Building a legal practice from the ground up can be rewarding. Trying to do it alone, however, can be a recipe for disaster. In this article, National Legal Staffing Support, a global legal process outsourcing firm (LPO), examines how small law firms can strike the right balance to grow their practice.
What happens without legal staffing support?
Running a small law firm is rife with rewards and challenges. In the plus column, there is the autonomy to shape your own future, the freedom to set your own hours, and the satisfaction of realizing your dreams. The challenging side of the equation includes struggling to find an acceptable balance between finding work and doing the work you have, executing a growth strategy, and avoiding burnout.
Balancing the “finding/doing” cycle is always a challenge for solo practitioners. On the one hand, you must spend time finding new clients and cases. These “finding” activities, of course, can be costly and produce no revenue. On the other hand, you must spend time “doing” the work required for the cases you have to keep your current clients satisfied.
Too much time spent “finding” may create a nice healthy backlog of work, but you don’t have enough time to provide the level of professional legal services your clients expect. Your reputation suffers. Too much time spent “doing” and your clients are happy, but the minute the current cases wrap up, your left without any work, and billings drop to zero.
Unless you are content running a one-person practice, you will need to plan and execute a growth strategy. Hiring additional lawyers and legal support staff requires capital. When investing in human resources, there is a period of time – sometimes weeks or months – before the new hire begins to contribute black ink to your bottom line. This learning curve can cause a significant drain on your finances.
The final challenge we’ll examine is finding an acceptable work-life balance or avoiding burnout. For many, the apparent solution to balancing the “finding/doing” cycle while generating enough income to finance a growth strategy is to work more hours. Even if working 18 to 20 hours a day may seem noble, it can lead to disaster. Without a reasonable work-life balance, you are in danger of physical and mental breakdown that can cause your law practice to collapse.
What happens with legal staffing support?
The above-outlined challenges are some of the driving forces behind the legal staffing market. Legal staffing can help a small practice manage the “finding/doing” cycle, follow a growth plan, and avoid the stresses of working too many hours.
The ability to use support resources as needed will enable a solo practitioner to delegate less critical tasks to spend more time finding future work. This balancing of the workflow prevents the hard-to-manage peaks and valleys of irregular billable hours.
An LPO service can eliminate the unproductive period for new hires. From the moment you delegate tasks to the staffing support, productivity begins. There is no learning curve or adjustment period to drain your available resources.
You opened your law practice to build a bright future for you and your family. Legal staffing support allows you to fully participate in that bright future as you grow your practice. Avoid the potentially disastrous results of work burnout by delegating less critical tasks so you can pace yourself and enjoy life as you grow your firm.
Conclusion
How do you know when it’s time to consider using legal staffing support? The answer is easy. If your billings are erratic, your growth strategy is stagnant, or you’ve lost your zeal for life, that’s the time to start delegating some of your load. Even if you are a solo practitioner, you don’t have to shoulder the entire weight alone. National Legal Staffing Support’s innovative legal support services can help you realize your dream.
About National Legal Staffing Support
National Legal Staffing Support is a pioneer and leading provider of legal process outsourcing. Located in Boca Raton, Florida, the company offers front- and back-office support to experienced consumer protection attorneys specializing in debt resolution. National Legal Staffing Support offers paralegal services, document management solutions, pre-litigation support, pre-filing analysis, research, and client communication management.
