How Law Firms Make Money – Turning Minutes in to Cash

Date: Wednesday 17 September 2014

Time: 15:45 registration, 16:00 – 18:00 Seminar

Venue: DWF, One Snow Hill, Queensway Birmingham B4 6GA

CPD: 2 Hours CPD Accredited by the SRA

Fees: £60 + vat for members, £80 + vat for non-members

Speaker: Keith Harper

Overview:

Consider a firm with 8 partners and 32 other fee-earners. What would happen if all 40 lawyers recorded an extra TWO UNITS per day?

With an average charge-out rate of £150 per hour across the firm, and recovery of 85%, if each fee-earner recorded an additional two units per day, the firm’s fee-income would increase by £229,500. At a 20% margin, that would deliver £45900 additional profit. That’s just TWO UNITS per day!!!

This course is designed to help all fee-earners (including partners) to work more productively, using their time to add the greatest value. The course clearly explains the financial impact of lawyers’ activities, and offers practical help in working more commercially, as well as helping with planning, prioritising, and dealing with interruptions, in order to create more chargeable time.

Who should attend? :

• Managing Partners
• Partners
• All lawyers

Key benefits:

• Delegates will gain a full appreciation of how law firm profitability works and how to work commercially.

• Delegates will learn how that value can be increased through working smarter, not necessarily harder.

• Delegates will gain skills and tools to help manage their time effectively, through planning and prioritising, and dealing with the interruptions, which can slow down productivity in law firms.

Topics covered:

• Thinking differently about time and value, and understanding goals and targets

• Working commercially, understanding the drivers of profitability, and capturing time effectively

• Managing priorities in order to maximise value, including making best use of planning and delegation

• Dealing with ‘interruptions’ and making the most of technology

• Practical tools to help delegates create maximum value from their time

Keith Harper, B.Soc Sc. F.C.I.M. : Managing Director
Keith is Managing Director of Harper Professional and our primary Programme Director, delivering management and business skills training and advice to our clients. He is an economics graduate of the University of Birmingham, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and a member of the Law Society Law Management Section.
After many years in senior management roles in commerce and industry, Keith became a Director of a large legal training provider, now part of the BPP group. In this role, whilst developing management development programmes for solicitors and delivering public and in-house courses, he gained a real insight into how to apply management ideas and techniques to the legal profession. In order to focus more tightly on legal management issues, Keith set up The Harper Partnership in 1999, which evolved in to Harper Professional in January 2005.
Despite a busy professional life, Keith is an intermittent triathlete/marathon runner, plays the clubs and pubs of Staffordshire in a rock band, and spends a lot of time standing on the sidelines at various football, netball, hockey, tennis, trampolining and dancing events cheering his three daughters on (and offering constructive feedback!).

Web Links:

http://birminghamlawsociety.co.uk/cpdcalendar?task=view_event&event_id=132