Law practice management (LPM) is the

management Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a Government agency, government bodies through business administration, Nonprofit studies, nonprofit management, or the political s ...

of a law practice. In the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

law firm A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise consumer, clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and Obligation, respon ...

s may be composed of a single attorney, of several attorneys, or of many attorneys, plus support staff such as paralegals/legal assistants, secretaries (including legal secretaries), and other personnel. Debate over law as a

profession A profession is a field of Work (human activity), work that has been successfully professionalized. It can be defined as a disciplined group of individuals, professionals, who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are ...

versus a

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for ...

has occurred for over a century; a number of observers believe that it is both. Law practice management is the study and practice of

business administration Business administration is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. Overview The administration of a business includes the performance o ...

in the legal context, including such topics as

workload The term workload can refer to several different yet related entities. An amount of labor An old definition refers to workload as the amount of work an individual has to do.Jex, S. M. (1998). Stress and job performance: Theory, research, and im ...

and staff management; financial management;

office management Office management is a profession involving the design, implementation, evaluation, and maintenance of the process of work within an office or other organization, in order to sustain and improve efficiency and productivity. Office management is ...

; and

marketing Marketing is the act of acquiring, satisfying and retaining customers. It is one of the primary components of Business administration, business management and commerce. Marketing is usually conducted by the seller, typically a retailer or ma ...

, including legal advertising. Many lawyers have commented on the difficulty of balancing the management functions of a law firm with client matters.

History

Lawyers started practicing centuries ago. Law firms as an institution date back to the 19th century, and in the United States began appearing in the period before the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

. predating the development of modern

management theory Management science (or managerial science) is a wide and interdisciplinary study of solving complex problems and making strategic decisions as it pertains to institutions, corporations, governments and other types of organizational entities. It is ...

. Today, the

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...

College of Professional Studies (CPS) offers a Master of Professional Studies and Graduate Certificate in Law Firm Management.

ABA Law Practice Division

The leading organization focused on law practice management in the United States is the Law Practice Division of the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary association, voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students in the United States; national in scope, it is not specific to any single jurisdiction. Founded in 1878, the ABA's stated acti ...

which traces its history back to the creation of the ABA Special Committee on Economics of Law Practice by the ABA Board of Governors on July 30, 1957. In August 1957, when Charles S. Rhyne became President of the ABA, he made one of his major objectives the institution of a “comprehensive program to aid members of the ABA in the field of economics of law practice”. He appointed the first Committee which consisted of five members and was increased in May of the following year to seven by action of the Board. The first Chair of the Special Committee was John C. Satterfield of Yazoo City, Mississippi. The Committee was charged with the duty of laying the groundwork for the development of practical suggestions to lawyers, designed to improve their economic status. Combined with this, there was to be an increase in coordination of assistance to lawyers in the business phase of the practice of law, achieved by ABA through its staff, committees and sections and by the state and local bar associations. An early publication from the Committee was ''The 1958 Lawyer and His 1938 Dollar''. Satterfield was elected President of the

in 1961 during which ''The Lawyers Handbook'' was first published and distributed to all attorneys who joined the ABA that year. By action of the Board of Governors at the ABA Annual Meeting in August 1961, the Special Committee was made a standing committee of the Association and Lewis F. Powell of Richmond, Virginia, was appointed as the first Chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Economics of Law Practice. Shortly after the completion of his term as Chair in 1962, he was elected President of the American Bar Association and subsequently became an Associate Justice of the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

