Best Practice: Key metrics and dashboards for personal injury firms

Asked and Answered

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

Q. I am the managing partner of a six attorney personal injury plaintiff firm in San Diego. We are a high volume/small case firm that depends heavily on advertising. We have 1,200 open files and are currently are spending 17% of our revenue on advertising. While our case management system provides us with numerous reports - what are key reports that we should be using?

A. Many of the billing and case management systems do a poor job of providing key metrics and dashboards that can be used to manage and control actual operations going forward. In a firm such as yours it is critical that you actively manage your inventory of cases, your pipeline, manage workflow, and insure that you are obtaining adequate return on your marketing investment. Here are a few thoughts:

1. Think about what you need to know to manage your operations.

2. What summary metrics (10 or less) should be on your dashboard and will serve as indicators as to whether you are on course?

3. Use a spreadsheet to develop a dashboard report of these key metrics that are extracted from your accounting and case management systems. Include charts and graphs.

4. Assign someone the responsibility for preparing the report on at least a monthly basis on the same day of the month.

5. Use the report as control tool, investigate problem areas, and take corrective action in real time.

Click here for sample dashboard

Click here for our blog on financial management

Click here for articles on other topics

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.