While you need to manage a law firm internally, we often neglect the opinions from outside. Getting insights from a knowledgeable legal expert can help a law firm improve and expand its list of high-paying clients. So why should someone seek external law office management for their firm?
What External Law Management Firms Offer
Generally speaking, external law management firms offer special expertise and an independent perspective to contribute insight to your law firm. In addition, they can help you to address challenging problems at your law firm so you can get specialized in managing a law firm in the future.
You will want to confirm an agreement between your law firm and the external law office. Don’t be afraid to enforce clear guidelines. Managing outside counsel will ensure that you receive the most benefit from it.
Create the Appropriate Legal Teams for Projects
Your law firm can build a more appropriate legal team for legal projects. However, please note that you must take the time to confirm experience levels to ensure they will match up with the work.
Don’t change a project team without the approval of the heads of your organization since this can sometimes happen.
You can use their experience to succeed at your own law firm. Just beware of going with the biggest law firm to offer its services.
Many small law firms hired an external law office for this to find that their team was filled with temporary lawyers and trainees who did the actual work. As you can imagine, that won’t translate well for why you hired them in the first place.
Beware of team additions that could create an inefficiency for your legal project.
Improve Service to Your Internal Clients
This highlights why you want an external law office to help you with your project. They have specialized advice that improves your legal services for your clients. You want advice for your business that you can use to grow.
Spend time explaining the pressure points of your business and how much appetite you have for risk. This extra effort customizes the advice to make it the most suitable for you. Sometimes, people hire an external law office, but it doesn’t translate well for their law firm.
They complain that the advice was too detailed or not well-suited for their business. Only use lawyers that you trust when doing this.
Re-Skill Your In-House Team
Hiring an external law firm will allow you to understand your spending habits for better efficiency. You can re-skill your team members to make them better at serving your clients. You might use an external law office to adjust your internal workload or evaluate your in-house team for inefficiencies.
Don’t be afraid to hire another law firm. However, just because you work with one regularly doesn’t mean they give you the best deal.
In some cases, going with someone else will offer you new skills and services that will strengthen your internal team. Don’t give work to underperformers. You need this service to improve your law practice. Only give loyalty to law firms that earned that privilege.
Set Your Law Firm up for Growth
You want to succeed, but as a small law firm, you face challenges that the larger, more established law firms don’t experience. External law offices will lay the foundation to pave the way for you to grow your business. You can also save on costs in the future that might have surprised you otherwise.
Conclusion
Think of an external law office as an asset to your business to help you improve. Once you hire an expert familiar with your business, their insights can keep you on the path and away from trouble. One of the benefits of external management is the expertise of the people you bring to your firm. They can help you set priorities, delegate tasks, and pass on jobs. Often, they have experience with legal project management and can help you implement better client management, time tracking, a new billing process, etc. Engaging outside counsel improves your decision-making and innovation. You can consider all the options because an expert will lay it out in a way where you see all the choices.
