Best Practice: What to look for in an office manager/bookkeeper

Asked and Answered By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC Q. We are a small four attorney firm and recently lost a secretary that had also been doing our billing and bookkeeping. Frankly, while we have been using a secretary for this function in the past – we believe we need to hire someone with more accounting skills than we have had in the past. What should we be looking for? A. Many law firms in the six attorney and under size have shared with us their frustration in staffing the billing and accounting function. Often their investment in computerized billing and accounting systems fails to yield desired results due to poor accounting and management skills. Many small law firms assume that legal secretaries also have requisite accounting and management skills. This author’s experience has been that often this is not the case. Training, skills, and work behaviors are often different. Bookkeepers/accountants and secretaries are different animals. Many small firms are better off creating an accounting/bookkeeping position and staffing the position with a qualified bookkeeper/accountant. For many firms under six attorneys that have fully automated the billing and accounting function and have distributed time entry, this is not a full-time position. In such instances many firms have either recruited a part-time bookkeeper/accountant solely for the accounting function or have created a combined position of office manager/bookkeeper. This justified a full-time position. Look for the following skills when evaluating candidates:

• A basic bookkeeping class should be a minimum requirement.
• While a college degree should not be a requirement for the small firm, some college coursework in accounting and management is desirable.
• Two years+ prior experience in a bookkeeping/accounting position in a professional services firm such as law, accounting, consulting, etc.
• Prior experience in a law firm bookkeeping/accounting position is desirable.
• Experience with computers and accounting software as well as spreadsheets. On hands experience with the accounting software that the law firm uses is a plus. However, this is often not possible.
• Prior office management experience in a law or other professional services firm if this is to be a combined position.
• Detail orientated.
• Professional and able to deal with multiple demands, multiple masters, and the politics of a law office.

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 General ListServ, which the John and other committee members reviews, or view archived copies of The Bottom Line Newsletters. John may be contacted via e-mail at jolmstead@olmsteadassoc.com.