Lawyers are also revenue managers
Fee earners need better support as revenue managers to unlock pent up value
- Globally, law firms lose >$36bn p.a. because fee earners are not properly equipped as revenue managers.
- Improving revenue outcomes in terms of lock-up is now the #1 priority for most large firms, according to PwC.
Value chain in a £100m revenue practice
That’s £20m lost due to ineffective client and matter management!
Fee earners’ role in revenue management
Fee earners are also revenue managers.
Sure, pricing teams help with matter pricing. Billing teams handle billing. Credit control teams lead on debt collections. But fee earners are the ones making the day-to-day decisions that drive the entire machine in the background, and as long as high-end legal services are a high-touch, relationship-driven business, it will stay that way.
Empowering fee earners as revenue managers is therefore critical to improving your firm’s lock-up and realisation.
Lawyers are not sufficiently equipped
Legacy approach:
- Significant investment in back-office processes coupled with relatively limited investment in front office (fee earner) revenue management workflows
- Only basic technology tools (dashboards, e-reminders) made available to the fee earning teams / reliance on back-office PMS systems
- Implementation of top-down policies that do not always suit circumstances on the ground, resulting in policy enforcement challenges
Implications
- Fee earners under pressure to balance client work and admin
- Onus to monitor and correctly interpret matter-level MI remains on fee earners
- Significant increase in overheads offsetting gains from better revenue management
That’s why we built the Smart Lockup Assistant >>