Essential tips to managing a law firm

Alaw firm, in legal practice, ordinarily ought to be run as a profit-making outfit. The services the firm renders to the general society as clients ought to pay the providers of the services in the firm - from the support staff to fee earners.

There are reputable legal institutions in Nigeria that can compete favorably with law firms in advanced countries of the world, but these firms are not only few in number, they are also strategically located in the Federal Capital Territory, Africa’s mega city, Lagos State, a few wealthy states like Rivers, Kano, and far beyond the reach of an average lawyer.

An average Nigerian lawyer comes into the legal profession to meet most of the law firms run by principal partners, with the secretary multi-tasking as a messenger, accountant, cleaner, errand hand, while the lawyer doubles as a support staff, and fee earner with no structure in place to provide a term of reference for employees, leaving staff to act unguided in the work place.

Some law firms have failed to comprehend the fact that the structure of a firm is not restricted to physical, but also includes the modus operandi of the firm. It is the operation of the state of affairs of both employer and employee that determines the outlook of the firm, and not necessarily the facilities in the office space.

Be it an 8am – 5pm worker, or a lawyer that comes to the office at interval hours, or late at night, the number one rule of managing a law firm effectively is to keep all communications and time at the office professional at all times; let all personal affairs and issues be left at home - avoid office gossip of any sort, be it that which border on personal/ family issues of an employee, no matter how high or low the status of such employee, or any other.

After professionalism at the work place comes proper documentation of all that happens in a law firm, from exchange of correspondence to having a log of all visitors to the firm, to electronic communication between staff, and the outside world, that way everyone is fully aware of the activities that go on in the firm.

Thirdly, for a law firm to be managed effectively such firm needs to be ICT compliant to make communication simpler, easier and faster amongst colleagues within and outside the firm.

Another significant aspect to effectively managing a law firm is an open and well- structured inflow and outflow of income. This particular aspect of firm management happens to be one major causal effect of growth or decline of a law firm, the essence of any business is profit making, thus, a law firm must have a structure that controls and monitors cash flow, to always put the firm on track towards profit making.

The managing partner of Eversheds LLP, a multinational corporate law firm once said “this generation has the potential to transform the way in which the legal profession works…” meaning that the way the legal professionals of today manage the modus operandi of a firm provides the opportunity to recreate the future of doing business in an office environment, and promotes a new face of the profession that would change the impression of the general society about the Nigerian legal profession.

When a law firm is managed effectively, it transforms into a structured system that checkmates the lapses of partners, associates, paralegals, accountants, secretary, receptionist, and the like. The managing partner (popularly called head of chambers in the ‘one man law firm’) is in charge of overseeing the daily affairs of the law firm on a tenure basis, creating a uniform channel of operation, assigning cases to counsel better skilled on a particular brief, arranging and scheduling the firm’s diary, calendar, meetings and appointments. The whole idea is to create a seamless, healthy and competitive atmosphere for all employed in the firm; even a pension scheme can be arranged for employees to access once employment is terminated.

It is only when the outlook of doing business is professional, then the society would give the legal profession its rightful respect.

Godspeed!

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