I am very interested in the way law firms measure things. Now most of the large firms have metrics and benchmarks for all sorts of things but many of smaller Canadian firms do not, particularly when it comes to performance. So that’s why we are encouraging law firms to participate in the first annual
LawFirmKPI benchmarking survey.
Created by two trusted names in law firm management consulting, Karen MacKay of Phoenix Legal Inc. and Stephen Mabey of Applied Strategies Inc., the survey is aimed at firms with 100 or fewer lawyers and will provide benchmarks on key performance indicators that can be used by firms to make informed decisions about running their businesses.
The survey measures 12 key indicators including: associate-to-partner ratios; the per centage of lawyers’ time that is actually billed; growth in actual work hours; and the ratio of the average billed hourly rate to the average worked hourly rate.
There is a cost to participating, but every law firm that takes part will get a report that presents its key performance indicators alongside the strongest, weakest, average, and median for the group of participating firms. Each participanting firm’s responses are kept confidential and shared only in the aggregate.
The survey runs from today until April 30. Results will be available by May and
Canadian Lawyer will report on the findings in our June issue. Click
here to take part in the LawFirm KPI survey.
