Building Pyramids

Introduce a work allocation system to your practice so you can switch your time to tasks which generate revenue, bring you joy, or ideally, do both.

“You don’t have to do everything. Even Batman had Robin.”

You’re expensive and worth it.

The Silk who charges an above-average billing rate but who continues to deal with the minutiae of practice administration is behaving with economic irrationality.

Here are three ways to rethink the model you use to run your practice.

1. Adopt the Accenture Business Model

My first job after university was with Accenture.   Accenture relies heavily on an internal pyramid management structure to generate profits. Partners are positioned at the apex, junior consultants at the base and middle managers occupy the varying levels in between.

Everyone’s role is clearly communicated and understood. The task is to deliver what is expected according to your position in the pyramid. The structure allows rainmakers to deliver value according to their experience and juniors to deliver the work under a layer of supervision which prevents major disasters to the client’s business.

The model would collapse if the Partner started operating at the level of those at the base of the pyramid. Client’s don’t pay Partners to administer projects when there are armies of juniors who can do the job equally well for a fraction of the price. And it’s a waste of the Partners expertise, skills and experience to do it.  The same applies to a QC.

2. Employ a Junior

Some Silks with whom I’ve worked are reluctant to employ expert help from Juniors and thus continue to position themselves at the apex and base of the pyramid for every matter. Their reasoning is that the Client is paying for them to do all the heavy lifting on every aspect of the case.

This is not necessarily true. The client is paying for you to get to the right answer. In cases where confidentiality is not an issue, it usually makes financial sense to employ a Junior to do the first draft, even if you have to pay them out of your own pocket.  If you choose your Junior well, overall, you will save yourself time and money.

If you don’t much care for nit-picking legal research, or your advocacy skills outshine your research skills, you would do well to employ a super-smart junior, who relishes the mental gymnastics of drafting, not just for occasional deviling, but for every matter you accept.

3. Employ a Virtual Assistant

Silks who run an expensive-and-worth-it practice don’t compete on price. They deliver an outstanding client experience before, during and after each and every matter. They differentiate their practice on a higher level of client service than their competitors by investing significant amounts of time nurturing long-term client relationships.

Maintaining those inner circle relationship takes time, much of which is administrative. Monitoring Google Alerts for client successes, drafting emails to celebrate a victory, making arrangements for quarterly lunch meetings, drafting presentation slides for a client’s seminar panel and managing your client relationship management system, are all low-level tasks which can be done by a Virtual Assistant at a fraction of your hourly rate.

The Virtual Assistant is a role which is well understood in America, but less well-used here in the UK.  The assistant is  incorporated as a limited company, so you won’t encounter employment law issues if you decide to engage one. They work remotely, so you don’t have someone taking up space in your Chambers room, and they work with technologies which speed up or automate many of the loathsome tasks you are dealing with every day. Using the services of a VA makes sense, particularly for busy Silks and Silks who would like to be busier.

Ditch the filing

If you’ve made Silk, you’ve earned the right to outsource the tasks you don’t want to do yourself. You can pay someone considerably less than your hourly rate to get most of it done. Giving up control may be the central point of resistance but once overcome, you may find you enjoy the liberation.

The QC Practice Booster Programme includes an exercise to help you map all the legal and non-legal tasks in your practice, and which could be completed by someone else.  Book a No-Obligation Call today to learn how to connect with a new generation of clients in the Digital Age.

By Heidi Smith
Creator of Jurilogical.com