in 1972. The Standing Committee on Economics of Law Practice published a bimonthly newsletter, Legal Economics News, and more than 30 books and pamphlets, three educational films, and an audio cassette program. The Committee continued to publish The Lawyer's Handbook. The Committee's staff answered over one hundred inquiries a month from attorneys regarding the application of sound management principles to the law office operation. In addition, a small group of attorneys led by J. Harris Morgan of Greenville, Texas, Kline Strong of Salt Lake City, Utah, Lee Turner of Great Bend, Kansas and Jimmy Brill of Houston, Texas, traveled throughout the US, presenting programs on law firm management. Their efforts created the need for the Section. Commencing in 1965 when John D. Connor served as Chair, the Committee presented the first of six National Conferences of Law Office Economics and Management in Chicago, which attracted approximately 500 lawyers throughout the country and several foreign countries. As activities expanded and lawyer interest in law office management increased, it became apparent that the committee structure could not meet the demonstrated need of American lawyers for assistance in law practice issues and limited the participation and contribution of interested and informed lawyers in the vital economics and efficiency programs of the Association. Accordingly, two members of the Committee, Robert S. Mucklestone of Seattle, Washington, the former Chair of the Young Lawyers Section, and Richard A. Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas were joined by William J. Fuchs of Haverford, Pennsylvania; John “Buddy” Thomason of Memphis, Tennessee; and Robert P. Wilkins of Columbia, South Carolina, and commenced efforts to form a section to address the subject of law office economics and management. Proponents for a new Section originally proposed that the Board of Governors recommend to the House the creation of a Section of Law Office Practice and Efficiency, but after deliberation it was determined that the new Section should be called by the Standing Committee name. At the ABA Midyear Meeting in Houston, Texas in February 1974, the House of Delegates approved establishing the Section of Economics of Law Practice. This action culminated a two-year effort to expand the Committee's work to a much wider lawyer population. The organizational meeting of the Section was held in April 1974 at the close of the Sixth National Conference of Law Office Economics and Management. Robert S. Mucklestone of Seattle Washington, who had served as the Chair of the ABA Committee on Economics of Law Practice was elected the new Section chair with 1074 charter members. Those chosen to serve on the initial Section Council were selected from the members of the ABA Committee on Economics of Law Practice and the Committee on Legal Assistants, other ABA contacts, speakers from the National Conferences and attorneys active at the state level. The current chair of the American Bar Association Law Practice Division is Tom Bolt, a St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands lawyer with BoltNagi PC.

Other organizations and consultants

The Association of Legal Administrators (ALA)

professional association A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) is a group that usually seeks to advocacy, further a particular profession, the interests of individuals and organisations engaged in ...

, which was founded in 1971 is another organization that is concerned with law practice management. A large number of law practice

consulting firm A consulting firm or simply consultancy is a professional service firm that provides expertise and specialised labour for a fee, through the use of consultants. Consulting firms may have one employee or thousands; they may consult in a broad ra ...

s also exist. Many

bar association A bar association is a professional association of lawyers as generally organized in countries following the Anglo-American types of jurisprudence.

s have a law practice section or division which they allow non-attorney members due to the technical, non-legal basis of law office management.

Elements of law-practice management

Law practice management includes management of people (clients, staff, vendors), workplace facilities and equipment, internal processes and policies, and financial matters such as collection,

budgeting A budget is a calculation plan, usually but not always financial plan, financial, for a defined accounting period, period, often one year or a month. A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including tim ...

, financial controls,

payroll A payroll is a list of employment, employees of a company who are entitled to receive compensation as well as other work benefits, as well as the amounts that each should obtain. Along with the amounts that each employee should receive for time ...

, and client trust accounts.

Software and legal research

Software applications have become increasingly important in modern law practice. Picking the best software for a law office depends on many variables. Practice management software, a form of

customer relationship management Customer relationship management (CRM) is a strategic process that organizations use to manage, analyze, and improve their interactions with customers. By leveraging data-driven insights, CRM helps businesses optimize communication, enhance cus ...

software, is among the most important, and features and functions of such management software often include case management (

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple wikt:interest#Noun, interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates t ...

checking,

statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...

checking), time tracking, billing, document storage, document assembly, task management, contact management, and calendaring and docket. Other software used includes

password A password, sometimes called a passcode, is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of password-protected services t ...

security,

disk encryption Disk encryption is a technology which protects information by converting it into code that cannot be deciphered easily by unauthorized people or processes. Disk encryption uses disk encryption software or disk encryption hardware, hardware to encry ...

, mindmapping, desktop notes,

word processing A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicate ...

, and email management. Some firms use modified versions of

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

software. Most law firms also subscribe to a

computer-assisted legal research Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

database for

legal research Legal research is "the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a prob ...

