gain more market share and brand recognition as you grow.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Optimizer, you’ve reached the top tier of law firms nationwide. Reaching this stage of growth is extremely difficult due to the capital-intensive nature of contingency fee law practices and the complex interplay between case acquisition and case costs.
Your firm likely has a very wide range of practice areas and potentially even an entire division devoted to large-scale mass tort and class action cases against deep-pocketed corporations.
From here, growing laterally is just as vital as growing up. Expanding your reach geographically could allow you to gain more market share and brand recognition as you grow.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Optimizer, you’ve reached the top tier of law firms nationwide. Reaching this stage of growth is extremely difficult due to the capital-intensive nature of contingency fee law practices and the complex interplay between case acquisition and case costs.
Your firm likely has a very wide range of practice areas and potentially even an entire division devoted to large-scale mass tort and class action cases against deep-pocketed corporations.
From here, growing laterally is just as vital as growing up. Expanding your reach geographically could allow you to gain more market share and brand recognition as you grow.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Optimizer, you’ve reached the top tier of law firms nationwide. Reaching this stage of growth is extremely difficult due to the capital-intensive nature of contingency fee law practices and the complex interplay between case acquisition and case costs.
Your firm likely has a very wide range of practice areas and potentially even an entire division devoted to large-scale mass tort and class action cases against deep-pocketed corporations.
From here, growing laterally is just as vital as growing up. Expanding your reach geographically could allow you to gain more market share and brand recognition as you grow.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Optimizer, you’ve reached the top tier of law firms nationwide. Reaching this stage of growth is extremely difficult due to the capital-intensive nature of contingency fee law practices and the complex interplay between case acquisition and case costs.
Your firm likely has a very wide range of practice areas and potentially even an entire division devoted to large-scale mass tort and class action cases against deep-pocketed corporations.
From here, growing laterally is just as vital as growing up. Expanding your reach geographically could allow you to gain more market share and brand recognition as you grow.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Optimizer, you’ve reached the top tier of law firms nationwide. Reaching this stage of growth is extremely difficult due to the capital-intensive nature of contingency fee law practices and the complex interplay between case acquisition and case costs.
Your firm likely has a very wide range of practice areas and potentially even an entire division devoted to large-scale mass tort and class action cases against deep-pocketed corporations.
From here, growing laterally is just as vital as growing up. Expanding your reach geographically could allow you to gain more market share and brand recognition as you grow.
Interpreting Your Results
As a Growth Optimizer, you’ve reached the top tier of law firms nationwide. Reaching this stage of growth is extremely difficult due to the capital-intensive nature of contingency fee law practices and the complex interplay between case acquisition and case costs.
Your firm likely has a very wide range of practice areas and potentially even an entire division devoted to large-scale mass tort and class action cases against deep-pocketed corporations.
From here, growing laterally is just as vital as growing up. Expanding your reach geographically could allow you to gain more market share and brand recognition as you grow.
Next Steps
Growth by Acquisition
Buying law firms or franchises of law firms to quickly expand geographic reach is your firm’s obvious choice for growth.
Trying to enter a new locality when other local lawyers have dominated that market is a difficult task. Acquisition significantly expands your reach and litigation capability as well as gives you local expertise. However, with acquisition comes a litany of acquisition pains such as integrating business functions to maximize efficiency and reduce overhead.
Utilize Referral Income
The temptation here is to retain and litigate all of your cases; however, sometimes referring them is the strategic thing to do.
Once you’ve acquired so many cases that you simply cannot litigate them all to the best of your ability, passing these on to other firms will be hugely profitable with minimal effort required of you. This opens up income streams that leverage the economies of scale you have achieved through marketing.
Use Your Broader Marketing Capability for Economies of Scale
With an increased budget comes the capacity for much wider-reaching marketing strategies. Using your own in-house marketing team or adding on a marketing agency to run robust marketing campaigns will ensure brand recognition, optimization of digital marketing and intake effectiveness for your firm over time.
Use your marketing budget efficiently across your geographic locations to provide yourself with an effective economy of scale. This tactic will allow you to build up your defense against competitors who won’t be able to contend with your budget.
Solidify Your High Value Case Acquisition Strategies
Law firms that reach this top tier often have their litigation teams across many different practice areas and specializations across case types that are more consistent revenue generators like high volume, low value case types (automobile accidents) versus those that generate large inflows of revenue when they come through (class actions/mass torts/catastrophic injuries).
With a practice as large as yours you should consider strategies to gain more traction into those large value cases as you have the financial wherewithal to manage those longer case durations as ongoing operational costs are being paid for by your shorter duration cases.
These large revenue injections can often provide great opportunities for law firms to grow exponentially and put the law firm on a totally different growth trajectory.