questions, questions, questions...
Is your law firm as profitable as it could be?
Even if it is, how do you know that it will continue to be profitable over the uncertainties of the next five to ten years?
Do you know where the strongest profit centers are in your firm -- as well as your worst vulnerabilities?
Where is your "low-hanging fruit" -- the best opportunities to improve profitability with your current resources?
How can you leverage these actions to produce clear, measurable results now, as well as to build a solid but flexible platform for sustainable profitability and professional success in the future?
What changes will your partners need to make to your strategic perspectives, governance, decision making, practice management, and operations in order to do all of this well?
How can you be confident that the decisions that you make now will not only produce positive short-term results, but will also enable you to be alert to changes in your legal market in the future and to respond to them successfully?
finding some answers
We deal with the tough questions that are most important to the future of your law firm. Anyone can ask these questions. You probably have thought about them yourself.
These are the issues that most "off-the-shelf" products and methods offered by ordinary management consultants can't answer in the unique context of the practice of law, or they overlook them altogether.
The Walker Clark Strategic Profitability Diagnostic is not traditional strategic planning, nor is it an accounting exercise. Instead, it is a custom-designed, holistic examination of the strategic issues -- both in your market and in the operations of your firm -- that have the greatest impact on current and future profitability. It blends a disciplined, well-informed approach to law firm strategy with the most reliable measurements of strategic success: the sustainable profitability of your firm, all of your practice groups, and each of your partners. We also investigate the most probable economic, political, and legal scenarios that your firm could face in the next five to ten years, and identify systems and methods in your firm that will enable you to spot the challenges sooner and respond more effectively, even as some of your competitors are completely unaware of the changes and the risks that they pose.
We guide you through the collection and preliminary evaluation of information that is already available in your firm, some of which might hold overlooked clues to better profitability. Depending on the characteristics of your firm, your client base, your practice specialties, and your market, this can consist of focused internal surveys of your partners, as well as a strategic survey of your best clients.
Our team conducts a two-day on-site meeting with your partners and other leaders of the firm, at which we review the evidence and, working together, develop and test assumptions and possible options.
We then provide a written report of our findings, observations, and priorities for your firm. We help you find improvements that your firm can actually implement, not a lot of business-school theory and one-size-fits-all "best practices."
Finally, as part of the engagement, we continue to advise and assist your firm in the implementation of our recommendations.
Does your firm need a fresh look at your strategic objectives. Click here to learn about the Walker Clark Strategic Priorities Review.
Looking for an in-depth review of your firm's internal operations? Click here to learn more about the Walker Clark Comprehensive Management Systems Review.