. Such databases provide

case law Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is a law that is based on precedents, that is the judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of ...

from case reporters, and often other legal resources. The two largest legal databases are

Westlaw Westlaw is an Computer-assisted legal research, online legal research service and proprietary database for lawyers and legal professionals available in over 60 countries. Information resources on Westlaw include more than 40,000 databases of ca ...

(part of

West West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

, which is owned by

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational corporation, multinational content-driven technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and maintains its headquarters at 1 ...

) and

LexisNexis LexisNexis is an American data analytics company headquartered in New York, New York. Its products are various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper searc ...

, but other databases also exist, such the free

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

, and the newer Bloomberg Law, as well as Loislaw (operated by

Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer N.V. is a Dutch information services company. The company serves legal, business, tax, accounting, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and healthcare markets. Wolters Kluwer in its current form was founded in 1987 with a merger bet ...

) and several smaller databases. These document automation tools allow any lawyer to create their own workflows, in the same way that companies like LegalZoom and RocketLawyer offer standardized automated document production for individuals and small businesses. Some

bar association A bar association is a professional association of lawyers as generally organized in countries following the Anglo-American types of jurisprudence.

s and lawyers' organizations have their own software; for example, the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys' CounselPro program is designed for

estate planning Estate planning is the process of anticipating and arranging for the management and disposal of a person's Estate (law), estate during the person's life in preparation for future incapacity or death. The planning includes the bequest of assets to ...

lawyers and assists in producing wills, trusts, and other

legal document Legal instrument is a legal term of art that is used for any formally executed written document that can be formally attributed to its author, records and formally expresses a legally enforceable act, process, or contractual duty, obligation, o ...

s, as well as other documents such as thank-you letters.

Firm personnel

Human resource management Human resource management (HRM) is the strategic and coherent approach to the effective and efficient management of people in a company or organization such that they help their business gain a competitive advantage. It is designed to maximize e ...

(managing personnel) is an important aspect of law practice management, and many books and other resources offer advice to firms on this topic. Law firms often employ a number of non-legal personnel or support staff; according to one figure, the average attorney to non-attorney ratio is 1 to 1.3. Many firms and other organizations employ a professional non-attorney legal administrator, or law firm administrator, to manage non-attorney personnel and the administrative aspects of the firm. The

for legal administrators is the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA), founded in 1971. Over the past two decades, the role of legal administrator has changes as duties have expanded and become more complex, and as more firms hired administrators; the ALA grew from less than a thousand members in 1976 to over 8,000 in 1995. According to the ALA, in 2007 some 76 percent of legal administrators were women in their 40s and 50s. The main duties of legal administrators are the financial, operation, and human resource management of the firm. A legal administrator is similar to an

office manager Office management is a profession involving the design, implementation, evaluation, and maintenance of the process of work within an office or other organization, in order to sustain and improve efficiency and productivity. Office management is ...

or executive director, but often with some expanded duties. Depending on the size, needs, and type of law firm, the firm may employ a separate database manager,

network administrator A network administrator is a person designated in an organization whose responsibility includes maintaining computer infrastructures with emphasis on local area networks (LANs) up to wide area networks (WANs). Responsibilities may vary between or ...

, marketing director,

computer systems A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

or information technology manager, bookkeeper,

accounts payable Accounts payable (AP) is money owed by a business to its suppliers shown as a liability on a company's balance sheet. It is distinct from notes payable liabilities, which are debts created by formal legal instrument documents. An accounts payable ...

and

accounts receivable Accounts receivable, abbreviated as AR or A/R, are legally enforceable claims for payment held by a business for goods supplied or services rendered that customers have ordered but not paid for. The accounts receivable process involves customer on ...

clerk, and others.Ellen Freedman, How Many Non-Lawyers Does It Take to Run a Law Firm? (2005). Freedman Consulting, Inc. (version of article originally appearing in the ''Pennsylvania Lawyer'' March/April 2001 issue).

References

External links

Law Practice Management Section
of the

- includes article from the section's publications: ''Law Practice'' bimonthly magazine, ''Law Practice Today'' monthly webzine, ''LawPractice.news'' bimonthly newsletter, and ''ABA Women Rainmakers'' monthly newsletter Practice of law Management by type