Page 50 - Strategic Planning for Law Firms

Strategic Planning for Law Firms
If You Don’t Hire a Consultant, How Should the Firm Direct Strategic Planning?
If you choose to go it alone, this book spells out the steps to do so. We’ve already discussed doing surveys. Studying the results of those surveys will direct your strategic planning and focus the firm on what truly matters. With this information, the firm can schedule a retreat with its leadership and key firm players, and devise and draft a strategic plan which will be rolled out to the whole firm, implemented firm wide and will become a source of accountability for everyone at the firm.
Who Should Lead Strategic Planning?
If you’re going to do strategic planning internally, you want someone who knows the firm’s structure, finances, culture and history, which typically is a senior partner or managing partner. The person who leads the planning has to know everything there is to know about the firm, and at most firms, only a handful of individuals fit that description. The person you choose must all have the time and the discipline to push the project forward. Ultimately, it must also be someone who has some experience with strategic planning.
What Skill Set Should Your Strategic Planner Have?
Your firm strategic planner should have strong leadership, management, inter personal, communication, financial and planning skills. That’s a lot to ask for, and that’s why firms often punt to an outside consultant. But a skilled firm leader, who has led the firm through difficult times (think the 2008 crash and the 2020 pandemic) should have that skill set.
SECTION 07 YOUR STRATEGIC PLANNING TEAM
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