Law firms of all sizes should calculate and track indicators of their performance and health. The most successful firms use these indicators to assist in making important business-like decisions, in motivating and aligning behavior, and in adjusting to the new realities.
Indicators should meet the following three criteria to qualify as a KPI for your firm: 1. It must reflect the firm's strategy and goals; 2. It must be key to the firm's success; and 3. It must be quantifiable Your firm's strategic focus will impact its selection of KPI.
The author is not suggesting that all that counts in a law firm can be counted but rather what gets measured is what gets done. Therefore, if an indicator is not quantifiable, it is not likely that it will be incorporated into a firm's decision-making process, which may in fact cause issues to go unaddressed.
The list of KPIs identified in this booklet is not intended to be exhaustive but rather as collection of common and not so common KPIs that firms are and will be using over time. The KPIs identified in this guide are broken down into the following four categories:
• Special Pandemic • Marketing • Productivity • Financial
A word of caution -KPI is simply a tool -they are no substitute for the use of common sense and good judgment when it comes to the management of a law firm.
