Asked and Answered

By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

Q. I am the owner of a five attorney personal plaintiff firm in Wheaton, Illinois. Our practice is in its 25th year of practice and we are 100 percent concentrated in personal injury. Over the years we have been very successful, but the last three years we have been struggling. Revenues and profits have been flat. It is getting harder to get good cases and harder to settle and move the cases that we have. We need to approach our business differently. I would appreciate your ideas and thoughts.

A. We are hearing this question quite often and have provided some thoughts in past blogs and articles.

The majority of our PI law firm clients are advising that they are having to work much harder at getting clients and investing more heavily in marketing - both time and money. PI firms need to reevaluate existing processes and consider new business models. PI firms should:

1. Develop a firm strategic plan and individual attorney marketing plans which include aggressive work/contact plans for past clients, attorney referral sources (non PI attorneys), attorney referral sources (other PI attorneys), and other referral sources.

2. Evaluate the feasibility of adding an additional practice segment to reduce the level of risk in the case portfolio and reduce cash flow variability.

3. Reduce case portfolio risk and improve case profitability by implementing a case intake system whereby all new cases over a specified level of projected case value are reviewed and approved by the partnership (or a client intake committee) in order for the case to be accepted by the firm. In other words - don't let one attorney expose the entire firm to either excessive levels of case risk or case investment (time and client cost advances) without other partners having a say on the matter.

4. Analyze the profitability and return on each case and ascertain what can be done differently on future cases. Metrics might include effective rate, return on LOADSTAR, dollar case profit after allocation of all appropriate firm overhead, etc.

5. Review and measure present marketing investments (time and money) and determine what is working and what is not. Reallocate resources if appropriate.

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John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC,(www.olmsteadassoc.com) is a past chair and member of the ISBA Standing Committee on Law Office Management and Economics. For more information on law office management please direct questions to the ISBA listserver, which John and other committee members review, or view archived copies of The Bottom Line Newsletters. Contact John at jolmstead@olmsteadassoc.com.