Do ever wonder why your team doesn’t seem engaged in their work? It’s simple: your team doesn’t know the score. If there is no score, there is no way to know whether your team has won or lost.
Of course, you keep score with fancy graphs of every aspect of your law firm’s operations. But that’s not enough. Your best charts are great for your purposes, but your team doesn’t know about them and they probably don’t even care. Your team members should create their own Scoreboard.
The Players’ Scoreboard simply shows a target (goal), the current measurement of progress and a number that measures the work that needs to be done. This takes nothing more than a whiteboard, a magic marker and some handiwork from one of your artistic team members.
The Players’ Scoreboard
Every department in your law firm should have its own Scoreboard. The Scoreboard should be prominently visible for all to see and updated regularly. It’s not enough for you to know where you stand—your team members must know easily and at a moment’s notice.
Intake Scoreboard
Leads:# of Leads/year to date
Potential Cases:# of Potential Cases
Active Cases:# of Active Cases
Referred Cases:# of Referred Cases
Referral Partners:# of Referral Partners
Our Wildly Important Goal: 1,000 Referral Partners by October 19, 2023
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Case Management Scoreboard
Where We are Now:# of Discovery Responses Outstanding/Per Case
Where We are Now:# of Discovery Responses Served/year to date
Where We Should be:12 Discovery Responses Served/2021
Our Target:0 Discovery Responses Outstanding
Our Wildly Important Goal: Serve Discovery Responses within 30 days of receipt on a consistent basis
Lead Measure: Complete One Set of Discovery Responses for one case/per week
*Discovery Responses are “Outstanding” if we have not served the discovery responses within 30 days of our receipt
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Marketing Scoreboard
Email Newsletters:# of Email Newsletters sent to Referral Partners
Print Newsletters:# of Print Newsletters sent to Referral Partners
Our Target:52 Email Newsletters Sent/per year
Our Target:12 Print Newsletters Sent/per year
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Revenue Scoreboard
Active Cases: # of Active Cases
Average Value: Average Settlement Value/per case
Trial Dates: # of Confirmed Trial Dates
Revenue: Projected Revenue/Next 12 Months
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Settlement Scoreboard
- # of Settled Cases
- Average Duration of Settlement Process
- Our Target for Wrongful Death/Infant Compromise: 4 months
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Health/Fitness Scoreboard
Lead Measure: Intermittent Fasting
Lead Measure: Exercise/3x week
Lead Measure: Weekly Accountability Calls with Reset U
Wildly Important Goal: Decrease body weight from 191 lbs. to 169 lbs. by June 15, 2021
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Your Law Firm’s Wildest Important Goal
What is the wildest and most ambitious goal for your law firm? You may or may not have one, but even if you have a goal, there’s little chance your team members know what it is. And that needs to change.
If your team members don’t know what your wildest goal is, how are you going to get their help? You only need 3 things: Your wildly important goal, lead measures and lag measures.
The Wildly Important Goal for John H. Fisher, P.C.
Our Target: 50% of Firm Revenue generated from non-medical malpractice injury cases.
Our Deadline: December 31, 2024
Strategy: Finding the right lever among many possibilities. The right lever for our law firm: Lawyer Referrals.
Lead Measures
Lead measures are the tasks that must be performed to achieve your goal. For our firm’s Wildly Important Goal, our team members (including me) must do the following:
Introductory Letter: Open letter to Referral Partners, “Why We’re Doing This”
Email Newsletter (Weekly): Email Newsletter to Referral Partners
Increase Email Subscribers: Increase # of Email Subscribers with Free Offer of New Book (focus on New York plaintiff’s lawyers)
Print Newsletter (Monthly): Print Newsletter for Referral Partners focusing on Labor Law (“Labor Law Alert”), Truck Wrecks and Recent Cases of Importance for New York Plaintiff’s Lawyers
Brochure about Labor Law: Send brochure about Labor Law Cases with a signed copy of my new book to New York Plaintiff’s Lawyers (e.g., client testimonials, past results, “What Makes a Good Labor Law Case”, story of Ian Rodgers)
Website: Create new website for lawyers devoted to the Labor Law
Promote Websites: Promote websites among prospective referral partners, TrucksWreck.com, ConstructionFalls.com and SpinalCordandBrainInjury.org
Lag Measures
Lag measures are the results. If the lead measures are implemented, the lag measures will reflect your success.
Referrals: # of Non-Medical Malpractice Injury Referrals
Active Cases: # of Non-Medical Malpractice Injury Active Cases
Revenue: Firm Revenue Generated by Non-Medical Malpractice Cases
% of Firm Revenue: Percentage of Firm Revenue Generated by Non-Medical Malpractice Cases
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Will we achieve our Wildly Important Goal by December 31, 2024? One thing’s for sure, without clearly a clearly defined goal and lead and lag measures, success won’t happen.
What’s your firm’s Wildly Important Goal? If you don’t have one, now’s a good time to give this some thought. If you don’t have a goal and a plan, you will be will be in the same place that you are now…in 5 years.
Photo by Markus Winkler from Pexels
