Best Practice: Essential skill sets for law firm administrators
Asked and Answered
By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC
Q. Our firm is an eight attorney firm located in Minneapolis. We have 5 partners and three associates. I serve as the managing partner and frankly I do not have the time or the skills to do an effective job. My performance as managing partner is marginal at best. We have recently been discussing hiring a professional legal administrator to manage the firm. What are the essential skill sets we should look for?
A. Larger firms that have several administrators/managers can have the luxury of having specialists - for example an HR manager, an IT manager, a Marketing Manger, a Finance/Accounting Manager, Executive Director, etc. In a firm your size you need a hands-on generalists that can perform all of these roles. The top three skill sets that you should look for are:
- Accounting/Bookkeeping/Financial Analysis Skills
- Human Resources - especially leadership and strong interpersonal skills
- Marketing
I would look for someone with 5 years or more experience in managing a law, CPA, or other professional services firm and a B.S. or B.A. degree in business, management, or accounting.
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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.