Practice planning is a proactive way for law firms to secure better-trained and more motivated attorneys.
As part of our series on project management for law firms, we give examples of using software applications like Teamwork - not only for case management, but also for firm management duties like attorney development. While our previous article focused on associate training plans, this post discusses how project management tools can support attorney practice planning.
Unlike training plans, which aim specifically at skill development, practice plans are geared more towards overall career development. These plans help associates allocate time and resources to legal work, administrative and managerial contributions, marketing, training, and more.
The idea is to provide attorneys with the ability to formulate career goals and an action plan to realize them.
Check out our three-part series on practice planning for more details on the practice planning process.
Part 1: Better Associate Performance Using a Structured Planning Process
Part 2: Practice Planning for Lawyers: Our Approach
Part 3: Putting It All Together: How We Do It
Just like for a training plan, a project management application can be used as a tool to map out the plan with tasks, responsibility assignments, due dates, and time estimations. We typically suggest making a yearly plan, which allows associates to plan time allocations to billable and non-billable time for the upcoming 12 months. With a clearly defined outline in hand, it will be easier to get resources and support approved.
Shareholders will get a good idea of the direction an associate wants to take their career and can track their progress.
The following video provides an example of a practice plan that is set up and managed in the Teamwork project management application :
As shown in the video, using an application such as Teamwork for attorney practice planning helps law firms focus on the organization and delegation of tasks and opportunities, workflow effectiveness and efficiency, time and deadline management, collaboration and communication, and case oversight and progress reporting. All of this creates a more efficient and transparent law firm and a happier workplace.
