This article looks at why Financial and Business intelligence is important for a law firm and why a solution can transform a law firm’s approach to financial management, enabling more informed decision-making and strategic planning in a modern legal practice.
Let’s flip the coin—now we’re talking about managing your fee earners and the numbers game.
Every year, firms pour effort into budgeting. They analyse last year’s performance, set goals, and tailor targets for each fee earner. But the real challenge? Turning those budgets from mere targets into achieved results. The secret sauce is monitoring and review—and making it painless.
The Pitfalls of Old-School Reporting:
Most firms have outgrown the monthly finance report emailed around, but it’s worth a quick look at why that model was flawed:
• By the time the report lands in the inbox, it’s old news—it’s too late to react.
• Reports take time and effort from the finance team to prepare.
• Too many reports pile up and become overwhelming, so people stop using them.
The Key: Frequent, Effortless Review
To hit targets and succeed, lawyers need to review performance often. But they’ll only do it if it’s easy—ideally, a quick daily glance at billable hours and productivity. Once that’s happening, it really can become “do the work and the business will succeed.”
But, dig deeper into those numbers and you might spot quick wins:
• Consistently going overestimates? Time to improve scope management.
• Consistently billing underestimates? You might be overestimating—or missing revenue because of poor time capture. Spending time analysing the data you already have could reveal easy revenue increases, often, without working any harder.
Watch the Trust Monies Too:
One last thing—trust monies. Most firms are diligent about trust accounting, but what about money placed in trust for fees and costs? Make sure you’re actioning trust-to-office transfers as soon as possible. If you’re running an overdraft but leaving trust money untransferred, you’re doing your firm a disservice.
If you would like to understand how firms are creating a culture of financial awareness for all lawyers, finance teams and leadership or how having access to data can create a collaborative spirt to achieve targets, you can access those law firm by clicking here .
