Best Practice: How big should a firm be when it hires an administrator?

Asked and Answered By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC Q. We are a 24 attorney firm in Northwestern Wisconsin. We have recently been discussing the feasibility of hiring our first legal administrator. How large should a firm be when it is time to hire an administrator? A. There is no magic size. We just completed an engagement recruiting an administrator for a 14 attorney firm. A couple of months ago we recruited one for a seven attorney firm. We also have law firm clients with over 40 attorneys that don’t have an administrator. I believe that an administrator, or office manager, is appropriate in firms of all sizes. It is a matter of attitude and commitment on the part of the partners and whether they are willing to delegate responsibility and authority to an administrator to run the day-to-day operations of the firm. The firm should start with a job description and then decide whether the firm is willing to delegate responsibility and authority. If not, the firm should not hire an administrator. John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC, is a past chair and member of the ISBA Standing Committee on Law Office Management and Economics. For more information on law office management please direct questions to the ISBA listserver, which John and other committee members review, or view archived copies of The Bottom Line Newsletters. Contact John at jolmstead@olmsteadassoc.com.