This is the second of a series of posts by Sarah Max, a Senior Walker Clark Consultant.
In the most recent commentary on this topic, posted on 13 May 2025, we focused on the importance of regular, intentional monitoring of regulatory issues to avoid complications for your firm and clients. A centralized strategy for assessing your current practices, gathering information about the effectiveness of those processes, and integrating credible source information into your processes is the most reliable way to assure the most protection for your firm.
This last step is a perfect segue into today's topic: risk analysis.
Once you know what the firm is doing, now is the time to begin scrubbing this information to garner meaningful information to develop a strategy that avoids intolerable risk. As we like to say at Walker Clark, “A bad plan beats no plan any day of the week.” And the logic bears out! In the prior risk management post, we highlighted the importance of understanding the risks to create a plan to mitigate its potential impacts.
Identify the risks.
In Walker Clark’s 22+ years of consulting, we have identified three key risk areas where firms tend to be the most vulnerable: business, client services, and professional. Of these three areas, could you identify where your firm is most vulnerable? Would you know how to make that assessment? If you answered, “no,” don’t worry. You are in good company. Most firms would also have to answer “no” because their internal structure hasn’t been set up to focus on identifying risks.
To thoroughly identify risks, begin by finding and describing the risk in each key area. For example, in your firm’s business capacity, what current process (or lack of process) is causing the firm to lose revenue? Most firms leave a tremendous amount of money on the table simply because they don’t have consistent processes developed for staff to follow to make sure they are capitalizing on their investment of professional time.
Walker Clark has a well-developed, time-tested method for teaching firms to identify their vulnerabilities in each of these areas. We are able and willing to walk your firm through the mapping and inventory phases to weed out any waste hiding in your processes to increase your firm’s profitability.
Evaluate, then conclude.
Identifying the risks sets you up to draw conclusions based on your findings. In the legal world, we are often trained out of “conclusory” thinking, but in the real world, a firm’s efficacy relies on its leadership’s ability to draw informed conclusions about the direction the firm should go. The very reason the process starts with risk identification is to create data points that can be developed into a roadmap toward efficiency.
Here's how you may apply the roadmap described above in a real-world situation with your client:
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Initial assessment – During the initial meeting with your client to learn about their needs, make sure you can identify the nature of the matter clearly, what funding sources are being used to support the proposed project, how far the project will “travel” (locally or internationally), and who the leaders of the project or owners of the entities involved are.
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Due diligence – Verify the veracity and stability of the projects funding sources, determine the longevity of the project entities, determine if the project is allowable in the geographic regions the entities wish to execute their plan. and affirm the regulations that will govern the transaction.
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Document – Create a deliverable for your client with a summary of the information discovered during the due diligence process. Save an internal version of the research and deliverable for later reference. We also always recommend creating a library that houses the research in an easily searchable format for convenient reference later. If your firm doesn’t have one set up, use this step as the impetus to create one.
Walker Clark wants to support your firm to become the best version of itself, regardless of the changing global dynamics. Our firm is ready to provide you with a consultation to learn about your firm’s specific challenges, so we can custom-design a plan for your unique needs. Click on the links in this sentence for more information about Walker Clark’s strategic planning and risk management services, or reach out to me directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.m.
Sarah Max
