The Agile Attorney Podcast

One of the biggest challenges law firms face when moving away from hourly billing and towards incorporating flat fees is motivating your team in a way that actually supports the new business model.

Tune in this week as I challenge the conventional wisdom around using billable hours as a key performance metric, even for firms that bill by the hour. I explain why billable targets often work against efficiency and profitability, especially for firms incorporating flat fee billing. But more importantly, I dive into the social science behind human motivation and share proven strategies for tapping into your team's intrinsic drive to do great work.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more here: https://www.agileattorney.com/43

Do you know the most profitable parts of your law practice? If you're like most lawyers, the answer is probably no. But without a clear understanding of matter-level profitability, you could be making costly decisions about where to invest your limited time and resources.

In this episode, I explain why the traditional approach of using effective hourly rate to compare flat fee and hourly matters is flawed and what to do instead. By assigning a direct cost to each team member's time and calculating the gross profit on a matter-by-matter basis, you'll be able to make more informed decisions about which types of work to pursue. The result is a more profitable and intentional law practice.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.agileattorney.com/42

Start your Agile transformation today and check out free resources, including my Law Firm Policy Template, to help you and your team develop a more Agile legal practice: https://www.agileattorney.com/start

Transitioning away from the billable hour can feel daunting, but it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. By taking an iterative, milestone-based approach to your matters, you can begin to identify which phases of work are ripe for flat fee billing, helping you increase your firm’s profitability.

As I share more insights and takeaways from the most recent Clio Cloud Conference, I walk you through real-world examples of how this phased approach has worked for firms in different practice areas and at different price points. Even if you’re already using flat fees in your practice, what I share today will help you refine your approach and ultimately boost your bottom line.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.agileattorney.com/41

Start your Agile transformation today and check out free resources, including my Law Firm Policy Template, to help you and your team develop a more Agile legal practice: https://www.agileattorney.com/start

Are you familiar with Clio's Kanban-inspired feature, Clio Matter Stages? It’s been around for a while now, but as a Kanban enthusiast, I was eager to check it out at this year's Clio Cloud Conference. While it's certainly a step in the right direction and an interesting tool for Clio users, how does it measure up when it comes to implementing some of the more robust Kanban systems?

In this episode, I share my first impressions of Clio Matter Stages, and explore some key Kanban principles that can help you level up your workflow, including the power of queue columns, work-in-progress limits, and definitions of done.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.agileattorney.com/40

Start your Agile transformation today and check out free resources, including my Law Firm Policy Template, to help you and your team develop a more Agile legal practice: https://www.agileattorney.com/start

I’m a massive fan of Bottleneck Theory. This is the idea that you can make massive improvements to your legal workflows by finding and focusing on just one part of your overall system: the bottleneck. In this episode, I’m super excited to bring you an interview with The Bottleneck Guy himself, Clarke Ching.

Tune in this week to explore where the bottlenecks might be in your legal practice, and discover how to address these constraints. We discuss how small iterative adjustments can create big changes in how work flows through your practice, and you’ll learn the value of preserving your capacity, so you don’t end up being a bottleneck in your own practice.

For full show notes, transcript, and more information, visit: https://www.agileattorney.com/39

Start your Agile transformation today and check out free resources, including my Law Firm Policy Template, to help you and your team develop a more Agile legal practice: https://www.agileattorney.com/start

Have you ever struggled with giving tough feedback to your team members? Do you find yourself resorting to the criticism sandwich approach, hoping to soften the blow by sandwiching negative comments between compliments?

Tune in this week to discover why the criticism sandwich doesn’t work. I also discuss the importance of setting clear quality standards, providing explicit training, and offering timely feedback to help your team members grow and succeed. Plus, I address the recent trend of blaming younger generations for workplace shortcomings and offer a more productive approach to building the skills and capabilities your law firm needs.

For full show notes, transcript, and more information, visit: https://www.agileattorney.com/38

Start your Agile transformation today and check out free resources, including my Law Firm Policy Template, to help you and your team develop a more Agile legal practice: https://www.agileattorney.com/start

Something I see with my lawyer clients is that they have so many different things on their plate that each piece of work looks like an object, like a static thing that we need to deal with, as opposed to a dynamic part of a bigger process. When you are overloaded, that is totally natural. But this phenomenon points to the importance of seeing work as flow.

Tune in this week to discover a helpful tool to help you get work flowing more smoothly and predictably through your law practice. You’ll learn how to break down your workflow into its component parts so you can identify bottlenecks, streamline processes, and keep work moving smoothly through your law practice.

For full show notes, transcript, and more information, visit: https://www.agileattorney.com/37

Catch me at the Clio Cloud Conference 2024, Tuesday, October 8th at 3pm (Discount code: ACTFAST): https://cliocloudconference.com/

Adding capacity to your law practice, whether through hiring new team members, outsourcing work, or using AI to help you with certain tasks does not always add up to overall workflow improvement. This can be really frustrating for law firm owners because you’ve spent time and money on these solutions, only for the work to continue getting stuck in workflow bottlenecks.

Melissa Shanahan and Ben Hudson join me today to discuss what changes when you shift your focus from resource efficiency to flow efficiency, and why sometimes the key to increasing capacity is actually doing less. Ben shares his insights on using data to inform hiring decisions, improving client perception, and defining productivity in a way that aligns with his goals, and we dive deep into the tools and strategies that make a difference.

For full show notes, transcript, and more information, visit: https://www.agileattorney.com/36

Catch me at the Clio Cloud Conference 2024, Tuesday, October 8th at 3pm (Discount code: ACTFAST): https://cliocloudconference.com/

Have you ever felt like certain tasks in your law practice are taking longer than they should? What if I told you that sometimes the key to efficiency is slowing down and working together? This is where a concept from the software development world called "paired programming" can help you create better outcomes in your legal practice.

Tune in this week to discover how to accelerate your law firm’s efficiency using the concept of paired programming. From co-working on complex briefs to training new team members, you’ll learn how working together in real-time can reduce miscommunication, accelerate feedback loops, and ultimately lead to a better work product for your clients.

For full show notes, transcript, and more information, visit: https://www.agileattorney.com/35

Start your Agile transformation today and check out free resources, including my Law Firm Policy Template, to help you and your team develop a more Agile legal practice: https://www.agileattorney.com/start

One common anti-pattern I run into in working with lawyers and law practices is people who are constantly looking for little efficiencies to try to improve particular parts of their practice or their legal workflow. But sometimes, finding those short-term efficiencies, even if they work in the short term, can actually cut against the long-term productivity or the overall flow of work through your practice.

Tune in this week to discover where you might be sacrificing long-term flow in pursuit of short-term efficiency. I discuss how engaging your clients in the legal process improves long-term efficiency, and you’ll learn how to start balancing the immediate demands of your legal work with long-term efficiency in your practice.

For full show notes, transcript, and more information, visit: https://www.agileattorney.com/34

Start your Agile transformation today and check out free resources, including my Law Firm Policy Template, to help you and your team develop a more Agile legal practice: https://www.agileattorney.com/start