Best Practice: Law Practice Management - Goals for 2017

Happy New Year and Best Wishes for a Personal and Professional 2017

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

As 2016 comes to an end we begin with a clean slate for 2017. As with anything new - the uncertain future can be scary and exciting at the same time. Year-end provides an opportune time for reflection on the past year and setting goals for the next year - both personal and professional. Goal setting can improve your personal life and your practice.

Here are a few ideas for 2017:

1. Whether you are in a small firm or a large firm have a sit-down with your team and discuss the past year business results, (successes and failures), what went right and what went wrong, what can be done this year to improve over the past year, and aspirations for the upcoming year.
2. If billable hour/revenue goals are not set for attorneys and paralegals set expectations for each individual, measure accomplishment, and provide feedback monthly on how they are tracking toward expectations/goal.
3. Writing and speaking are excellent ways for attorneys to develop their referral networks and enhance the firm's brand as well as their individual brands via their bios on the firm's website. Published articles - on the firm's website and elsewhere - lead to speaking opportunities as well as interviews by reporters and writers as sources for articles that they are writing for other publications. Multipurpose your articles in more than one publication and venue. Turn an article into a webinar, webcast, or live presentation. Commit to writing one article a quarter in 2017 (4 during the year). If you have been writing four articles a year, consider writing a book in your field of expertise.
4. Consider adding a new skill set this year. It may a new legal skill set such as a LLM in tax, litigation, etc. or it may be a non-legal skill set such as in management, counseling, medication, etc.
5. For attorneys in their late fifties or early sixties give some though this year to your retirement/succession/transition goals.

  Best of luck for a prosperous 2017!

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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 and author of The Lawyers Guide to Succession Planning published by the ABA. 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.