November 25, 2023

Clearing the Deck: Boosting Law Firm Success with the 90/10 Principle

7 minutes

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Are you an attorney who is looking to improve efficiency with your firm? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson discusses the "90/10 Principle" for improving law firm efficiency and profitability.

Tyson discusses the importance of the 90/10 principle. The principle involves clearing the 10% of cases that are either not profitable for the firm or attorneys don't want to focus on them to create a more lean practice. In order to identify these cases, you need to go through the caseload and pinpoint the bottom 10% by determining the case value. Looking at the financial side of things is a great way to determine this because you can determine how much money it costs to keep the case on the books.

Figure out how much resources are going towards a case. If it is high, it might be time to cut ties with it. Also consider how much energy is being put towards a case. If the case is sucking a lot of energy and time from the firm, it can be put in that 10%. Once you determine the bottom 10%, look to identify the top 10% of cases for the firm. This is because once you shed the cases you don't want, all that energy will be put towards the top 10%. This could mean delegating your best attorneys to those 10% since they are high priority.

Ensure this is a recurring process. For example, put time in your calendar once a quarter or once a year to re-evaluate the cases that the firm is handling. This could be changing the bottom 10% and top 10% every 4 or 12 months.

Take a listen to find out how to ensure greater efficiency for your firm!

00:24 Introducing the 90/10 principle, a variation of the Pareto principle

2:25 The process of identifying the bottom 10% of cases

3:20 Redirecting the effort from the bottom 10% of cases to the top 10%

Tune in to today’s episode and checkout the full show notes here.

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