Best Practice: Getting the most out of law firm planning retreats

Asked and Answered

By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

Q. I am a member of the firm planning committee. We are an 18 attorney firm based in downtown Chicago. We have had planning retreats in the past with mixed results. Some believe that they have been a waste of time. We are planning a retreat for this fall and I would appreciate any ideas that would help us accomplish more from these retreats.

A. A retreat will not be successful unless an implementation plan is formulated during the actual retreat and made a part of the proceeding. Specific assignments and completion dates must be agreed upon during the retreat itself and schedules for reporting on progress must be determined.

At the conclusion of the retreat the outcome of the retreat and the implementation plan should be summarized.

Within two weeks after the conclusion of the retreat a retreat report should be written and distributed to all firm members in attendance. Completion dates should be placed on the firm's calendar as well as the individual's calendar. A retreat follow-up item should be on each and every firm meeting agenda. A post retreat evaluation should be conducted six months after the conclusion of the retreat.

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John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC,(www.olmsteadassoc.com) 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.