Strategic Management

SMART management of a firm is key in maintaining its focus.

Firms must plan for the future of the practice and identify their main goals. The purpose of strategic management is to chart the direction of the practice and to ensure that it stays on course. This may be expressed as key objectives for a 12-month period and an outline strategy concerning a further two years to provide a background against which a practice may review its performance.

In addition to fulfilling their legal and operational roles, senior management of a practice should devote much of their time to strategic management. Depending on the size and structure of the practice, even other fee earners and non-qualified personnel may play an important part in strategic management of the firm.

In order to develop an appropriate strategy for your practice, you must be aware of what is happening in the world around you. You need to have a sound understanding of the environment in which the practice is operating. Removing scale fees for conveyancing would be one example, instituting fewer bars to entry to foreign law firms would be another, while on the other hand, increasing consumer demand for personal financial planning and wealth management would be yet another kind of development.

If you understand the environment well, you will be better placed to seize opportunities to take advantage of developments in your favour.

You will need to have an objective assessment of your practice’s strengths and weaknesses. You need to look for opportunities and be aware of threats facing the practice (commonly called a ‘SWOT’ analysis).

A strategy should provide clear leadership and vision for the practice. It is important that all parties agree on the practice’s mission and key objectives.

How the strategy of your practice is expressed is less important than how it is developed. It is important to use a logical method to arrive at the best possible strategy.

Once developed, defined, recorded and publicised, the practice’s strategy and key objectives need to be achieved. To achieve the strategy and meet objectives, it is necessary to set targets and develop and implement relevant projects to achieve these targets.

Targets must be SMART:

Specific — be precise about what must be achieved.
Measurable — able to be seen to have been achieved.
Agreed — accepted by all involved.
Realistic — achievable.
Time-bound — to be completed by a specific time.

Implementation

Implementing the strategy will require:

• The fixing of targets necessary to achieve the strategy.
• Developing projects to realise the strategy and meet these targets.
• Securing the resources necessary to realise the strategy.
• Developing measures and criteria to assess whether the practice is on course to meet its key objectives.
  

Review

Strategic management is a continuous cycle with many loops and links which make it complex. The performance of the practice against the strategy and key objectives must be regularly measured and reviewed. Performance must be measured against the desired outcome.

This review will lead to a re-evaluation of the strategy and objectives and as a result, lead to a confirmation or amendment of the practice strategy.

Stanley Jeremiah
Goodwins Law Corporation
E-mail: stanley_jeremiah@goodwinslaw.com