Law firms lose $36bn p.a. because lawyers are not empowered as P&L owners
Lawyers as P&L owners
Lawyers are the primary client relationship holders and lead matter managers. As a consequence, their decisions have a major impact on the ultimate fee outcomes on their matters.
Unfortunately, to date, lawyers have not been properly empowered and equipped to fulfil that role.
Matter management
Matter partners (or their delegates) are responsible for ensuring their work remains compliant with the pre-agreed constraints such as caps, budgets, estimates, etc. Fee earners are also best placed to ensure that their work remains within scope and OCGs.
"As the matter partner, I spend way too much time and effort on ensuring I don't breach my caps by too much. Some partners pay less attention to that, but that really hits their realisation."
Billing & collections
Business Support teams tend to do most of the "heavy lifting" when it comes to billing and collections.
However, the fee earner in charge usually remains responsible for deciding when to issue a bill and for how much - and that decision is usually not as clear-cut as the uninitiated might imagine.
In addition, the fee earner (as the relationship holder) can often help credit control unlock tricky unpaid debtors.
"As the matter partner, I remain responsible for the big decisions on my matters, such as when to bill and for how much. And I should be making better use of our firm's data to make informed choices there."
